Ski and Paddle Norway 2009

Distance 44km | Time 10hrs | Ascent 0m | Descent 0m

I was up at 0600 which after the early night was quite easy. The sun hit the tent rising above Torghatten soon afterward. It did not take long before I was packed and ready. I had to be quite sharp as the estuary I was beside dried out completely at low tide and it would have been a long carry if I left it to 1000. As I was setting off one of the owners of the nice farm came down for a small chat.

The morning paddle was again in completely windstill conditions. I made my way through a maze of skerries to the edge of the more open fjord called Torgfjord. This was a shipping channel for the Hurtigruten ferry amongst others so I checked for ships before crossing over to some islands on the other side near a peninsula by Skalvik near Somna.

Continuing south I went towards the cluster of islands at Lyngvaer. I pulled up in a sandy bay where the water was warm I noticed when I stepped out of the boat. There was a good view here to the north towards Torghatten. Just round the corner from this bay there was the ruined fishing works on these islands. Two wharfs were bleached and windowless and would soon be flattened by a storm. They were probably abandoned in the 1970’s.

Apart from the derelict buildings this was a pretty group of islands with the occasional sandy beach and many channels between the islands. There were a lot of ducks around the shores of these islands all with ducklings now. The ducklings were various sizes but most were a bit bigger than tennis balls. Here and there a heron took off, very wary of me in my yellow kayak.

I went round the outside of Kvaloy where there were much rockier steeper islets offshore These were of a different character from those further north I had passed through Helgelandskyst. I passed to the outside of the largest called Gimlingen and then started across the mouth of Bindalsfjord to the peninsula on the south side.

The weather was changing fast now and the wind was up to a force three, there was occasional drizzle which was enough to make the smooth rocks on the south side shine in the sun and I noticed a bank of fog rolling in from the west engulfing the islands to the north of Leka. I reached land near the hamlet at Nord Gutvik where there was a wonderful beach with grazed grass. It was just 1500 and I was thinking about stopping as I needed to write.

I saw there was a camping place on the island of Leka just some 10 km away. I phoned them and they said they were near the sea and they had a cheap cabin available. I said I was en route. The crossing of Lekafjord was quite choppy and I had to paddle vigorously into the waves. This was again a shipping channel and I did not want to linger in it. Before long I was approaching the fish farm on the north side.

I paddled south down the coast with a force four against me passing the quay where the ferry from Gutvik on the mainland connected the island to the world and then on through a small channel and across an open bay until I reached the small breakwater for the camping place. The 200 metres from the water turned out to be 800 metres up a hill which irritated me.

Taking the minimum I needed I started up the track to the camping. It was located in a nice hamlet with cows in the meadows. The lady at the camping place was something of an amateur geologist and she soon dispersed my irritation with the difficult access by explain a bit about the island and lending me a nearly broken bike to go the km to the shop.

On my trip to the shop I noticed how relatively affluent the island was and how well organized everything here was. There were lots of notices about communal events and activities and lots of information on the natural history of the place. The inhabitants seemed proud of their island.

I bought some supper and returned to the cabin. The cabin was made from red boulders and cement under a grass roof. It was an unusual construction. I read that these red boulders were in fact serpentine and the campsite owners used this stone as it was an island icon.

Geologically Leka was a very interesting place. It was unlike the surrounding basement rock on the mainland which was mostly 1800 million year old gneiss on which the Caledonian Mountains were sitting in places, mostly further east. Leka was only some 500 million years old and was formed from the oceanic crust. Usually this crust is heavy and is forced under the lighter continental crust as continents collide. In the case of Leka however a fragment of oceanic crust was thrust on top of the continental crust and then turned on its end. Erosion has then exposed the layers. This geological structure is called an ophiolite and it is very rare. Other cases are just found in Oman, Cyprus and California.

The rocks on Leka illustrate this ophiolite perfectly. In the very east at Madsoy are the top layers of the oceanic crust, namely pillow lavas and basaltic dykes. Then on the central east section of this island are the second layer of oceanic crust namely gabbro. Then on the central west of the island we find the deepest parts of oceanic crust which are formed under the gabbro namely dunite and then on the very west of the island we find the rock harzburgite which is really the top of the mantle and lies under the oceanic crust.

I settled down for the evening quite early at 2100 after supper to write the blog for 4 hours and did not get to bed until well after midnight.

It had been an OK day. The morning was nice easy paddling with a bit of wind in the afternoon. The campsite was not as easy as I hoped and I wasted a good hour in getting to it. However it was worth it and Leka proved to be a nice and interesting island.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 11:12 am and is filed under Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.