Back on the Water

Mercifully, the engine started this morning, and we managed to slip out of Alta Marina early in the morning without any more dramas. We could all let out our held breath.
Really lovely to be back on the go, though it felt a bit surreal to be motoring back out Altafjorden after the sail in we had and the week long pitstop. It was cold again, but with the sun shining and coffees in hand, spirits were high! With a bit of wind we hoisted the sails and marvelled at the Genoa, now fitted correctly so we could unroll it fully and trim it properly (for context, the previous owner jammed the halyard so didn’t hoist the Genoa fully, but decided to leave it partially hoisted so there was a horrible fold at the foot of the sail), it felt like we were slowly getting the boat back to how she should be!

Our destination was a cool little anchorage on Stjernøya that is protected from all angles - handy since the weather was still a little wild. Russell’s Mum was having the time of her life finally sailing in the arctic, finding all the birds she could, though the cold did finally start to take its toll on her, so Russell and Angela did the anchoring while she warmed up inside with the heater on.

This was our first time anchoring with a stern anchor and a line to a bollard set into the rock on one of the small islands, so there was a lot of faffing around while we got all the angles right - this was made more difficult since the wind was supposed to swing almost 90° through the night. Finally we were happy and were able to enjoy the amazing scenery, surrounded by snowy mountains in a completely enclosed anchorage, all alone again. Made even more special by the snowfall.

Rune sent us a message seeing how we got on, and asking if we had a good hold on the anchor - perhaps he knew something we didn’t…Read more