The Fjord of Trolls

Yes, Trollfjord. The fjord of trolls, I guess. A tourist destination, nonetheless, due to its beauty. So much so that the regional ferry, the Hurtigruten, and cruise ships divert into this two-kilometer cleft while on their runs.

As you enter the fjord, the waterway narrows to just over a hundred yards wide. The vertical cliff faces leap out of the water and tower over the boat, while wispy waterfalls cascade from the heights in a series of steps until they reach the sea. Carried on the wind are the songs of unseen birds; perhaps it’s just wishful longing on my part, but one song heard several times sounded suspiciously like that of the canyon wren.

Three-quarters of the way in, the fjord widens a bit and the walls slip back away from the water, enabling one to see the high peaks and snowfields that feed the waterfalls. One creek enters the fjord at its head, beside an improbable home and what looks to be a small hydropower facility. Also improbably, many years’ worth of morons have painted their names and nationalities and boat names on the cliff walls, the graffiti as out of place here as a condom vending machine in the Vatican.

Also improbable about the whole of this Norway experience thus far is the dearth of wildlife. Since our sea-mammal welcome to Bodo, we’ve seen a few breeds of seabirds and little else. No whales or dolphins, no seals, few visible songbirds and certainly no megafauna like wolves or mountain sheep or bear. I know I compare Norway to Alaska too often (wrongly and unfairly, I admit), but knowing that such animals don’t even exist in the landscape lessens the experience. It’s as though there’s one piece missing smack dab in the middle of the jigsaw puzzle, and even though you correctly placed 9,999 of the 10,000 pieces, the picture is an imcomplete one.

We did see half a dozen sea eagles as we left Lillemolla this morning. They launched from the rocks along the shore as we passed (they seem to be much more skittish than the bald eagles back in Alaska) and in no time at all soared to great heights, circling on the updrafts in front of the island’s cliffs until they were just large specks on the cloudy sky.

Now we’re idling at the head of the fjord. A handful of guests have gone ashore for a short hike while another handful are fishing from the dinghy. I don’t know what the current game plan is but I’m hopeful we’ll do something to observe this evening’s solstice. I always try to mark the solstices and equinoxes, no matter where I am; it’s the last part of my so-called Zen Taoist New Testament pagan belief structure and part of my insistence that, regardless of ideology, race or nationality, we are all still human animals and part of this self-contained life-support system we call “the universe” and “Earth.” And the summer solstice is especially noteworthy here in the land of all-night winter darkness: having the all-too-brief light present 24 hours a day is worth celebrating.

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What is the Sound of One Chain Dragging?

It’s the day of the summer solstice (1816 local time), and as you can probably guess from the time, I’m on the 4-5am anchor watch. We’re in a lovely little anchorage off the south shore of an island called Lillemolla. There are half a dozen smaller islets that form a ring of natural shelter at the foot of thousand-foot cliffs. Sea eagles work the area, casually gliding in the breezes beneath the cliff wall. And off to the west, the city of Svolvaer (Lofoten’s capital) is visible several miles distant.

We anchored last night just before midnight in a fresh easterly wind beneath a light drizzle. In the past four hours, the rain has departed, the cloud cover has risen and the wind has swung 180 degrees to the west. As a result, Polar Bear is in the process of swinging too, so anchor watch consists of monitoring the depth meter and two different GPS units, along with a couple of visual points on the island, to make sure we keep enough water under the keel.

The peace and (sort of) quiet at this hour is delightful. It’s not as quiet as one might think: the snoring from every single quarter of the boat is staggering in its volume. How anyone gets any sleep with another human being near them is beyond me. And given the brisk breeze, I’m sitting in the cabin as I type, so the aural assault is relentless.

But the sound that’s interesting right now is that of the chain dragging as Polar Bear slowly swings to a new position downwind. You’ll hear a gust in the rigging, hear the water pressure increase on the steel hull, and then the sound of the links tumbling across the seafloor. It’s a slow process, slow enough that we’ll likely be safe over the remaining hour-plus before we raise the anchor at 6am and head to Trollfjord…

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Dateline: Nusfjord, Norway

The village of Reine in the Lofoten Islands

19 June
2045
We motored the few miles from Å this morning. Got an 8am start while the Scots slept; we would have sailed — the wind was great — but on that angle of sail Polar Bear would have heeled over at a nice, sharp 45 degrees or so…and all of the Scots on the port side of the boat would have rolled right out of their bunks.

Our arrival was observed by everyone in this picture-postcard village. They all turned out to watch Boogie maneuver the 72-foot beast of a boat into an insanely narrow harbor. I’d have never tried it, not with the narrow waterway, fishing/tour boats already tied up on one side and a shallow spot right in front of where we wanted to tie up. But credit where credit is due: the boy pulled it off.

The fishing village-turned-living museum of Nusfjord

Upon arrival, everyone took off to explore the village. It’s actually an ex-fishing village that has been preserved as a tourist destination and historical spot, complete with refurbished fisherman’s cabins you can rent, tours you can take and videos of the area’s history you can watch. All for a price, of course; and in Norway, the price is quite steep. According to the young guys working in the bar, there are 35 residents — up from 16 a year ago.

While the now-awake Scots dispersed for an afternoon of kayaking or fishing, I threw on a pair of swim trunks that looked like a painting by the bastard child of Jackson Pollock and Gauguin (but they’re the lightest shorts I have) and my Keen hiking sneakers and took off up the one road into Nusfjord for a run. I went about five miles (turned around at the 3-plus kilometer mark) in 41 minutes and felt surprisingly good…not bad for having not run since February in San Diego and for the weather being as hot as it was. And bonus! My knee only ached during and after the run.

I got back to the boat and wandered over the grass-covered rock outcropping to which we were tied (visible on the left in the video I hope to post) and, after much waffling, dove my hot, tired, sweaty ass into that icy fjord. To be honest, it wasn’t THAT cold — bearable but not mindlessly comfortable, cold but not frigid — and about what I expected. Made my legs and feet feel better, that’s for sure, and cleaned the muck of the run right off.

Then I took ‘er easy in the afternoon, sippin’ a beer in the sun on the restaurant’s deck while I got caught up on the world via my laptop. And while I pondered a bunch there, getting sunburned here at the top of the world, I believe I’ll keep this post to a travelogue. There will be time for philosophizing later on.

PS: Tried to upload a video I took from the bow as we entered the harbor at Nusfjord but Blogger won’t have any of it. I’ll try it on my Facebook page.

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