The arc­tic tra­vel blog con­tin­ued: with SV Mean­der in Alta­fjor­den

Tue
26 Apr
2022

Full speed ahead 🙂 with SV Mean­der in Alta in north Nor­way, bet­ween Trom­sø and Nord­kapp. Mean­der isn’t a new ship – she was ori­gi­nal­ly built in 1946 and has been rebuilt seve­ral times sin­ce – but she is new up here for us, so I am more than just a litt­le bit exci­ted, and so is the group of 11 arc­tic tra­vel­lers and the crew: captain/owner Mario, mate (and also cap­tain) Hei­ne, deck­hand Bas­ti­an and chef Eek.

We went on board in Alta. A town that was com­ple­te­ly des­troy­ed in the second world war, so all the archi­tec­tu­re is quite modern.

Start­ing in Alta. Here is the nor­t­hern light cathe­dral in the city cent­re.

We left the pier on Mon­day late after­noon and sai­led out into the fjord. Our main desti­na­ti­ons are Bear Island (Bjørnøya) and Spits­ber­gen, but we will first spend some days in regio­nal coas­tal waters. A very clear and easy decis­i­on, con­side­ring the wea­ther fore­cast.

SV Mean­der in Alta.

So our first place is Årøy, a litt­le island in Alta­fjord. A silent place today with only 18 inha­bi­tants, but Årøy has a histo­ry of many hundred years. And it is a sceni­cal­ly beau­tiul place. And it has some very quick wea­ther chan­ges!

SV Mean­der ancho­red off Årøy in Alta­fjord.

Yes, the wea­ther chan­ges were real­ly ama­zing. We spent the mor­ning hiking over the island and we went from silent snow fall to bliz­zard to bright suns­hi­ne and back again! Have a look at the pho­tos for some impres­si­ons:

Pho­to gal­lery Alta – Årøy

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

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