Day 138. Ekkeroy to Skallelv
Posted by: James on May 18, 2009Distance 24km | Time 6.5hrs | Ascent 0m | Descent 0m
I got up at 0730 and started breakfast straight away. Jon was not far behind. The weather was still overcast and the north east wind was still blowing but it seemed to be more of a force 3 now. After breakfast I went to try and pay the cabin owner but he would not accept. So I volunteered to move about a ton of rubble into a tractor bucket, which he as an 78 year old would have struggled to do. He was very pleased.
This took about an hour and he then drove the tractor off. Meanwhile Jon was packing his huge pile of belongings. I took the opportunity to find some more foam and cut it to shape and fit it into the kayak footwell as a footrest. With all this faffing about it was not until 1130 that we were finally ready to go.
There were a lot of older houses here and some derelict remains of German occupation. Apparently the Germans had not burnt Eastern Finnmark when they retreated but destroyed the bridges. When they reaches Tana they destroyed this bridge also, over a large river. Then the order came to burn Eastern Finnmark to slow the Russians but the bridges were destroyed so the Germans could not re enter Eastern Finnmark and it was spared.
The tide was still coming in when we set of and had about 2 hours to go so we would have the wind and tide against us. Initially however we went round the south side of Ekkeroy and so was quite sheltered. The south side of Ekkeroy was a bird colony of some 20 to 50,000 kittiwakes. They were nesting everywhere it was steep enough to afford some protection from the marauding weasels and mink which would steal eggs and chicks. As the cliffs were striated there was plenty of nesting opportunities.
Indeed it was not only weasels and mink but also humans who collected the eggs and Jon met someone with a whole bucket of them last night. The black back gulls used to nest here but they moved off to the island of Lille Ekkeroy when the weasels and mink got too numerous.
We paddled into the wind under the cliffs with all these birds quietly observing them. There was a lot of courting and mating going on and many squabbles. At the east end of the Ekkeroy, which is connected to the mainland by a sandy isthmus with a road, was a sea eagle. It flew off as soon as it saw me. There were also numerous small sandpiper type of birds which I think are Stints along the shore pecking in the wet seaweed
From Ekkeroy we crossed the bay to the fishing hamlet of Krampenes. The wind was a good force 3 directly against us. I paddled slowly to wait for Jon who had much wind resistance on his decks. After some two and half hours we pulled up on the beach for lunch. We found a sunny spot out of the wind.
Krampenes was a typical hamlet of this coastline. It had some 10 houses each painted different colours and each surrounded by an array of sheds. There were some drying racks here with a few cod drying on them but it seemed fishing as a profession had pretty much died out here.
I was concerned at the slow progress I had been making over the last few days and decided to push on and leave Jon to potter along at his own speed. He was on tour to photograph, write and saunter along the coast while I had more of a mission and was faster in my more suitable kayak. So we said goodbye on the beach.
Jon is planning to skip much of the north and will probably go to Tromso and start again so I might catch him up. I hope so and he was good easy company.
I set off straight into the force 3 heading towards Komagvaer. I had the tide with me now but it did not compensate the wind. As I went down the coast it got quite choppy with waves of almost a metre. The kayak performed well in them and sliced quietly into them. After 2 hours I reached the point of Skallneset.
The wind was not abating at all and it was slow work clawing myself into it. I decided not to cut over the bay but to follow the coast north. It would also show me how well the kayak performed with the weather coming sideways. The waves were only a metre and very few were breaking but the kayak rode them well without any hard chined surprises.
I saw another eagle as I went past a couple of derelict looking houses near the shore. There was then a long bay of sand and mostly cobbles which went the 5-6 km all the way to Skallelv. The wind was still a good force 3 and I decided not to struggle into it for another 3 or 4 hours to Komagvaer, but just to camp here. I felt fine but it was already 1800.
I paddled up the small river estuary and then beached the kayak in fresh water. I carried everything up in one go and then returned for the kayak and carried that up. Within an hour I was in the tent with the stove going. My feet were freezing as they had been wrapped in my wet wetsuit boots all day and despite 2 socks and the drysuit were numb. The temperature was around zero
I made a couple of phone calls about the rudder but only managed to speak to a kayak dealer in Tromso. He was Bjorn of Bjornskayaks. A more helpful person one would be unlikely to meet. He would send a whole peddle system for the smart track rudder by express post to Vardo which could even arrive before me. Payment would be sorted out later with the UK. Absolutely marvelous.
I then started to cook supper and write the blog. I was refining the seating positions and writing and uploading procedures and things were getting easier by the day as I got to grips with it.
It had been a cold windy day. One of many I am sure. Progress was limited by the late start and the headwind. The scenery apart from the cliffs at the bird colony was really quite bleak. It must have been a hard life to fish from these hamlets for previous generations.