Day 9: Træna

The next morning dawned bright but the people running the local community centre had given us a forecast of rain later in the morning. Wilhelm, Ole and Torunn set out to climb the highest peak, whilst I decided on something less ambitious by visiting a large cave we had seen, and climbing the lowest of the three mountains.

I set out along the road through the community of houses around the harbour, before following a well worn path to the natural cave known as Kirkhellaren – the natural cathedral. And pretty impressive it was, too. A geological fault line in the rocks had created horizontal rock formations on either side, with a vertical formation between. The collapse of the lower section had led to a cave being formed that is 32m high, 20m wide and 45m deep. It is an ancient site, with remains dating back 9000 years.
 
Walking back along the grassy shoreline, I came to a footpath with steps and a rope handrail leading to the top of the lowest peak. I still found it hard work to reach the top, and it was only Wilhelm’s desire for me to see the view from the top of a mountain in the area that gave me the resolve to keep going. The view however was certainly spectacular, and well worth all the effort.

 

The entrance to the tunnel made through the central mountain, revealing some very intricate rock formations.

A tunnel had been carved through the adjacent mountain during the construction of the radar station. I decided to take this easier route down, as the lower entrance on the other side was only a short distance from our camp. I had no torch, and there was complete blackness after the first 100m. It needed a steely determination to continue walking blind, with hands outstretched to touch the walls before I stumbled into them. It was just about the scariest thing I have ever done. I could literally feel my hair standing on end! The supposedly 700m length of the tunnel seemed more like 7 miles, and it was with great relief that I saw a speck of light finally appear.

I met up with the others on my return to our camp. They had been forced to give up their attempt to climb to the top of the highest peak as it was too difficult without specialist climbing equipment. The rain started soon after that and continued heavily for the rest of the day, so we decided to stay put rather than move on. The local Community Centre provided us with some of the best hospitality possible in these not so pleasant conditions. We were invited to dry any of our wet gear, enjoy the luxury of another shower, and even offered an excellent meal when they had overestimated the food needed for a group of other guests.

Day 10: Træna to Alstadhaug 

The next morning was still wet and also very windy. But with conditions brightening, we decided it was time to start our return to Brønnøysund. The weather certainly wasn’t suitable for Ole and Torunn to set out though, and we learned later that they had caught the ferry back to the mainland. We set off under reefed main, and once clear of the protection of the islands, also changed down to a small jib.

We sailed reasonably comfortably closehauled for the next 7 hours to clear the southern point on Lovund, and on towards the large offshore island of Dönna. It proved to be a long, wet sail, with a regular amount of spray coming over the gunwale and we were pleased to reach shelter behind the island of Vandoed, where we stopped for an hour’s break and a change of clothes.

Taking a break in the lee of the island of Vandoed. The much larger island of Dönna is in the background,
with the mainland mountains covered by cloud beyond.

Day 11: Alstadhaug to Ylvingen

Alstadhaug is well known in Norway for its church and the personality and poetry of a local pastor, Peter Dass, who lived in the area in the 1680’s. He was extremely popular with the local community and was fondly remembered. The church and adjacent museum were a well visited tourist attraction. Wilhelm was, as always, interested in the local history, but his main ambition was to climb one or more of the nearby mountain ridges known as the Seven Sisters. He offered me whichever of the ‘sisters’ I preferred. Unfortunately for Wilhelm, I felt they all looked rather too tall for me!

The graceful steeple of the old and elegant church, with a pillar nearby to commemorate the life of Peter Dass.
The first of the seven sisters mountain range is in the background.

The mass of islands offshore seen from a low hill above the church, the spire of which can be seen to the right of this picture. The graveyard adjacent to the church contained some very elaborate headstones.

As it turned out, the weather would have been perfect this morning for us to cover the distance we had motored the previous evening and night. There was glorious sunshine and a pleasant northerly breeze. If only we had known the weather was going to be so much better than the forecast! It was almost too hot to make hiking enjoyable, but nevertheless, Wilhelm accomplished his aim by climbing the first two of the seven peaks. In the meantime, I was given a guided tour of the local church, and later climbed the lower foothills beyond the church to look out over the many islands of Skaalvær, which we planned to visit for the final part of our cruise.

As we set off, the day was still bright, with a pleasant breeze now veered to the north-east. But the forecast indicated deteriorating weather conditions, with gales expected in a few days' time. Wilhelm decided to make the most of the day’s good weather by sailing through the maze of islands immediately offshore, before stopping for the night somewhere within easy reach of Brønnøysund, just in case the weather worsened earlier than expected.

After starting out around mid-day, we stopped shortly after 1600 for a break on one of the larger islands. It had a local shop within reasonable walking distance, and as we were running out of some food items, including cans of beer, Wilhelm decided it would be worth the trek. Unfortunately Wilhelm arrived too late to be served alcohol, and even his query “Are you sure it is after 1600?” (it was at least 1645), only got the shopkeeper to hesitate for a moment before deciding that it was indeed past the time he could sell cans of beer. Perhaps a local person might have been given preferential treatment!

As we continued to weave our way through the islands, we hit our first rock - in the middle of a relatively open stretch of water, just to remind us that not all the rocky outcrops were above the surface, and visible. Fortunately it was only the centre plate that made contact. By early evening we were immediately north of Vega, and though our general position was easy to determine from the island’s prominent mountain, exactly which particular islands we were sailing past would have been impossible to ascertain without the GPS. Rounding the north-east point of Vega, we made for the island of Ylvingen (Wilhelm eventually had to give up trying to get me to pronounce this correctly!) and stopped for the night in a sheltered fishing harbour, tying the boat up between two wooden fishing jetties.

The jetties to which Blunderbus is tied had no access along the side of the sheds to the shore. This was very useful for security, but made it quite difficult for us to moor the boat in deeper water, whilst still being able to gain access to it.

Day 12:  Ylvingen to Brønnøysund

It was evident the following morning that the weather was on the change as there was a blustery southerly breeze and intermittent showers. We were visited fairly early by one of the fishermen living in the small town opposite, as we were obviously camping on his property, but he proved to be very friendly and helpful when Wilhelm chatted to him about our cruise. We then made a short visit to the harbour area of the town before setting off around mid-morning for the last day of our memorable cruise, which entailed a relatively easy ten-mile beat back to the marina and launch site at Brønnøysund.

After rounding the southern point of Ylvingen, we sailed closehauled towards the mainland, crossing the main deep-water route along the Norwegian coast. A luxury liner (above), one of many that cruise the coastline and fjords, passed fairly close by. We were dressed up in our full sailing gear and one could imagine the cruise passengers looking out at us from the comfort of their temperature controlled lounges, perhaps even taking pity on us ‘poor wretches’.

However, we had no desire to change places with them - well, perhaps the shower and toilet facilities might have been a slight temptation! But even these comforts weren’t worth the handicap of only being able to look out at the magnificent scenery from a distance, and often behind the barrier of a glass screen. Stopping at one of the main ports for some ‘retail therapy’ and possibly meeting a few ‘local people’ dressed up for the cruise ship's arrival was a whole world away from our experience of seeing the magnificent scenery from a much closer viewpoint, and meeting real local people with their very generous hospitality.

Epilogue

Our cruise had been given us a chance to encounter at first hand the true environment of this part of Norway. We had been able to stop at any point we wished, and get much closer to the wonder and majesty of the landscape. The trip would perhaps have been even more magical, had we been able to continue on a northerly course from Træna. This would have enabled us to cross the Arctic Circle, explore one or more of the fjords in greater depth, and hike to the Svartisen glacier, which comes within a few miles of the shoreline at one point. Unfortunately this was not a practical option, but is always something one can look forward to experiencing another year. In fact, one could spend years cruising the Norwegian coastline and waterways, without ever losing the desire to go back for more.

Ralph Roberts  W9885 (but sailing W1309 Blunderbus, for this trip)