First Day

What a day…We left in absolutely beautiful weather, and that kept up the whole day, with breeze coming in and out throughout the day.
As we exited the last of the fjord into the Barents, Russell went to check something and found there was water past the floorboards. In other words, we were sinking. Oh shit. Lifejackets on. We didn’t have the bilge pump on auto yet because we had been sorting electrics still, so we were extremely relieved to see the water start dropping once we switched the pump on. Cue pulling the whole stern of the boat apart to try to find where the water was literally streaming in. Keel bolts, no. Engine raw water intake, no. Stern gland, no. As we chased different possible points of entry further back, it got more and more confusing. Meanwhile up on deck, Angela had spotted whales. So Russell ducked his head up every now and then from solving the boat sinking problem to see the whales! Weird experience. Finally found the leak was from a utility hole in the stern that had been installed extremely low, and never sealed when whatever system used it was removed. Big relief! A bolt with some sealant shoved up the hole solved the problem. Unfortunately it’s a rather tight space, so Angela got the job while Russell kept the boat (kind of) steady following the swell. Russell started sweating a little when the fix started to take quite a while, and the charts were out of reach to check how far away the Russian border was…
So we didn’t sink, or cross into Russia and get arrested, and the rest of the trip went beautifully smoothly. Solving little issues and finding quirks the whole day, but that is likely going to be happening for a while! We were so lucky to have such gorgeous weather. The golden sun tracking across the Varanger peninsula with glassy water was something truly special, and as we closed in on Vardø, a pod of dolphins gave us a show.
We also received a text message from the number we had been given to ask permission to borrow a mooring in Kirkenes for a few days. He was in a little red fishing boat heading into Kiberg. He had spotted the sailing yacht and assumed it was us as we were the only sailing yacht out within a radius of several hundred kilometres. We were quite well known in Kirkenes…
We pulled into Svartnes for the evening, which turns out is a whaling port, dropped anchor, and collapsed. However, the day was not done with us yet! Just as we were about to head to bed, the northern lights decided to put on a show for us! What a way to finish the first leg of our trip along the Norwegian coast.Read more