Day 27
Excitement coursed through me. The forecast called for the wind to change from the north to the southeast.
I headed east into Sor -
Salten and a brutal headwind. The fjord was part of a passage that
would take me a little bit out of my way, but should be pretty.
Tight knit islands clustered the mouth of the fjord and made me feel like I paddled down a narrow
river. I passed under a bridge and felt a mild current with me.
Later, when I crossed over the bridge in
a car, I saw an enormous current. I must have gone through
at slack.
The wind beat into me all day on the
narrow fjord. Since the forecast said the wind would come from the
southeast, I tried the south side of the fjord, but it was really
windy there. For a while it seemed like the curve of the fjord would
shelter me a little from the wind on the north side, but it was
really windy there too. In five hours I had paddled about seven and
a half miles, about half my regular speed, but I wanted to move on
to the day's next leg.
Sor-Salten was connected by a 50 foot
canal to Nord-Salten, which was a fjord that would take me north.
The canal, about 15 feet wide, channeled a phenomenal quantity of water.
I must have made seven or eight
attempts to paddle up that channel. I began by sprinting up the eddy
so as to hit the current running, but as soon as I did it shot me out
like a cannon over it's bubbling churning outlet. I tried without
the eddy but couldn't even get close.
While I rested from my herculean
efforts a speed boat pulled up, roared its engines to maximum, and
pushed through the canal. They waved to me as they pulled past with
something like five times the speed that I can get at my fastest
sprint in my narrowest kayak.
Concrete stairs rose up from the water at the edge
of the canal's mouth. I could wait for the current to
change which would probably be soon since it looked like the fjord
was at high tide, or just portage along the walkway besides the
canal.
What ever I decided, I'd go up the
stairs and have a look around. I tied a rope to my kayak and threw
the other end onto the stairs so that if the eddy pulled my
kayak away once I was out I would have something to grab onto, and
then climbed onto the stairs.
I failed to pull my kayak up the
stairs. It was too heavy. Two scrawny blondes walked the path
besides the canal. I asked them if they could bring me someone
strong, and they were happy to go get their boyfriends. Compared to
at least one of them, I was the scrawny.
The real men helped me get my kayak up
the stairs without any trouble and we even carried it past the canal.
They invited me to join them for their BBQ, and while it was
entirely traif I was willing to cut my day short for the happy
company. While we cooked and ate and chatted at the campsite the
current calmed for a moment and then changed directions.
At seven thirty they got back in their
speed boat and headed home. After a touch of indecision I got into
my kayak and began my way up the fjord. I had a strong wind at my
back and the current was spectacular. I paddled the full five mile
length of the fjord in under an hour. Where things got narrow, on
account of a bridge or a particular rock formation, the water fell
downhill fast sucking me into whirlpools and pulling at me on the way
out. I flew.
At the end of Nord - Salten behind a
bunch of small island in the already narrow fjord I found a marina.
A sign said "Call this number to shower ..." I found
someone with a phone to call the number for me. I punched the code
into the lock and got to shower.
That night I slept under the shower
building's awning until the rain got too vertical. At three in the
morning I moved into the shower room which was warm, clean, and dry.
The next morning the rain continued and
the wind shook the trees. The second floor of the shower building
was a kitchen living room type space with a light on that could be
seen through the windows. The lock required a different code than
the bathroom.
I asked some folk getting out of a
motor boat at the marina. They didn't have the code, so they asked
some older folk who they found walking by. The older folk asked
their neighbors who had the code, for the boating clubhouse, and I
got in to spend the rest of the that cold windy wet day in warmth and
comfort.
The old folk also invited me to go into
town with them and we went shopping and got coffee together. I don't
drink coffee but I sat with them while they drank theirs. They
offered to get me cake but I was still feeling a little sick from the
cookies I gobbled down in the clubhouse. There was nothing wrong with them,
except for the quantity. I love Norway. I love life.
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