This was our most northerly day, with a visit to Trollfjord. Although it’s only about 2km long, this gigantic cleft in the mountains features in every Norwegian tourist brochure – it’s what people think fjords are supposed to look like.
We started off in fine form, with a nice F3-4 westerly wind: the two Swedish boats left at the same time as us, and were very satisfactorily left languishing in Sula’s wake. Ahhh… the joys of a race-trained crew! It was as if the Swedes didn’t even know that they were racing.
After about 1100 the wind died completely, so for most of the day we pottered along on motor. Trollfjord is spectacular: almost sheer walls of naked rock on one side, with a few bushy trees and bits of greenery on the other, shady bit. It looks pretty sinister even as we saw it, in blazing sunshine: on a dark autumn afternoon, or a winter-stormy night, it must be awe-inspiring. Certainly trolls must live there.
The fjord is actually shown off best when the Hurtigruten or some cruise ship is seen turning round, with bow and stern just feet from the walls. Unfortunately no such beast appeared, so you’ll have to make do with Sula – with a bit more space to spare.
On the way up to the fjord we passed a Norwegian yacht whose skipper waved cheerily to us and shouted “Welcome to Norway!” – the first time we’ve had such a reaction, and a pleasant change from feeling either ignored or just tolerated!
Trollfjord was our furthest north point – 68⁰21.888N, 014⁰56.217E. This put us about 110 miles north of the Arctic Circle, and 740 miles north of Edinburgh. We had logged 1432 miles since leaving James Watt Dock in May. Well done Sula is what I say.
After Trollfjord we made for the island of Skrova, a convenient jumping-off point for re-crossing the Vestfjord on the way back to Bodo. As it turned out there was nowhere to moor in Skrova village, a rather despondent-looking former whaling centre, so we went round the corner and anchored in a sheltered cove. We dinghied ashore and tried, with varying degrees of success, to scale the small-looking (from the sea) hills round about. The island seemed to specialise in dried moss which penetrated into all footwear, and uncrossable ravines which frustrated climbing efforts. But we ate well, on supermarket chicken because fishing failed yet again.
Scriever 