Day 9 Værøy to Røst

Day 9/Sunday 21st July. Værøy to Røst. 33 km.
Encouraged by our success the day before we did not do any particularly careful planning for the crossing from Værøy to Røst. We assumed the distance and the corresponding five hours in the kayaks would be the biggest challenge, but five hours is a long time and even if weather was excellent when we started at about 1000 most of us put on dry suits.
As it turned out the sea state was quite variable, not much wind (5-6 m/s) but the currents created patches of quite confused and at times steep breaking waves high enough that we lost sight of each other form trough to trough.
Later we learned that the local fishermen never put out nets here, the combination of currents and waves would just move them along. They had quite some respect for this stretch of sea.
In the end the crossing was uneventful with the good weather more than compensating for the sea state.
We arrived after about four and a half hours and found ourselves a sandy beach for a long break with pancakes.
Afterwards we paddled the last few km to Røst where Karianne had arranged with Steinar Greger for us to park the kayaks on a jetty, pitch our tents in a garden and have dinner at Steinar’s pub “Skomvær kroa”.
A very good day. Tomorrow we will paddle on to Somvær, weather permitting. The forecast says ca 10 m/s against in the morning, so we plan for a late start. Which means that we will miss the ferry. So we have decided to take a rest day here at Røst on Tuesday waiting out some bad weather.Read more