6. TROMSØ TO BODØ (6 TO 16 JULY 2013)

We are now in Bodø. We stopped here on our way north and have returned prior to setting off on our 1400-mile passage back to the UK.

Progress to date since Ipswich

We made our way here from Tromsø, from where we published our last Post (No 5) on 6 July soon after arriving. Cruising from Bodø to Tromsø and back we have completed a circuit: initially via the Lofotens, the west coasts of the Vesterålen islands and the large island of Senja off the mainland to Tromsø (see Post 5).  From there we have returned south through the inner leads to the east of those islands and across the Vestfjord to Bodø.

Circular route from Bodø via Tromsø

On the evening following our arrival in Tromsø we walked across the high, gracefully arched bridge spanning the sound between the island of Tromsøya and the mainland to the Arctic Cathedral. There we attended a half-hour Midnight Sun concert and organ recital. The superb music and singing together with the light of the low midnight sun streaming on to the huge stained-glass mosaic east window formed one of the more sensory moments of this trip.

Stained-glass mosaic in the Arctic Cathedral, Tromsø

The cathedral, built in 1965, has a striking white glacial appearance achieved by the use of eleven immense triangular white concrete sections. It is a most impressive building and is clearly visible from the city and its approaches. 

Arctic Cathedral, Tromsø

Tromsø, rather preposterously, has been called “The Paris of the North”. A more suitable soubriquet is “Gateway to the Arctic”.  Its credentials go back to the Middle Ages and beyond when seafarers used its sheltered harbour. By the eighteenth century it was a simple fishing port and trading station.  It flourished in the middle of the nineteenth century as a base for hunters in the Svalbard archipelago. Subsequently it became famous as the jumping-off point for a string of Arctic expeditions.  Celebrity status was assured, however, when the explorer Roald Amundsen flew from Tromsø to his death somewhere on the Arctic icecap in 1928.  The city and the lives of its citizens during these eras are admirably covered in the Polar Museum.  The photographs and exhibits of hunters’ lives in Svalbard and the conditions experienced by the early explorers of the Arctic region are memorable. It was clearly an extraordinarily hard, ruthless (and smelly) life in the most hostile of environments.

Roald Amundsen's Statue, Tromsø

The Polaria exhibition, in a building resembling an iceberg, is an entertaining multi-media introduction to northern Norway.  Outside, in a glass “tent”, sits the Polstjerna [Polar Star] – an historic seal-hunting ship, which between 1949 and 1981 killed (or “brought home” as the museum literature euphemistically describes it) nearly a 100,000 seals – a major source of income for Tromsø at that time.

Polstjerna - an historic seal-hunting ship

The city’s long winter darkness is offset by round-the-clock activity during the perpetually bright days of summer. It then becomes a party town and boasts that it has more pubs per capita than any other town in Norway. Mack’s Brewery is the most northern brewery in the world.  Indeed, nearly everything in Tromsø claims to be “the world’s northernmost” whatever.  Mike even had a haircut in “the world’s northernmost Iraqi barber’s shop”!

Mack Brewery - the most northern brewery in the world

The following description of “Hard Drinking Tromsø Style” in The Lonely Planet is both amusing and apt:

It takes stamina to stay the course. With work over, friends will meet for Fredagpils: Friday drinks to plan the campaign ahead. Then it’s time for Vorspiel, or foreplay, a preliminary oiling at a friend’s house before setting off around midnight for a club or bar. At the statutory throwing-out time of 3.30 a.m. it’s Fyllemat, fill-up time, when you pick up a burger, kebab or hot dog from one of the street stalls that lurk outside major venues, before heading once more to a friend’s pad for a few hours’ Nachpiel or afterplay.  By now it’s bed for middle-distance runners while the marathon crowd stamps its feet outside Ølhallen’s [Mack brewery’s own pub], waiting for the sliding of bolts that marks its 9 a.m. opening.  “If you can stand, we’ll serve you”, is the bar staff’s rule of thumb.

Today, Tromsø is by far the largest town in northern Norway. It has grown into an urbane and very likeable small city with a population of 63,000.  Its corona of snow-topped peaks surrounding the city provides arresting scenery, excellent summer hiking and great skiing and dog sledging in winter.  We stayed on the guest pontoons in the centre of the city, under the shadow of the unusual Rica Ishavshotel which is designed to resemble a ship’s deck.  Helen had arranged to have some spares for the watermaker sent there and they were waiting for us at reception. We could almost step off our pontoon into the bustling market square, in the middle of which stands a statue of a seal hunter reflecting the city’s heritage.

Statue of seal hunter in market square, Tromsø

On the pontoon we met Horst Pause from the Isle of Man on his yacht Puddleduck and a Dutch couple, Annie and Lenze, on SY Solveig. The latter are friends of Hans Valdehaug, the Cruising Association’s Norwegian representative in Oslo, who had advised that they might be in Tromsø at the same time as ourselves.  They all came for dinner on Island Drifter and we had a great night that ran on until 2 a.m.  We grabbed a quick power nap before leaving Tromsø at 4 a.m. in order to catch a favourable tide through the Rystraumen narrows on the start of our return south.

We left promptly because the weather forecast for the next two days did not look good and indeed this turned out to be the case.  We pushed on south, back down  Straumsfjord to Gisundet. After getting through the Narrows at Gibostad we encountered 40 knots of wind on the nose (20 knots were forecast) and in the very narrow buoyed channel of Gisundet had considerable difficulty making progress to a suitably protected port of refuge – in this case Gisundet Boat Club’s mole harbour tucked snugly behind the Finnsnes bridge. In view of the conditions – rain, mist, tide and wind –  we didn’t get a chance to appreciate the dramatic scenery of Senja’s east coast while we transited the Gisundet.  It didn’t stop raining and blowing a gale for 36 hours so we stayed put, although we did stroll into Finnsnes town for some supplies and a look-around.  We were pleasantly surprised to find a Vinmonopolet and under the circumstances lashed out on a bottle of Aquavit while we could. (The previous bottle seems to have evaporated…) 

Gisundet Båthavn, Finnsnes

We waited until the bad weather had passed before continuing south down the Solberfjord and open waters of the Vågsfjord on our way to the Tjeldsund. It was very misty all the way so the radar and chart plotter were essential navigational and safety tools.

Transit of Vågsfjord in low cloud

The Tjeldsund separates the Vesterålen island of Hinnøy from the mainland island of Tjeldøya. It has no fewer than three Narrows to negotiate in its 10-mile course and therefore timing is important.  Since after a 50-mile open water passage from Finnsnes we could not plan our arrival to coincide with the tides at the northern end of the Tjeldsund, we had to make the best of what was in front of us.  We managed to get through the first set of narrows at Steinlandstraum before being totally headed by the north-going current.  We therefore turned in to Gausvika bay, which is well out of the current. There we anchored to wait for the tide to turn.  This made a very pleasant break in a rural location. We were even fortunate enough to see our first white-tailed eagle.  Once the tide turned south, we continued down the Tjeldsund through the next two Narrows with a strong northerly wind and a 4-knot current in our favour.  We set a “Solent” rig (a derogatory term used to describe weekend sailors going from Hamble over to Cowes with only a genoa!) and made good progress.  One has to admit that a Solent rig in the twisting narrows of Norwegian sounds is a quick, flexible and effective means of sailing. 

Sailing with "Solent rig" down the Tjeldsund

At the bottom of the Tjeldsund we turned east and took a 60-mile detour off our direct route to Bodø to go up the Ofotfjord to Narvik. We made good progress and enjoyed the outstanding scenery of the fjord. At 3 a.m. we arrived at the fuel dock of the small Ankenes mole harbour in Narvik only to discover that the automatic pump would only accept Norwegian credit cards.   Since we had covered 106 miles since leaving Gisundet and were fairly tired, we stayed on the fuel pontoon, went to bed and had no difficulty falling asleep.  Next day the local sailing club members could not have been more helpful. One phoned around and found somebody who could unlock and operate the diesel pump, another paid for our fuel with his own card and the third drove Helen around the bay into the centre of Narvik to a bank in order to obtain enough cash to settle our account! (The card owner generously indicated that there was no rush!)

Ankenes fuel pontoon, Narvik

Narvik has always been of interest to Mike. One of his instructors at Sandhurst had lost an eye and half his commando troop in the fierce battles for the town that took place in April and May 1940.  The battles were also a subject covered during the course.

A relatively modern town, Narvik was first established only a century ago as an ice-free port able to handle the export of iron ore brought by train from Sweden. The Ofjoten Museum covers the town’s railway and trans-shipment heritage.  Today Narvik makes no pretence about what is its principal function. The iron-ore docks and handling facilities are more than conspicuous. Their rust-coloured machinery invades the centre of the town and dominates the waterfront, while the railway sidings and line to Sweden bisect the town. This industrial complex, which handles 20 trainloads of ore every day, is, however, mightily impressive. We watched one train leaving town. The empty carriages took over a minute to pass us.

Iron-ore dock and handling facilities in middle of Narvik

The excellent local War Museum, run by the Red Cross, illustrates the bloody and bitter two-month air, land and sea battles that took place for control of the town and its ore-shipment capabilities.  

Narvik War Museum

In total, in what is a narrow 30-mile long fjord, 34 ships were sunk and many lives lost on both sides and among the civilian population. Eventually the Allied forces withdrew leaving the town and Norway in German hands until the end of the war.  The battles did, however,  have an important favourable consequence for the Allies, since the Germans ended up committed a large number of troops to Norway, an area which the Allies never intended to be part of their Second Front. 

The Second Sea Battle of Narvik

It was a moving experience to visit one of Narvik’s war cemeteries and pay one’s respects to a fallen generation.

Known unto God

We left Narvik at 4 a.m. the following morning to catch the ebb tide.  Although a 7-metre per second (or Force 4) wind was forecast, we ended up having to tack all the way down the fjord against a Force 6 and short choppy seas.

Short-tacking from Narvik down the Ofotfjord

It rained all day and the mist obscured the mountains so we couldn’t even enjoy the fantastic scenery that borders the fjord.  We covered 67 miles through the water in 14 hours and –  horror of horrors – had, since we were short tacking, to hand steer all the way down the 30-mile long fjord.

Helen hand-steering while short-tacking down the Ofotfjord

At 8 p.m. we finally stopped at Skarstad, a port of refuge that we’d been able to identify from the Norwegian Cruising Guide which Helen had fortunately purchased and downloaded to her new iPad.   Skarstad is a very small, shallow, rock-strewn mole harbour which services a couple of fishing boats and a dozen or so small local pleasure craft. It is, however, very well protected from the elements.  An hour later Horst, whom we’d last met in Tromsø, arrived.  We took Puddleduck’s lines to help him tie up on the other side of the small, shallow council pontoon. Having also had a difficult day’s sailing, he had no hesitation in joining us for a late supper.

Skarstad's mole harbour and overnight pontoon

Conditions improved overnight and the forecast indicated that we should be able to make progress south against light winds and seas.  We therefore crept out from Skarstad through a 3-mile, narrow buoyed channel below the island of Barøy, before heading south under motor in conditions as forecast.  It was not long, however, before the conditions deteriorated and we found that we were making negligible headway south under motor into the wind and choppy seas. We therefore decided to turn west and then had an excellent sail, although this was in poor visibility again, together with Puddleduck, to Gullvika.

Rocky entrance to Gullvika anchorage in the background

It is a dramatically peaceful, sheltered and scenic anchorage on the south-east coast of Store Molla off Svolvær, capital of the Lofoten Islands. Contrary to our pilot books, which both advised we’d need to anchor, there was a brand-new short pontoon in the middle of nowhere, on either side of which Puddleduck and Island Drifter moored. The thick mist, in which we’d sailed across the Vestfjord, clung to the mountains surrounding the anchorage.  It cleared a little in the evening so that we were able to watch sea eagles circling around the crags. 

Gullvika anchorage and short pontoon

We were obliged to remain in Gullvika for a further day as another gale blew through. On our way north in almost continuous sun we were told by every Norwegian we met how lucky we were with the weather! We now know that they were not exaggerating. 

The front blew through by the morning. We therefore left Gullvika and headed south to Skrova, a large protected harbour, empty in the summer but full of fishing vessels in the winter. It is an old whaling harbour.  The popular quayside restaurant specializes in whale-meat dishes.   We planned to use Skrova as a springboard for getting to Bodø.

A reminder of Skrova's whaling history

Next morning we parted company with Horst, who continued along the inner coast of the Lofotens. We headed south to Bodø where we have fuelled, watered and purchased supplies prior to our departure early tomorrow when hopefully the wind will turn, as forecast, more to the north.