I spent 3 weeks sea kayaking on the Lofoten archipelago (arctic
Norway) this summer with a mate. We had a Tiderace Pace 17 and a Taran 18 so pretty
well matched boats and just brilliant for multi-day wild-camping trips. I drove round with the boats & kit the
week before whilst Gordon flew/ferried in to Moskenes. Having the car as a start/stop point for each
loop gave us a lot of flexibility and acted as a storage container for re-stocking.
Cumulative gps track for our 3 loops with each day a different colour. And with all trips to Lofoten you start by seeing cod fish hanging out to air dry - they catch it in Jan/Feb and it hangs in the salt air for about 5 months. Fish bodies are exported to Italy in the main and the heads go to Nigeria.
Then there's Lofoten Katedral and the local heritage museum just west of Svolvaer (the main town / commercial centre).
The first loop was done as a figure of eight due to wind direction changes, so clockwise round Vestvagoya and Flakstadoya, then north up the Kakersundet and anticlockwise round Moskensoya. Loop 1 start point was at Haukland beach (beautiful) after a night camped on the dunes. Scenery is amazing but you can get a change in the weather conditions every 3 hours – weather is quite localised and the web-based forecasting tools were not of great help on this micro scale. First night out so watched the midnight sun as we had dinner (23:30hrs) having seen the first seal and sea eagle of the trip.
Days 2,3,4 were spent cruising along the southern coast of
the islands round many skerries and into small harbours as we saw fit. The severe mountains of mainland Norway were
clearly visible across the large Vestfjord off our port side. Typically
saw about 5 sea eagles each day either singly or as a pair. Seals were a lot scarcer. Interestingly the
sheep here carry “cow bells” so generally keep up a clanking noise all
night. Sleeping in the 24hr daylight
conditions did not prove to be an issue though as we had thought in advance. Spent a few hours looking round the Unesco
heritage village of Nujsfjord (traditional fishing huts etc).
We did have a couple of weather days mid trip (strong sou’westers/headwind) before commencing the Moskensoya piece. Generally we spent any days off the water either hill walking or doing a light touch on the tourist sights like the fishing museum. Overall we suffered very little ocean swell and any waves we had to overcome were wind driven. We did finish in mist/fog for a few hours one evening but there was nothing navigationally challenging.
Part 2 to come...
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