Across to the Mainland

A relatively early start was made a lot easier with the promise of sunshine and a downwind sail, and a friend joining for a couple of days! Julie had promised to bring blue skies, but when we picked her up in Moskenes it was raining… accompanied by pretty rainbows though.
After trying not to get run over by the ferry, we set a course for Landegode 41 Nautical Miles away. A relative hop in sailing, but considering all of the upwind that we have been doing recently, this was our longest sail in a little while. We eventually sailed out from the rain enveloping Lofoten and we were rewarded with a beautiful breeze that built to 15-18 knots from the NW and finally the blue skies! It was still unreasonably cold so we had all of our wet weather gear on, but at least our faces got to feel the sun! It was a stunning, but uneventful sail for the rest of the day with lots of fun surfing down waves and soaking up an enjoyable sail - something we haven’t had for a while.

Landegode turned out to be a very beautiful spot, but rather small and shallow, so we had to be a bit frugal with how much anchor warp we put out. Russell said he was happy with how we were holding as long as the wind didn’t pick up too much, and it was forecast to be light overnight anyway…
The rest of the evening was lovely with some gin and tonics in the sun, fish curry, and of course Catan. Cold still, so as soon as the sun went behind some clouds it was inside with the heater on.
Guess what? The wind got up over night. Surprise surprise. So Russell spent most of the night awake listening to the wind and playing a little more warp out. Harder to judge the depth of the water close to rocks at night now that it’s getting darker!
Luckily our anchor held and we had a reasonably cruisey morning before heading off to Bodø for Julie’s ferry back to Moskenes. Bodø ended up being quite a nice place and there seemed to be an outdoor screen setup for the Football World Cup so we decided to stay for the evening and enjoy the shore power and supermarket the next day as well. It was going to be an upwind sail to our next stop anyway as the wind had gone back SW. Unfortunately, it started raining in the evening again, so we ended up watching the football on the yacht anyway…still, nice to be warm and dry!Read more