Sunday, 17 July 2011

July 7 - 9 Bodo - Bliksvaer

July 7th Bodo

General maintenance including changing oil in the outboard which involved approx 2 km hike to Holala opposite the Hurtigruten terminal; deep clean of the heads; SOB as ever absorbed a lot of time and attention - Quite windy but sunny most of the day - Rained as scheduled just after midnight.

 July 8th Bodo

Washing, shopping, further cleaning & SOBing. SOB now returned to original position – Hurrah. Walked to airport allowing plenty of time, to find their flight delayed by 25 mins - only 15 minute walk from boat to the terminal building but decided to sit in airport.

C,J, I & A arrived in good form and wanted to walk to Larry to stretch their legs after the flight. Decided that Albert would sleep in fore-cabin and Iris in the quarter-berth – good move as Iris does not mind sleeping in the light.

July 9th Bliksvaer

Breakfast in the cockpit


Albert in charge?

A family affair

Bliksvaer





playing on the pontoon


After Breakfast Charlo and I went to the nearest supermarket and did a final shop for fresh food. James and Iris and Albert walked round the harbour.

We left about 11.30 and as the forecast was for possibly strong SW winds we decided to go to  Bliksvaer (67⁰16.8’N 14⁰01.5E) which looked better protected. Had a lovely gentle sail over – approx 8 miles – under foresails – had lunch on the move. Anchored about 1.30p.m. and seemed secure but within a very short time a very strong squall arrived . The anchor chain extended and we gradually slid back close to the shore behind us. The anchor came up with the most enormous amount of seaweed around it so it appeared we had gradually slipped taking a large amount of kelp. We motored gingerly on – the squall was passing but we were at low tide in a very narrow and shallow channel, Round the corner we came to a very attractive village with a small pntoon. Two boats had just left and luckily there was room for us and a local took our ropes and said we could stay. The skerries are very attractive – much of the area is part of a nature reserve but the central bit of the island including quite a lot of well preserved cottages mostly used as summer homes is open to the public all year round.

The weather had cleared up completely, hot, sunny and very warm so we went for quite a long walk exploring the island. When we got back the children were playing on the jetty with James when iris slipped on the edge of the pontoon and fell in the water. James jumped in immediately and he and Charleotte got iris out very quickly. She took it amazingly well. Iniitial comments were 'what a silly thing' and ‘What a splash’.  She was quickly dried and seemed completely unfazed.

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