(From Narvik to Narvik – a week in Lofoten, Ofoten and Vestrålen)
I lived most of my life between 0° and 7°N. I
have known this fact off the top of my head since I was about 10, possibly
earlier. Having just looked it up, I now know that I lived most of the first
twenty years of my life at 3°8´N. In twenty years, I ventured past 7°N on one
single occasion. Perhaps it was because I lived so close to the Equator that
the northern and southern latitudes fascinated me, albeit in an abstract,
detached kind of way. Of course, I quickly left this fascination behind as I
grew up. After all abstract and detached fascinations can only be sustained for
so long.
That fascination has, however, been given a new breath of life with the trip to Kiruna earlier this year. Crossing the Arctic Circle (and I have a T-shirt declaring precisely that!) unleashed my whole Northern Fascination. I have had to stop myself from checking where the northern most point in Europe is, otherwise I suspect that I will have to find my way thither. In any case, when we set off on this Super Duper Mega Road Trip, it was always going to be significant to me where our northern most point was going to be. As it turned out, it was significant for a whole other set of reasons and it was only afterwards when we were heading back south that I realised that we had reached our northern most point. This was Day 15 of the trip.
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| Our boat |
When we woke in the morning, there was no trace
of the howling winds of the night before. The sea, as far as we could see from
our campsite, was as calm as one could hope for on the Norwegian Sea. A rose,
by any other name, is after all still the Atlantic. And from what I have been
told, one cannot reasonably expect the great Atlantic Ocean to be calm. Anyways, as we packed up our tent
and headed off to the Arctic Whale Tours office, we were confident that the boat
would in fact leave port. And so it did. After some time queuing to pay and to get
our “boarding passes”, then more time waiting while the rest of the queue made
payment and received, in turn, their boarding passes, we stepped on board the
boat and off the sailed.
We had fortified ourselves with seasickness
medication before we boarded. In fact, sea-sickness medication was given out at
the counter upon payment. At 800+ NOK per person for the trip, I suppose they
could throw in a tablet or two… We had already heard about the horrors of sea
sickness on the tour from a kid we met in our little kitchen the evening
before. Of course, I usually do take a tablet against seasickness if I know I
am going to be on a boat for an extended duration, so I was planning to take
something anyway. Then we met this kid, as I said, in our little kitchen. His
tale of his experience on the trip began with how his dad (whom he on board
with, his mum having for some reason decided to skip the tour and spend the day
waiting for them at the campsite instead) spent the whole trip lying
incapacitated below deck, emerging only for a few minutes at a time whenever a
whale was spotted. And he was, according to our young friend, not the only one.
Then, when they give out seasickness medication at the counter, you know the wise thing to do is to take the
damn thing. Although, after some deliberation, I decided against taking the
tablet they gave, which I did not recognised, and took instead the tried and
tested (by me, at least) Novamin, which I had with me.
As we set off, adrenaline was already coursing through
my veins before we lost sight of the harbour, in the hopeful anticipation of
spotting an orca. Yes, the whale called killer. Having seen the movie “Killer
Whale” at a child, which I now know to have contained quite a few false facts,
I have held a fascination for these great creatures. Anyone having read more
than one of these pages and those who know me, will probably realise that I
have a number of “fascinations” There are many a thing which I have a “thing”
for. The killer whale is one of them. Denied the opportunity for a killer whale
safari, it being off-season, the best thing that could happen on this tour, as
far as I was concerned, was to spot an orca. This hope, I harboured silently. I
breathed not a word to MTC^ because talking too much about something you hope
will happen merely serves to ensure that it will not happen. I am superstitious
that way. In any case, this unarticulated hope was mainly fuelled by two
things. Firstly, when I called to make a booking for the trip, I was told by
the guy on the phone that orcas have been spotted on tours in the previous
month. But as it was not possible to predict where they will be in the wide
open Atlantic, sightings were very much dependant on chance. He was quick to
emphasise that none were spotted in the two weeks immediately preceding my
call. Nevertheless, they were out there. Secondly, our young friend from the
kitchen the night before saw three orcas while he was out on the boat. One,
according to our young friend, came 2 metres from the boat. His mother rolled
her eyes disbelievingly at this, but as she was, with both feet safely on land,
50 miles away from where the boat was at the time, she was not in a position to
challenge the accuracy of his declaration. Leaving aside the questionable
distance estimates, the fact remains that there were killer whales in our bit
of the Atlantic one day ago. Of course, they could travel a long way in 24
hours, so it was not a guarantee. MTC was not pleased to hear our young
friend´s tales of killers. To him, it was setting the stage for disappointment.
He had not been told of what the guy on the phone said about killer whales
being in the waters and therefore did not expect to spot any. He would have
been perfectly happy to have just seen some of the guaranteed sperm whales and
nothing else. But having heard our young friend´s tales, even with a dozen
sperm whales doing synchronised swimming, the absence of an orca was going to
be disappointing.
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| Some of the many birds at Anda |
The first part of the tour, and the reason I
chose the Arctic Whale Tours tour over the so-called original Moby Dick tour,
was a stop by Anda Island. Anda Island is a nature reserve within sight of Stø
harbour and home to several species of birds and seal colonies. Now birds in
general do not fall into the category of things I have a fascination for,
although bird inevitably feature rather significantly in the photos I take. This
is simply because they are everywhere and look pretty in photos. The birds
which I can identify and name can probably be counted on one hand. There are
however several bird species in particular which I do have a fascination for.
One of them is the puffin, which I think are absolutely adorable, but which I
have never seen, and most importantly, which lives on Anda Island!
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| Harbour seals |
As we approached Anda, the boat slowed down and
bobbed close to the island and various birds and seal colonies were pointed out
to us. I planted myself at the bow of the ship to be optimally placed to take
photos from either side of the boat, as occasion arises. And yes, I saw the
dear little puffins and they were as adorable in real life as I expected. They
are so cute! After many minutes at Anda, we powered on towards the site where
we were expecting to see whales. It was then that I began to appreciate the
Novamin we took. Lost in pursuit of the perfect puffin photo (below, which
incidentally, I did not get until later) I did not notice that the bobbing on
the surface at Anda wreaked havoc on some people´s internal equilibrium. Barely
fifteen minutes after leaving port, there were already several people with sickly
green faces, leaning over the railings. I can only imagine that for these
people, the remaining 5 hours on the boat were hell.
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| Puffin! I love these little guys! |
Anyway, the spot we were heading was over Bleik
Canyon, an underwater canyon on the edge of the continental shelf. This canyon
brings nutrient filled cold waters up from the depths to the shallows which
results in large plankton blooms. This is turn lures in fish and squid. And
squid, as Herman Melville told us, forms the main diet of the sperm whales.
That is apparently why the sperm whales sightings are guaranteed: because there
are always some there at the entrance of Bleik Canyon. When we got to there, we
were told that according to the captains handy hydrophone, which enables him to
hear the clicking sounds made by the whales underwater, there was indeed at
least one whale in the waters below us. All we had to do, was wait. All eyes
were glued to the surface of the water, waiting, hoping to spot a spout. After
several minutes of seeing nothing, the sense of heightened anticipation eased
somewhat, and people, while still looking out at the sea, began to relax a bit.
And then all of a sudden, right at the spot I was absentmindedly staring at –
there she blew!
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| There she blows! |
Although in this case, it was really a “he” who blew.
Apparently all the sperm whales in the area at that time of the year were male.
Anyhow, he logged about on the surface for a few minutes, catching his breath
it seems, after having been down at the depths for about half an hour or more.
Then he swam around for a bit more while we followed, 80 to 100 metres behind
him so as not to stress him out. Eventually, we saw the arch of his back, the
dorsal fin and lastly, the long awaited fluke. Then, we all sat back and waited for
the next surfacing.
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| The dorsal fin - I have many photos like this. |
Again, there was much riding the waves on the surface at this point, as we hovered above the whales while they were underwater, and as we bobbed along behind them as they were on the surface. Being completed focused on chasing the perfect shot probably also helped to ward up seasickness, for this I am eternally grateful. The earlier sickly green faces turned an even more ghastly shade and most of their owners were now no longer capable of standing and leaning against anything, and were instead slumped along on either side of the boat, clinging desperately to the railing. If their expressions were any indication, they were probably thinking that death at that moment would be the sweetest of releases. Eventually we were told by the guides on board that because there were too many seasick people on board, we would be heading home. But, not before waiting for another two surfaces and passing the hydrophone around so people could listen to the clicking of the whales. That took at least another 45 minutes. Those poor people…
Anyway, we eventually headed back towards Stø at
full speed. Many people retired below deck. MTC and I remained on deck enjoying
the breeze and intermittent sunshine. Either because the seasickness medication
only lasts for so long or because the many hours of bobbing around on the
surface finally took its toll, I started feeling the inklings of the beginnings
of some discomfort in the seaworthiness department. Staying in the fresh air
was definitely the preferable option. Also I was secretly waiting and hoping.
And sure enough, after a while the engine cut out. Certain that this meant that
the captain had spotted something, I frantically scanned the water´s surface, hoping
to spot the tall black fin I desperately longed to see. Until finally, there is
was…
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| The tall black fin, I so longed to see. |
One of my favourites of all God´s great
creatures. Initially, all we could see was only the tall black fin a fair
distance ahead of us. I watched spellbound as it disappeared beneath the waves
and appeared again at almost regular intervals. It seemed as though he (we were
told that this was a young bachelor) was coming closer and closer towards the
boat. I suppose the reality was that we got closer to him. He obviously tolerated
our presence else he would have swam away. Whales are sometimes curious enough
to come over to check out boats, which unfortunately sometimes make them easy victims
of whale hunters, but let´s not get into that right now. To my great pleasure,
closer and closer he came. He also came further and further out of the water, until eventually his distinctive white markings were visible to us. That, was undoubtedly the highlight of
my entire whale watching experience. If only it were easier to get to Stø, I
would be booking a trip one a killer whale tour asap. |
| Gorgeous! |
As we approached Stø harbour, we went below deck
to retrieve our belongings. It was then that I noticed a screen showing a map
and the coordinates of our current location, as well as the furthest point of
our trip. Once off the boat, we got into our car and drove until we we stopped for the night, at the same spot outside Narvik where we camped on Day 9.
^ My Travel Companion.
Day 1 (Sun) –Visited with Anya and Daniel at Daniel´s parents´ place at Sandsjöfors. Stayed in the summer cabin at Uppsjön
Day 2 (Mon) – Campsite in Stockholm
Day 3 (Tue) – Campsite in Stockholm
Day 4 (Wed) – Sala Silvergruva, Övre Hedesundsfjärden (the site of one million mosquitoes)
Day 5 (Thu) – Close to Hällan (the imaginary horse)
Day 6 (Fri) – Campsite close to Docksta
Day 7 (Sat) – Via Ferrata, dinner at Bjuröklubb, camped somewhere along the E45 between Storforsen and Jokkmokk (broken tent incident)
Day 8 (Sun) – Crossed the Artic Circle, Jokkmokk, Gällivaare and Kiruna. Stuga at Alttajärvi, about 20km south of Kiruna
Day 9 (Mon) – Kiruna, golf at Björkliden, crossed the border into Norway, camped on the edge of the fjord a few kilometres outside Narvik.
Day 10 (Tue) – Lødingen, Ofoten
Day 11 (Wed) – Ballstad, Lofoten
Day 12 (Thu) – Drove to Å and back to Ballstad, Lofoten. First Impressions of Norway
Day 13 (Fri) – Ballstad, Lofoten (diving day)
Day 14 (Sat) - drove north to Stø, windy rocky campsite.
Day 15 (Sun) - whale watching tour with Arctic Whale Tours from Stø, camped outside Narvik at Day 9 spot
Day 14 (Sat) - drove north to Stø, windy rocky campsite.
Day 15 (Sun) - whale watching tour with Arctic Whale Tours from Stø, camped outside Narvik at Day 9 spot
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