Norway Post 21

Day 18

I set out on foot to find a wifi connection so that I could at least check the weather. The only shop in town was for fishermen. I asked if I could use their wifi connection.

"We only have by phone here," the shop owner told me.

"Okay, have you seen the forecast?"

"Yah, it might be sunny in the afternoon."

"What about the wind?" I asked. "I'm kayaking."

"No wind, it's summer." he assured me.

"Yesterday it was really windy." Why was I arguing?

"Yah." He said.

On the water there was no wind. The sea was calm. I had to cross Trondheimsleden. I could do it at the narrowest point where it turned into Trondheimfjorden and headed inland. There might be a current there, but I would spend the least amount of time in the shipping channel that way. Or I could start crossing much earlier at an angle. I'd spend much more time in the shipping channel, but I'd be farther away from the current danger zone and my overall route would be shorter.

The sea was calm so I began my crossing early. As I got closer to my target island Garten at the northern edge of the fjord just off the mouth of Trondheimfjorden the wind and current picked up and my pace slowed to a crawl. I passed a channel marker one inch at a time, and watched as the water poured around it.

I had to poop.

At the southern end of Garten, where the current was at least two and a half knots against me without the wind, I found a well sheltered bay. Though it was an hour early and about six miles before my target for the day, I pulled onto shore, changed into land clothing, and found a quiet corner of the sea for my business.

The small island was mostly populated by summer homes with a few farms and other permanent residents.

I asked a woman if she knew where I could find a market she said "Brekstad, it's 15 kilometers from here [you should go and never come back.]"

I walked around the island looking for a wifi connection. At the end of a small sideroad near the sea two kayaks sat on the grass. I went closer to examine them. Maybe they belonged to fellow northbound expeditioners!

They didn't. When I came to that conclusion the same woman who implied I should leave the island earlier stepped out of her house. "Here you are."

I went back to my boat and asked for water from the family living above the harbor. They gave me water. They let me use their laundry machine, and their shower, and their wifi, and their spare bedroom, and their dog. They brought me with them to their dinner party, and were basically the best people in the world with one of the best dogs in the world.

That bed was so soft.

Norway Post 20

Day 17

I paddled under a bridge through Skarso's tiny placid eastern fjord into Tronheimsleden. It's the central fjord which after a couple of significant twists and turns leads to Trondheim and beyond, though I wouldn't be taking it that far.

Near where the the two fjords met I saw a deer and two fawns down by the water. When I got close to take a picture they fled.

I paddled north east through Tronheimsleden and passed an ugly industrial building with a dock designed for a boat much larger than mine. The water around it was bubbled slime in the light chop.

I left the building behind and an eagle swooped overhead. They're huge.

I enjoyed a robust tailwind. Going strait was hard, which oddly was not alleviated by lowering my skeg. I'd have to pack my boat so that it would weathercock less.

I tried to hug the shore, there was a better chance I'd find the plaque that way, but a number of smaller fjords that were not on my route branched off so crossed them at the skerries. I paddled to an island and around a fish farm and then another island. Finally after one larger crossing I squeezed between a final island and a point against a mild current to arrive at a Hennskjelo.

The water was glassy flat and two great blue herons swooped about with each other just before the first house. A large barn sat just above a dock with an old kayak out front and an open door. I kept paddling. A man stood next to a boat house.

"Hi," I said. "I kayaked here from Alesund. Can I sleep in your boat house tonight?"

"No." He told me. "I don't like this."

"Thanks anyways. Have a good night."

"Enjoy your trip and good luck."

I paddled through a narrow space under a bridge that connected the island to the mainland. A woman asked if she could take a picture of me and I said sure. I asked her to email it to me and she said sure.

She did! I think that's the first time anyone has ever followed through on a random kayaking picture email.

Just after the photographer was a marina. I pulled up and used the hose for a quick shower. A fisherman pulled up, offered me a fish he just caught and a bed on his extremely filthy boat. Life couldn't have been better.

It turns out fish are easier to gut if I cut the head off first.

Norway Post 19

In the afternoon I asked the ferryman if he knew where I might find a wi-fi connection and before I knew it I was showering in the ferries spacious underbelly. After my shower, towel provided of course, I had PB&J sandwich from the kitchen while reclining in a deeply comfortable chair and talking with my new friends the ferry crew.

The ship moved back and forth across the fjord while I sheltered in style in its underbelly. The ship's engineer was there in case something went wrong. If that happened he wouldn't know what to do. The guy who directed traffic on top had better English and asked me about America. He periodically disappeared to direct traffic.

We watched a program on television that showed a boat traveling up the coast of Norway. The boat's famous and when people know it's coming they go out and wave Norwegian flags, so that they'll be on TV.

The scenery on the program was fantastic, almost as nice as what I could have seen from up on deck, but I was quite content in my warm soft chair.

Day 16

I turned from a narrow fjord into a more winding one. I passed a town that might have been my last supermarket for a while so I stopped to go shopping.

I think there's something about Norwegian culture that makes it especially impolite to mind someone else's business, ask about their kayak, introduce yourself, offer a stranger a shower without him directly asking for one, or commenting on him wearing a wet suit in a supermarket.

When I introduce myself to Norwegians I find they're overwhelmingly polite, but trying to subtly get them to offer something without directly asking for it, is usually futile.

Another kayaker in a kayak nicer than mine (a Nordkapp) was paddling with a beautiful homemade Canadian inuit paddle southbound. He had started in Bodo, my most likely take out, in May and was heading to Bergen. So far had lost 15 days to bad weather and expressed the supreme frustration that I knew all too well. My frequent tailwinds had been his headwinds.

He used to have a dry suit, but he discarded it with his spare paddle and lots of other unnecessary gear a few weeks back. He never capsized and paddled in a long sleeve wool shirt under a poorly fit life jacket. His deck was covered with more clothing that he had stripped off throughout the first wonderfully sunny day in ages.

We talked joyfully, since we were both the only fellow long distance paddlers we had met. He told me of what I could expect ahead and I him. Eventually we parted, since we both still had a long ways to go.

I try to paddle between seven and eight hours a day, though sometimes it's closer to six. I added an hour onto the end of my day to make up for time lost shopping. I stopped to change chia drink nalgenes at a dock. A man was working on the dock and was excited to see me. He had talked to me at the ferry.

I didn't remember him. I'm terrible with faces. Was he the engineer who let me shower and was full of kindness? Or was he one of the random people in cars waiting to get onto the ferry that I asked for wire hangers to rescue my knife. I didn't know.

I turned around one last narrow corner into a fjord that was nearly closed at both ends making for a very peaceful body of water. At the far end of it, in Aure was a sea wall protecting a dock. On that dock there was an unlocked sailboat that was my home for one rainy Shabbat.

Norway Post 18

Day 15

After Mr. Barnes helped repair my skeg I was off feeling good despite another rainy day. I think part of my problem, aside from the shortage of showers and associated chafing was that Norwegians seem to be more withdrawn than Meditteranians. It was really nice to enjoy sailor's hospitality.

I paddled off my chart and won't be on the next one till tomorrow. When I was getting ready to call it a day I waved down a motorboat to ask for directions. I was in the wilderness. There was nothing for miles in either direction. The last settlement I had seen was 40 minutes earlier and the next, the motor boat man told me, would be in 14 nautical miles, almost five hours of paddling.  There was nothing until then he assured me. I didn't want to paddle forward another five hours and I certainly didn't want to paddle back for 40 minutes.

I wanted a boathouse. It was raining. I didn't want to make camp in the rain. When I was ready to give up on my lengthy inquiries with the motorboat man, who was traveling at 28 knots from Trondhiem to his summer cottage, suggested that I try the village just around the corner.

In twenty minutes I found the village that google maps told me might or might not be a village. There was a dock and above it a boathouse with a substantial awning that could keep me dry in all but the worst storm. I had everything I needed.

That night the storm's worst came. Horizontal rain drenched my sleeping bag and my things at 2:00 am when I scurried to get out of my bivi sack and close my dry bags. At 3:00 am I looked up at the line above my head where I hung my dry top in the evening. It was gone. I climbed down the sea wall to pull it out of a heaving bed of surf and seaweed, washed it off in a local stream as the heavens crumbled around me and went back to sleep. At some point in the night I heard the wind blow my knife off the table.

In the morning I found it on the rocks beneath the deck's floorboards. It had fallen between the cracks. Aside from serving as my spoon since I lost my regular spoon in Geiranger, I also need my knife for safety issues like getting caught on a fishing line. It had a special way of attaching to my life jacket and I liked it.

I asked the men on the ferry boat if they had a wire hanger. They did not.

Rain poured all morning. My Gore-Tex shell has lots of holes in it; it's come quite a long way with me and is no longer the least bit waterproof. My rain pants are still pretty good though.

I knocked on the door to a house and the grandfather that opened it brought along some thin flexible aluminum rods. Just as I was getting it out, the ferry man showed up with a magnet, and together we finished the job.

It was noon. The temperature was 46 Fahrenheit. The fjord was not calm and the rain kept on coming. I decided to take the rest of the day off.

Norway Post 17

Day 14

After sleeping in one of the marina’s small gasoline stinky motorboats I set out slow, tired and feeling like I was ready to end my trip. In Kristiansund, my destination for the day, I could take the Hutigruten back to Alesund and from there paddle to Flo to return the kayak. After all, I had already paddled Hjørundfjord and Geirangerfjorden, likely the two prettiest fjords on the entire route. I missed my friends back in NYC. I wouldn’t decide until the end of the day after I’d arrived in Kristiansund, for the time being I’d just have to keep my eye on the immediate task.

I paddled between islands until arriving at the Attlanterhavsveien, a narrow road that curves and weaves along an island chain across the mouth of Kvernesfjord. I passed under a bridge into a brief but heavy current so as to paddle on the more sheltered fjord side of the islands.

The island hopping road is a popular tourist destination and people from near and far strolled along the boardwalks on either side. A little girl with her family waved to me from a small motorized rowboat.

When I passed back under the road farther to the east I had a pleasant if brief ride now that the current was at my back. From there I headed through more thickly clustered islands and skerries. Some of the passages I took were well marked on my map and others not at all.

After taking a passage through a village of thickly clustered homes, many with their own docks and boats, I found a very narrow passage to a larger fjord. The water poured out of the fjord dropping several inches as quickly as gravity could pull it. The fjord with the extremely narrow mouth was out of my way, but because the tide race was so strong, and the hills around me so green, it seemed like a likely place to find Slartibartfast’s plaque. I sprinted uphill. With great vim and great vigor I was soon at the top of the current and looking into the fjord from a level height. I didn’t see any plaques.

I turned around and went back down. “Wheeeeee.”

I passes through a wider channel crowded by giant industrial building, trucks, and parking lots on either side. Tankers and work ships lined the shore.

I was tired and the question of whether or not this was my last day bounced around my head.

After another island chain, a moderate crossing, and not getting run over by the Hurtigruten, I arrived in Kristiansund. The city is spread across three islands and after several inquiries I got directions to the tourist marina where my boat would be safer were I to walk away from it.

I wanted a shower and a bed. I’d be able to decide about ending my trip much better with a shower and a bed. According to the internet I’d find a hostel at the top of the hill. I walked for half an hour and found a motel that wanted $100 a night.

I walked back to the marina. I took a cold shower. I could have inserted coins into the slot to make it warm, but I didn’t have any coins and I didn’t want to spend money. It was nice to feel clean again.

I made friends with an american family on a large aluminum hulled sailing boat. The parents were former adventure school administrators now sailing from the Antarctic to the Arctic and elsewhere with their kids for four years. The kids were being home schooled and I suspect learning quite a bit more than my students do. I talked to them about how I might end my trip. I had lots of good reasons, especially that I was sick of wearing the same stinky neoprene every day. But with an ear for my whining and the break from my loneliness that they offered, I was no longer so desperate to go home.

A German father and son in the boat next door invited me to sleep over on the couch in their saloon. With a bed and a shower of sorts, the next morning I was ready to continue my quest.

Norway Post 16

Sunday evening I had a phone interview for a really great job, and since I didn’t know where I’d have access to Skype next, I decided to stay where I was. A robotic lawn mower kept me company.

Day 13

I paddled north along the island Gossa. The sea was a little choppy and there was some headwind. The region was known for sinking ships with a combination of bad weather and shallow waters. At least I didn’t need to worry about the shallow water.

Half way through crossing to the mainland a ship came down the channel towards me, so I changed my course so that it was perpendicular to his to get out of his way.

I cut between a couple of islands and found myself in the harbor of Bud where new boats floated next to old docks.

I came out from between more rocky islands and rounded a corner to head east when the weather began to make itself felt strongly on my port side. A path hinted safety between the the rocks to my right. I followed it around a corner to a dead end, and returned the way that I came.

A hundred meters later another path wound into the rocks. This time it went through. For the rest of the day I paddled in narrow channels between islands and the mainland that were not on my chart. Sometimes they were dead ends, and other times a channel under a bridge or between seawalls would take me to a whole new section of the sinuous inland water way.

I arrived at a small marina in Farstad. Cozy houses populated the thick cluster of islands in the area and their occupants left their cars in the parking lot above to take motorboats the final leg home.

A French couple spent the night in the back of their minivan in the parking lot as well. They were touring the country and complaining about the weather. Last summer is was so much warmer.

I remembered just enough French so that they felt comfortable talking to me at length in their native tongue. I didn’t remember or possibly ever know enough French to understand a word they were saying.

I walked into the village looking for a supermarket, but there were just a few houses. A man washing his car told me that the next village had a supermarket and I could probably walk there in an hour, so I walked. When I was most of the way there, I got a ride.

After my shopping I walked out of the store and realized I didn’t know the way back. I hadn’t paid enough attention as a passenger. I asked a fellow shopper, a tall bicep tattooed fellow, the way to the small marina to the east and he pointed me down one of the roads.

When he drove alongside me and offered a lift I was happy to accept. I told him my story as we cruised along a road that did not look familiar until I recognized enough of the scenery to know that we drove west. The marina he wanted to take me to was a touristy one I passed earlier in the day, which he naturally assumed was the one I was looking for since I was a tourist.

I explained again that I needed to go to the marina to the east. I could show him on a map if he had one. He asked me to hold his open beer while he loaded up a map on his phone.

I mumbled something in surprise that ended with “not that I’m judging.”

“Don’t worry,” he told me, “It’s my first one. I got in a fight with my girlfriend.”

I showed him on his phone where my marina was and he we drove there. He took my picture while he dropped me off so that he could prove to his girlfriend that he had really been doing a good deed and not gallivanting.

Norway Post 15

Day 12

I paddled past a couple of big islands and plenty of small ones to Aukra. On the eastern end of Otroya a bunch of pipes ran out along the surface of the water to some fish farms I had passed inland of about ten minutes earlier.

I could go over them or back around the way I had come adding much too much time to my already long day.

I hauled my boat over, first by ramming the pipes to get my bow up, then powering over with heaving strokes.  When I was close enough I reached out to gorilla scoot with my hands lifting me over the pipes.  Finally finishing with more heaving strokes to free my stern. The pipes were definitely floating on the water, going up and down with the gentle waves, but they did not sink very much under my boat's considerable weight.

A dolphin came up and submerged several times about 20 feet off my starboard bow. It turns out they're not dolphins, but some other marine mammal. I guess that explains why there smaller than the dolphins I've seen in the past.

In Aukra some folk picnicking above the water invited me to stay for the weekend, have a shower, do my laundry, drink scotch, and have dinner with them. It was a super victory. My host played the accordion and we tried to sing along.