Orca and More Rain

We started the sail from puffin island to Stø with a lovely sailing breeze and even some sunshine! Unfortunately, the breeze didn’t last (or the sunshine), but we were treated with pilot whales just before coming in to the harbour!

Stø is a picturesque harbour and the cheapest we have stayed at yet! We moored between a couple of fishing boats which made our sailboat look tiny, and opposite a Dutch couple we had met in Harstad.
We had planned to stay only one night there and head further around to beat the wind, but we’ve been feeling a little trapped in the boat with the bad weather and decided to go on a hike and sail through the bad weather the next morning. Turned out to be a great decision - the hike was beautiful (even in the rain) and we saw orca on our sail!
Made the rather rough upwind sail all worth it.

The first anchorage we had planned ended up being a bit small and too windy, so we continued a bit further. We had planned to stay in a lake-like area with a small shallow entrance we could only go through at high tide, but in the end decided that wasn’t the best idea in case it didn’t end up being sheltered we couldn’t leave whenever we wanted.. so we finally dropped anchor in a very scenic spot, but a spot we didn’t entirely trust to stay sheltered for when the wind picked up (supposedly at 2am… yay).
Our anchor had dragged on the first attempt, so not trusting our holding enough, we woke up at 1:30am and took shifts staying awake on anchor watch.

Yet another rainy day, we met a Belgian family who came by on a small boat and said hello, and moved in the evening to a spot by Tinden. Pretty spot, lots of jellyfish and beautifully sheltered for a change! I think we even managed to have coffee in the sun the next morning before taking advantage of the wind and sailing to the other side of the island and checking out a potential paragliding spot for Russell on the way.
The paragliding spot didn’t offer anywhere sheltered to anchor and more wind than there was supposed to be, but made for a delightful sail!

We anchored near Bø for the night. We were headed in the direction of Sortland since we had ordered a couple of pieces for the engine and were getting quite desperate for more methylated spirits for our stove, but we were still a days sail away so we had a rainy sail a step closer to Blokken. Another spot where the most sheltered part of the bay had cables running through it…Read more