Ofo­ten: Skar­ber­get & Tranøy

Thu
1 Nov
2018

We are at the bot­tom of Ves­t­fjord today – that is the sea area bet­ween the Nor­we­gi­an main­land and Lofo­ten – in the area that is cal­led „Ofo­ten“. The “L” of “Lofo­ten” is miss­ing here, we’ll get that tomor­row, a bit fur­ther to the west.

Tysfjor­den is Norway’s deepest fjords, with depth down to almost 900 met­res. The ice-age gla­ciers have almost cut Nor­way into two parts. The­re is no more than 6 kilo­me­t­res of land bet­ween the coast and Swe­den.

Ici­c­les next to the path on Skar­ber­get.

Cap­tain Mario gets the Anti­gua along­side at the jet­ty in the litt­le har­bour of Skar­ber­get with an impres­si­ve maneou­vre. We fol­low the road for a litt­le bit, than a way into the forest and final­ly a path bet­ween small trees and over mos­ses, lichens and bare rocks, up a ridge. The­re is ice on the rocks in some places, so it is quite slip­pery and we have to be careful.

View from Skar­ber­get over Tysfjor­den.

But the view of Tysfjor­den from Skar­ber­get is abso­lut­e­ly worth it. It is cold and win­dy and it is get­ting more and more grey and wet, so it is nice to get back to Anti­gua after a few hours.

The clouds are brea­king up as we con­ti­nue, and the low sun casts spect­ac­tu­lar light over the islands and moun­ta­ins around us.

Evening light in Ofo­ten – direct­ly after lunch.

In dwind­ling day­light and a stiff bree­ze it is again an impres­si­ve bit of sea­man­ship as Cap­tain Mario maneou­vres good old Anti­gua into the litt­le har­bour of Tranøy. This is a litt­le sett­le­ment in the nor­t­hern part of Hamarøy. As many as 53 peo­p­le lived here in 2012. The­re are some sculp­tures hid­den in various places in Tranøy.

Sculp­tu­re in Tranøy.

It is a good walk across the pen­in­su­la to the light­house and it is almost dark as I final­ly get the­re. Unfort­u­na­te­ly the cloud cover is pret­ty much clo­sed again and it even starts to rain, so the­re is litt­le hope for nor­t­hern lights tonight.

Light­house of Tranøy in twi­light.

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