18) Harstad to Sjøvegan

It all started so promising. Forecast. Sunshine. Cloudless sky. Northwesterly breeze. Up mainsail in the harbour, turn around and unfurl the foresail, sail out of the harbour and stop the engine. That must be the shortest enginerun this year. For about an hour all was quite perfect. Got the windpilot working, (should be a short video here, but all attempts to upload it have failed, sorry!), and could at last stop the autopilot. Bliss!

Then the clouds started to appear, and then they crept down the mountainsides, and then the wind changed in both direction and strength. Waves increasing, very choppy. Now almost closehauled. Much spray. Wet. Stow windpilot. Steer self. More wind. Reef main. Even more wind. Second reef. Roll in foresail to half size. Still doing over six knots. View now of waves and spray only. Good things, digital maps and GPS, aren’t they? Found waypoint at the end of a fjord and turned into it. Wind and waves now aft and just as strong. Rolypoly. Next waypoint at a steep mountainside and turned again. Waves tamed. Wind still following us. View returns. Under a bridge. Turned west into broad fjord, with mountains all around, and no-cloud sunshine. Very comforting and warming. Wind now very fickle, sometimes ahead, sometimes aft, sometimes not at all. Engine helped. Even the gulls tumbled about. Last turn into a broad, much more friendly fjord, almost a very large bay, and sail to Sjøvegan. Stow sails. Where is the guest harbour? Charts and chartplotter no help. Google Earth showed a long wall where the portside pole marker should have been. And Lo! behind the wall, a long pontoon. No other boats. Tie up.

Best day’s sailing so far, with all the variations. Time to relax. Food. Snooze.

Alls well!