Safe Return Doubtful

Tonight the sunset returns. There will be 30 minutes before it rises again. Within 4 days the difference, the darkness will be 2 hours. With it the temperature changes and there cooler nights will be more of a feature.

There have been 80 days of midnight sun, and I’m actually quite happy they are over. The lives of the people who live this far north are dominated by the amount of daylight, especially in the summer. It isn’t rare to see people heading out for a hike at midnight.

The last two days of hot weather were due to finish today, and according to forecasts, in spectacular fashion, with warnings for lightning and torrential rain. As yet, though there is rain, that hasn’t happened.

Roja and I walked around Vasdalen lake earlier than we would otherwise have done, with the rain due at midday.

We then drove a kilometre to the port and waited in the line for the ferry, and took the 1:30 pm ferry around two fjords to the west to Sør Tverrfjord. This isn’t an island, but a ten kilometre stretch of coastline that links old fishing communities. Tverrfjord has some of the best fishing in the Arctic.

I was one of only two vehicles on the ferry, and chatted for a while to one of the crew working on the ship. He was an apprentice, and worked two weeks on, and two weeks off, living on board while working. The Captain, and First Officer, worked two weeks on, four weeks off, he told me.

My reason for this particular destination is that there is some good hiking here, and that it is away from the main tourist routes. I wasn’t sure where to use as a base, so asked at the Brygge, or hotel, in Sandland. Sandland Brygge is, oddly enough, a British operation. I say oddly, as I have come across so few British people. The owners are a half Norwegian half British family and have set their business up targeted at a British audience for sea fishing. They have eight large apartment type rooms, of which four are occupied at the moment with older British folk, and another with Latvians.

Sandland has a magnificent setting with its pristine white sand beach and the clear water of the Norwegian Sea. The rain was light enough on arrival for us to take an hour or so out to walk the beach and explore the village. Another interesting feature of the place is that for almost two years now it is home to four Russian families who have relocated and now make a living in the fishing industry.

All that waiting for a sunset, 50 days, and it’s hammering down..