David`s last cruise - The Royal Cruising Club

David’s last cruise
Cloud Walker from Tromsø to Oslofjord
Judy Lomax
Awarded the Grace Cup
David and I antifouled in a bitterly strong arctic north wind, grateful for
the warm and comfortable hospitality ashore and the assistance on board
of some old Tromsø friends. Cloud Walker was back afloat by the time we
were joined by Jim Reeves (RCC), who brought such calm sunny weather
that it was almost hot on our final fitting out day.
A sunny, calm, warm, May day under engine took us to Sommarøy, an
active fishing and tourist island, where despite the constant daylight the
temperature plummeted overnight. Still in sun, with gentle forecasts, we
continued outside Senja, one of Norway’s biggest, steepest and wildest
islands, its Atlantic coast deeply segmented by fjords with dramatic snow
peaked mountains rising sharply from the water’s edge. Snow on the lower
slopes receded from hour to hour. Off the northern tip of Senja’s most
northerly fjord we crept between markers through a short shallow narrow
sound to investigate fair weather anchorages on the the small island of
Hekkingen. We then spent the night in the old fishing village of Hamn,
now a sophisticated tourist venue with showers included in a modest
mooring fee and with little sign of its humbler, tougher past.
Cloud Walker in Senja harbour
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David’s last cruise
VESTERÅLEN
Tromsø
Hamn
SENJA
Andenes
Nyksund
Nykvåg
LOFOTEN
Henningsvær
Nusfjord
Værπy Vestfjord
Landegode
Røst
Helligsvær Bodø
Fleinvær
Cloud Walker
Beneteau First 345
Rodøy
Rørvik
Halten
FROAN
Smøla
Hustadvika
Bud
Statt
Grip
Trondheim
SWEDEN
Kristiansand
Ålesund
Silda Selje
Frøya
NORWAY
Svanøy
Florø
Færøy
Fedje
Bergen
Espevær
Rovær
Vargavåg
Utsire
Skudeneshavn
Tananger
Rott
Oslo
Leangbukta
Oslo Fd
Kragerø
Risør
Arendal
Blindleia
Kristiansand
Farsund
Mandal
Lindesnes
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Judy Lomax
The same level of
sophistication
had
not reached Andenes,
a bleak little town
specialising in whale
watching tours. Its
huge double harbour
was created by moles
enclosing some of the
Nyksund
innumerable skerries
littering the northern tip of Andøya, the most northerly of the Vesterålen
islands. The sun went in and the fog descended as we approached, but
by morning visibility had cleared and the weather was benign enough
to continue outside the exposed west coasts of Andøya and the next big
island down, Langøy. The hippy ghost village of Nyksund, an abandoned
fishing settlement in a minute sheltered inlet on Langøy’s northeast
corner, was a project in progress, with as many houses and wharves still
derelict as restored.
A few miles further south, Nykvåg was another fishing harbour and
village in decline, but as yet not catering for nautical or other tourists. ‘The
people have gone, the work has gone, the school has gone, the kittiwakes
have gone,’ a young woman with a small child said below a cliff where the
remaining kittiwakes
were making their
usual noise and mess.
Happily the weather
continued warm, sunny
and calm, with endless
dramatic
mountain
vistas, as we moved
southwest from the
Vesterålen and through
the
more
famous
neighbouring Lofoten
Nykvåg
islands. Fast-flowing
steep-sided sounds cut south between the islands to the less exposed
southern Vestfjord coasts. In the narrows of Gimsøystraum the tide against
us reached 4kts under a 30m high road bridge linking Vestvagøy (west bay
island) and Gimsøy with Austvagøy (east bay island). The wind funnelled
up the sound against us and fell off its steep sides. Nevertheless, we
reached one of our favourite harbours in Lofoten, Henningsvær, in time
to tie up under its hotel for a dinner of seaweed-fed Lofoten lamb. The
narrow harbour still caters mainly for fishing boats, with more laid on for
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David’s last cruise
land-based tourists than for sailors. Its art gallery has the best collection
we have found of Norwegian land- and sea-scape romantic paintings.
The 200NOK mooring fee (high for north Norway, where 100NOK,
or about £10, is more usual) in Nusfjord gives entry to a Cod Liver Oil
Museum among other old historic buildings. Nusfjord, a tiny crack of
a harbour in an inlet below the mountains of Flakstadøy, has been
meticulously restored and preserved as a museum village. Land tourists
are charged 50NOK to enter.
Reluctantly bypassing Moskenesøy’s old fishing settlements, we made
use of the settled sunny weather to head towards our maritime meccas
of Værøy and Røst at the southwestern end of the Lofoten chain. Even
crossing south of Jules Verne’s Maelstrom, the potentially turbulent
Moskenstraum between Moskenesøy and Værøy, in the gentlest of
conditions at slack water, we could see big tidal swirlies just to our north
in the sound. The northern part of Værøy rises majestically steep and
bleak from the sea. Its large double harbour, sprawled across low ground
in its southeastern corner, still concentrates on commercial fishing, with
acres of fish drying racks and no pandering to yotties. A wide bay away,
Måstad, a tiny abandoned settlement with no road access, cowers under a
steep cliff. It was once an active fishing, farming and birding community
Værøy, Lofoten
. . . and its fish-drying racks
of 150 people. Its cat-sized, six-toed dog bred to hunt puffin is now also in
decline, although officially recognised as a breed in America.
With the weather still fair and settled, we made the final crossing
between islands to Røst, through a series of confusing and ethereal mirage
islands floating above the sea. Røst itself was more solid and just where it
was meant to be. With its combination of fishing and tourism, it is more
hospitable than Værøy, but just as dominated by fish racks. Conditions
were calm enough to explore the intricate passages between towering
and cowering rocks beyond the main island, mostly under motor over
an uncharacteristically flat sea. Even so, the shelter of anchorages below
Skomvær light at the archipelago’s southern end seemed merely theoretical,
so we returned by another rock-hopping route past the triple peaked island
Trenyken to a bay between a long reef, Rakneset, and a steep mountain.
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Judy Lomax
A small jetty below
a single lonely house
looked tempting, but
with many rocks and
no depths on the chart,
we opted for a lunch
stop on a solitary
mooring buoy. Minutes
after we’d picked it up,
its owner appeared in
a small fishing boat,
indicating that it was
OK for us to stay. He
then went alongside
David Lomax
the jetty, climbed up
the steep steps to let a single large black sheep out of a pen behind the
house, and motored away.
We soon followed suit, making the most of a favourable wind to cross
Vestfjord and explore some of the islands off the mainland. In the low-lying
sheep-grazed archipelago of Helligsvær, the church had been built on an
island with only one other building; a compromise when no agreement
could be reached about which of the two inhabited islands, Vokkøya and
Sørvær, it should be built on.
On Jim’s last day we sailed right round Landegode, a great long
mountain island visible for miles. After a night alongside in a small
scruffy harbour below a high cliff with lowering cloud tumbling from the
peak above, we crept cautiously between skerries and islets to investigate
tiny sounds and a spacious lagoon. Decreeing
anchoring a definite possibility, instead we
picked up the single visitor’s mooring, a rare
treat in Norwegian waters. Not only was it free
for 24 hours for boats of up to 10 tons, it also had
a pulpit-high pick up post. The views all round
were spectacular and in perfect peace. A cuckoo
sang at midnight.
Bodø next day was useful, with shops,
showers, washing machines, water, gas and
diesel, an international airport and even an
Jim Reeves (RCC)
excellent aviation museum, but it was wet with
the first rain for two weeks. As soon as Jim flew home, leaving just the
two of us for our next leg south, we made for Fleinvær, another delightful
archipelago, where we were welcomed onto the small private pontoon
of a fisherman below one of only two inhabited houses on the island. A
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David’s last cruise
sociable evening ensued, first sitting in the fisherman’s porch with his
wife and son, a philosophy lecturer at Tromsø university, and then on
Cloud Walker. Next day we met the fisherman’s brother, who lived in the
other house with a small black pet pig which slept on the sofa and stood
on its hind legs to beg for crystallized pineapple chunks. The brothers’
island was linked to the main island by a millennium bridge above crystal
clear rocky shallows. Although only an artist lived there permanently, the
summer community was vibrant and active. They were raising money for
a new harbour for their daily ferry to Bodø through Friday night boat
trips to supper in the village hall that they had built themselves. They had
also built the bridge and were building the quay.
So it continued, from island to island, pleasure to pleasure, with gentle
favourable northerlies, often in sun, and almost twenty four hour daylight.
Our first seriously wild wet weather kept us for two days in Støtt, where
it was heartening to find new guest pontoons and a restaurant run by a
returning local in an old fish warehouse. All the time we were checking
Norwegian pilot entries and looking for possible new anchorages on the
charts, making notes and taking photos for the next update and edition.
On Rødøy, we checked into Båt Magasinet’s 2012 ‘marina of the year’ - a
well deserved accolade, with an elegant restaurant in another lovely old
building (we didn’t sample it - meals out in Norway are an extravagant
and occasional luxury).
Our next crew, my cousin Janet, joined us in Rørvik, another useful
harbour with a marina, a club house with showers and washing machines,
an excellent maritime museum in an exciting modern building, two
supermarkets and a Vinmonopol.
Janet was with us during the worst weather of our three-month summer
(mid May to mid August), in Halten, an isolated little archipelago at the
northernmost tip of the long Froan archipelago, way offshore northwest of
Trondheim. In its heyday up to 1,000 fisherman were based there for the
fishing season. Now it is uninhabited except during holiday times, when
its old fish warehouses offer hospitality to occasional conferences, visiting
yachtsmen and landlubbers who just want to get away from everything
except the sea and the rocks and the kittiwakes and the imposing
lighthouse which stands proudly on the central island. We and Cloud
Walker were welcomed as long lost friends (two years after our first visit, in
good summer weather) by Leyla and her one helper, and made ourselves
once again at home over coffee and waffles and fish soup while the sea and
the wind fought a bitter battle outside. Although it was St Hans, usually a
Norwegian excuse for midsummer bonfire parties, no bonfire or outdoor
party would have stood a chance in the lashing rain and storm. Even getting
on and off Cloud Walker was alarming. We had never enjoyed a storm so
much or in such splendid surroundings. During the war, the Germans
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Judy Lomax
who mined the sea
round the tiny isolated
archipelago did not take
account of the strength
of the breaking waves,
which set off all the
mines.
Further down the
Froan chain we put
into Måøy, Bogøy
and Sula, islands very
different from but
close to each other. On
Sula, an enterprising
Kittiwakes in Halten
emigrant from Oslo
twenty years earlier had built a large pub, complete with mock lighthouse
and deckhouses above a narrow river-like harbour,
Southwest of the Froan islands and west of the long fjord inland up to
Trondheim, Smøla is a big round island surrounded by so many smaller
islands, islets and skerries that its chart looks like a swarm of bees. In gentle
warm, sunny weather we were able to weave our way through an intricate
passage from the north into Veidholmen, a narrow canal of a harbour
between picturesque old fishing buildings, guarded offshore by Norway’s
tallest lighthouse. Being a large island, and close to the mainland, Smøla
still had schools (two, about to amalgamate) and permanent as well as
holiday population. The waters round it and between its myriad offshore
rocks are shallow and intricate. The entry off its southwest corner to Grip,
a tiny fishing and holiday island, was daunting. Once we had negotiated
our way into Grip’s minute main harbour and found a V-shaped nick
to tie up in, we were enchanted by its immaculate old painted wooden
buildings. In its larger northern harbour, storms had destroyed sections of
the outer breakwater walls.
Kristiansund, another useful stop, provided a shopping centre with a
Vinmonopol and supermarket, and a new belt for David (‘J. bought a new
belt. Such a relief to throw away the old piece of rope’), and a visit from
one of our 1991 shipmates on the replica Viking longship Gaia. Then it
was time for the most treacherous section of coastline, Hustadvika, ending
with its even more intricate short inner Stoplane passage. The Hustadvika
outer passage has a reputation for rough seas. At least the main middle
and inner passages are well marked. We took the middle passage. The
wind and sun were favourable. Even so, Stoplane gave us some anxious
moments in a rising wind, checking and double checking the multiplicity
of markers on the chart and by eyeball.
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David’s last cruise
Bud
Bud harbour
Quite how dangerous Hustadvika and Stoplane could be was brought
home to us by an electronic exhibition in Bud, where we sought mainland
shelter in an unexpectedly good marina. A large Dutch steel Colin Archer
which had been its owners’ home for several years was (temptingly) for
sale. At a summer festival meal in a marquee restaurant above the marina,
we enjoyed as much as we wanted of fish dumplings, potato dumplings,
fish and potato dumplings, and ham hock and dumplings, for a most
reasonable charge (for Norway). At Bud’s dual wartime and coastal
museum we descended during the next day’s gale into WW2 bunkers and
marvelled at the harshness of wartime life, both for the locals and the
Germans stationed there.
A slight evening moderation in the wind tempted us to a short crossing
to the minute archipelago of Bjørnsund, weaving anxiously between rocks
and markers into Nordre Bjørnsund, a once busy fishing settlement but
now with an active holiday community, on several small islands linked
by causeways. The sea crashed across rocks below the breakwaters as
we watched the sun go down (just before midnight) far away behind
the skerry strewn sea. Seen through a camera lens, this gave a strange
reflected mirage effect to the rocks. Before setting south next day we eased
cautiously into picturesque mini Sondre Bjørnsund, with privately owned
moorings below holiday homes which had once been fishing shacks.
Continuing south, we took the main sound, Harøysund, making a brief
investigatory detour to a wide but unexciting harbour with a narrow and
exciting entrance on Sandøya. For an overnight stop on Fjørtoft before
continuing to Ålesund, we were expecting a quiet evening in a small
harbour. Instead, we were welcomed into a huge barnlike fishing shed for
the midsummer party of this and the neighbouring island, and treated
as instant friends by a couple who gave us a detailed tour of the island
in their car, pointing out the former school, the house where one side of
their family had grown up, the old Viking naust (boat house) where their
ships were hauled ashore, and then joining us on Cloud Walker for a late
daylight nightcap.
Ålesund next day proved just as sociable, with a visit from Frank
Cromer, who had been an energetic campaigner to persuade Norwegian
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Judy Lomax
immigration to allow
sailors to leave their
vessels unattended in
Norway over an entire
winter, and not just for
six weeks. He insisted
on driving Janet to the
airport and returning
with Corrie, who had
never cruised before.
On previous visits to
Ålesund
Ålesund
thousands
of raucous kittiwakes sitting bums out on elegant art deco windowsills
crapped onto the boats below. This time it was quieter and cleaner, with
not a kittiwake to be seen or heard.
For Corrie’s inauguration, we sailed and motor sailed and motored
twenty miles into the mainland up steep sided deep fjords to a small new
private harbour where our friends Ottar and Marianne Bjørkedal were
restoring an old fishing boat. With his father and brother, Ottar had built
many Viking replicas, including Gaia, in the lakeside hamlet of Bjørkedal
(birch valley). He had been in Gaia’s crew, but had never sailed before,
and had often wished he was back at home in his little house ‘because
I always knew where it would be in the morning’. He and Marianne
took us to the little house, which he had now extended into quite a big
house, for a sumptuous barbecue, and then to visit the family’s beautiful
old summer pasture sæter, with unaltered old wooden grassroofed cabins
in a magnificent mountain setting. Corrie could not have had a better
introduction to Norway, which continued warm, sunny and gentle as
we made our way back down the fjord and southwest through fjords and
sounds towards Norway’s most westerly and notorious peninsula.
As we approached Statt’s angry fist of headlands pushing out into the
open sea and prone to strong winds and vicious seas, we thought we had
beaten an unhelpful forecast. Then we rounded the first of the headlands,
and met the forecast headwind in worsening visibility and rising waves. It
was a relief to round the last headland and make for Silda, a delightfully
rural and peaceful car-free island. Nest day we abandoned our attempt to
go into Klostervåg, a minute harbour below ancient monstery ruins on the
small steep island of Selje. Legend has it that West Norway’s patron saint,
the Irish princess Sunniva, was washed ashore there from a shipwreck
after fleeing from an unwanted marriage. We squeezed anxiously through
an alarmingly narrow passage between the rocks, continuing into clearer
water to a secure mainland harbour, Seljevågen, from which the monastery
ruins can be visited by ferry.
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David’s last cruise
After a moderate headwind down Ulversund, the wind dropped almost
to nothing as we rounded the island of Bremanger. Then its high, sheer
mountain Hornelen lived up to its reputation for chucking winds down
onto unsuspecting sailors. We found shelter from the 35 knot headwind
and drizzle in Kalvåg, an attractive little town on the southeast coast of
Frøya. An entrepenurial father and son had converted the former fishing
shacks into a hotel, with a marina, restaurant and conference and holiday
accommodation lining the foreshore.
Our next short passage south to Florø threw every sort of weather at
us: flat calm, sun, gentle favourable wind, rain with less than a mile’s
visibility, and then a 30 knot headwind in stinging heavy rain. After two
hours, we were only 3.5nm from Frøya so we turned back – whereupon
the wind dropped away to nothing, the rain stopped, the sun came out.
So we turned again and motored on into Florø, where the wind and rain
returned, to be replaced overnight by damp murky fog.
In the gradually lifting visibility we motored over a silky grey sea
to Svanøy, a lushly fertile island with deciduous woodland (unusual in
Norway) and home to the Norwegian Deer Centre. A handsome stag posed
unfazed for photos taken through the high wire fencing. It was Sunday and
the visitors’ centre was
closed, so we carried
on between some of the
west coast’s steepest
and most spectacular
islands. On Corrie’s
birthday, we treated
her to waffles on a low
island where we spent
a night within sight of
mountain islands that
were linked to ours by
a series of bridges. The
Stag at the Norwegian Deer Centre, Svanøy
next day we continued
to Færøy, another favourite island. To our disappointment, the summer
bakery and restaurant above the small harbour had been turned into
holiday accommodation as there were no longer any permanent residents.
During the next few days, we pottered south in increasingly hot, still
weather, investigating places new to us in the narrow fast-flowing sounds.
In Eivindvik, where we had stood on Gaia’s deck wearing Viking tunics
and listening to long speeches in Norwegian, the windless summer heat
became oppressive, with temperatures of more than 30ºC. It was more
comfortable with a good sailing breeze to the whaling harbour on Fedje at
the top of the main sound to Bergen. Our longest day was 36.8nm down
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Judy Lomax
to Bergen, with a lunch stop in an
idyllic lagoon at Uttoskavåg, where
we were able to pick up the only
mooring buoy.
The heat in Bergen was even
more oppressive. We took a taxi
uphill to the maritime museum,
where David’s 1991 Viking Voyage
film was being shown on a loop.
Maggie Black (whose father Archie
had introduced us to the RCC) joined us in the evening in time for a
summer supper of gravlax and potetsalat (Norowegian shop potato salad is
excellent), but we were all too tired and hot for our usual evening Scrabble
or Boggle. Before Corrie left from Bergen a couple of days later, we did a
circumnavigation of Askøy, the large island just to its northwest, visiting
new anchorages and marinas all the way round, and still in the same
near-tropical weather. Back in Bergen, we had a crew meal in one of the
waterfront fish restaurants.
Maggie was with us for another week, during which we re-visited several
favourite places: Vargavåg, from which we were taken home for a meal by
the youngest of the Gaia crew; the islands of Espevær, Røvær and South
and North Utsire (a half hour walk across the island apart) where for the
first time we unwisely braved the shallow narrow inner northern harbour,
and had a memorable meal with old Utsiran friends; and Skudeshavn –
more old friends and hospitality.
As soon as Maggie had stepped into a taxi next day in Tananger, we moved
out for the night to tiny Rott, which still has two farms but no permanent
residents, then next day alternately sailed and motorsailed nearly 80nm
down the exposed southwest Jæren coast to Farsund. From there, the
weather was too good to waste, so we again sailed and motorsailed round
Lindesnes to Mandal, where the low bridge across the river to a recently
completed
culture
house was not on the
latest C-Map. The
hot sunny weather
continued
on
our
final day towards a
family rendez-vous in
Kristiansand,
going
offshore rather than
through inner leads
to make the most of a
Rørvær
favourable wind.
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David’s last cruise
In Kristiansand, we
were joined by our son
Alistair, his partner
and his three children.
After a lunch stop
at Gamle Hellesund
in the narrow and
picturesque Blindleia,
we continued offshore
for 27nm to Mærdø,
just south of Arendal.
Jane, Rikki and Daniel
were waiting for us at
anchor on their Zenith
(RCC). Then Cloud Walker’s anchor got caught under an abandoned and
uncharted cable. Retrieving it in a thunderstorm when she had drifted
along the cable close
inshore was tricky,
especially as her anchor
winch had packed up.
Throughout
the
next fortnight with two
boats, the crews mixed
and matched from day
to day, with Rikki and
Alistair
respectively
skippering Zenith and
Cloud Walker. The hot,
sunny, swimmable weather continued, with only one wet day. We rafted
up together on rockfaces, barbecued on the rocks, swam, walked through
woods, and socialised with some of Rikki’s many relations. In the sheltered
inland waters of Risør
and Kragerø, local
sailing clubs had club
houses and showers
that were wonderfully
child-friendly, one with
marked trails through
rocks, the other with
a bridge to jump and
dive off, a trampoline,
and an assortment of
floats to play on and
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Judy Lomax
fall off. The highlights
for the grandchildren,
however, were the
disco-lit
swimming
pool and the fast RIB
of some friends with a
luxurious cabin above a
small fjord a few miles
inshore of Kragerø.
For the final 80nm
from
the
Kragerø
sailing club up to
Leangbukta just south of Oslo, Jane, Alistair, Suzanne and the children
went by bus and train, leaving Rikki on Zenith and David and me on Cloud
Walker. We had an exhilarating and bumpy fast overnight passage with
a strong but favourable wind, averaging seven knots up the outer Oslo
Fjord with very little sail. When we left Cloud Walker next to Zenith in
Leangbukta, David declared that it had been our best sailing summer
ever. Little did we then know that it was to be his last cruise.
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