Sunshine!!! Heading to the South Side of Lofoten

An early start to catch the current flowing through Raftsundet was welcomed with more dreary weather, but we were optimistic that the forecast for the next few days said it was going to be sunny, and even though we have lost all faith in weather forecasting, we needed some hope.
It was quite special motoring through this tiny gap between the islands, The view slowly got more and more dramatic as we passed through, and we enjoyed the calm water by relaxing and drinking coffee while we watched the world go by. As we exited the fjord the sun started to make promising signs, and then burst out in full force - god that felt good! Our first destination for this day was a place called Trollfjord. This is one of those instagram spots that we had heard a lot about and holy hell, did it exceed expectations. Sometimes instagram spots are instagram spots for a reason. A super narrow entrance with huge granite cliffs towering above us led us into a cauldron surrounded by jagged peaks and lush greenery. Quite jaw dropping, but there are only a few places to either tie up or anchor and these were all taken, so we tootled on out to a couple of small islands that also looked gorgeous. Just before we ducked into a shallow gap to get between the islands our engine stuttered and started sounding super funky. Straight into Neutral we were dreading what might be wrong now…First thing to check the prop and we both breathed a sigh of relief finding a big bunch of seaweed wrapped around our propeller. Easy fix with the dinghy and the boat hook, then we could get back to enjoying the scenery!
After checking out one spot that wasn’t going to work, we pulled into an alternative that just might be the most idyllic anchorage we’ve been in so far. We set the anchor out the little channel and solved our swing room problem with a stern line to a bollard set into the rock (these are becoming more and more abundant which is nice), and then proceeded to pull pretty much the entire boat apart to get everything airing in the sun! Over 2 weeks of bad weather meant that basically everything inside the boat was damp.
So after settling down in our nice, sunny little bay, we finally had the weather to enjoy the gin and tonic we had bought back in Harstad. Life felt good again!Read more