Fri
29 Apr
2022

The wea­ther does all sorts of things here the­se days, but not neces­s­a­ri­ly what we want it to do. Crossing the Barents Sea is curr­ent­ly not an opti­on, but we are hap­py here on the Nor­we­gi­an main­land coast. After some wea­ther-rela­ted chan­ges of plans we ended up in Lil­le Kval­fjord on Stjernøya. Never heard? Neither have we 🙂

Lil­le Kval­fjord on Stjernøya in Alta­fjord.

It is real­ly a lost place, with a tiny sett­le­ment, but it seems com­ple­te­ly deser­ted. Com­ple­te­ly sur­roun­ded by steep moun­ta­ins, the only access appears from the sea. But it is an beau­tiful place in its own way. Some old huts and hou­ses spread along the shore and in the forest of low birch trees. Huge rocks and steep moun­ta­ins. And very deep, soft snow. A very lone­so­me, very quiet place!

Stjernøya has always been an important place for the Sami peo­p­le, who call it Stierd­ná. They still keep reinde­er here during the sum­mer months.

Pho­to gal­lery Lil­le Kval­fjord

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

Then we set cour­se for Ham­mer­fest.

Ham­mer­fest

Ham­mer­fest – cool! None of us would have expec­ted that a week ago. I have never been here befo­re. And now we are sud­den­ly here! Nice!

The “old” cent­re of Ham­mer­fest in wea­ther that fits the lati­tu­de.

Ham­mer­fest is one of tho­se cities that cla­im to be the nor­t­hern­most one in the world. This may have been the case at some stage and of cour­se it will depend on your defi­ni­ti­on of a city. With a good 11,000 inha­bi­tants, it is cer­tain­ly a good bit lar­ger than Lon­gye­ar­by­en, no doubt.

So we spent Fri­day here, again with some pret­ty impres­si­ve wea­ther chan­ges.

The monu­ment of the Struve meri­di­an in Ham­mer­fest.

And the­re are quite a few things to see and to do. The­re is the town its­elf, of cour­se, with its streets and shops, pubs and cafés and churches. The­re is the monu­ment of the Struve meri­di­an, which was quite an impres­si­ve bit of sci­en­ti­fic work of the ear­ly 19th cen­tu­ry, cove­ring a geo­de­tic arc from the Black Sea to – exact­ly – Ham­mer­fest. The­re is the world famous polar bear club (no, I did not join) and the muse­um about the regio­nal histo­ry, main­ly focus­sing on the awful years of the second world war which brought com­ple­te des­truc­tion to the who­le area. This is why Ham­mer­fest does not have any older buil­dings.

It is easy to spend a day here.

Now we expect to lea­ve for Bear Island and Spits­ber­gen tomor­row (Satur­day).

Pho­to gal­lery Ham­mer­fest

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

Thu
28 Apr
2022

An after­noon under sail brought us yes­ter­day to Kåfjord, at the head of Alta­fjord. The­re was a cop­per mine here a long time ago, you can still see the remains in this beau­tiful win­ter and moun­tain sce­n­ery. We got a good bit of snow yes­ter­day evening!

The wea­ther is inde­ed doing fun­ny things the­se days. It will have to chan­ge a bit befo­re we can ven­ture out in the Barents Sea and set cour­se for Bear Island.

Kåfjor­den.

But we good some fair winds later so we could put the sails up again, sai­ling nor­thwards in Alta­fjord. We had the idea to visit Oks­fjord, but drop­ped that again quick­ly after a tas­te of the strong head­wind in Stjern­sund.

Mean­der under sail in Alta­fjord.

Foto gal­lery Kåfjord

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

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.