Still Marooned

The light Arctic morning roused me from sleep first yet again, to the realisation that I do really quite like bunk-beds, though for no particular reason I can put my finger on. After the usual morning procedures, we all convened at the breakfast table. Today’s new breakfast experience was fish eggs (a form of Caviar) on bread. This following Nina’s statement to me over Skype when we were still in Oslo that “fish for breakfast is just for tourists”; for my money though fish eggs count as fish.

Though the wind was up and a light rain was falling we headed out for a morning stroll, down to the family’s boat house which stood near the cove where the boat was moored. Inside were all manner of objects brought to the valley by the currents: fishing nets, ships tackle, floats, shipping containers and driftwood being particularly abundant. I was somewhat ashamed to see that many of the wayward containers (which were stacked so high and deep that it was difficult to ascertain just how many there were) bore the marks of various British ports. I was asked what “unauthorised use of this container is an offence” means. I explained that it means using these without permission is illegal, which led to speculation that perhaps Tore is a criminal mastermind; I concluded though that “its illegal in Britain... but we’re not in Britain, are we?”.

Much fun was had having Chris and I guess the purpose of obscure and archaic marine equipment; mostly connected in some way with fishing.

Later on Chris and I took a walk on our own down the marshy-trail toward the lighthouse, having it seems tired out our hosts (we are generally considered quite an energetic pair).

Spring and autumn are the peak times for avalanches, so heading up the peaks for a good view is not a wise idea. Fortunately for us we found a ridge sufficiently separated from the peak that we could reasonably safely clamber up to get a bit of elevation. The view of the still somewhat distant light house, we elected not to proceed further, as time was approaching for the ferry and we thought it best to head back to see whether the waters had calmed enough for us to return to the main land.

Although the more waterlogged parts of the trail are spanned with duck-boards (this blog’s favourite sort of board) the trail was fairly heavy going. As we returned to the cottage, the tops of the surrounding peaks had disappeared into vortices of swirling mist; the weather out on the island is remarkably changeable.

Upon our return, we found that conditions were still too choppy for us to leave. With time pressure off once again, we quickly relaxed. I fished out my folding tools, in an attempt to repair my the time-lapse-control /remote cable unit for my camera. Ironically the head of the screwdriver on my tiny Leatherman style tool wasn’t quite tiny enough for the task in hand, and I was soon offered the tools and assistance of Tore. Behind Tore’s red sea cottage stands another building, hitherto unmentioned in this blog. These days it houses the lavatory (none of the cottages have them inside), an old-style tractor (circa 1950s) and a very well equipped workshop. The array of tools includes a lathe, angle-grinder, electric welding machine, various electric drills and hand tools of every description, so naturally a tiny screwdriver was no problem. Once the casing was off I quickly diagnosed that one of the three copper wires that connects the timer to the camera had developed a break. Soon a multi-meter was produced and we checked each of the wires. The fault lay in the white cable.

So began the process of stripping off sections of the cable housing to chop out the faulty section of wire. To salvage the maximum amount of cable we chopped and retested the wires in short segments, but when dinner time rolled around we were still searching for the break.

Dinner was of fish; very apt for a Norwegian island. This time both the fish and the potatoes required ‘peeling’ at the table. After my first portion Nina decided that I lacked the requisite level of deftness for the more challenging pieces of fish, so picked a cut with few bones out for me; leaving both of us open to much mockery (for ‘mothering’ and being ‘mothered’ respectively). I pointed out that Nina had good reason to look after me. I have the plane tickets, so if she loses me then she would be stuck with Chris.

After dinner Tore and Arnbourg (Nina’s mum) retired for their customary nap, leaving me to complete repairs to the timer, without Tore’s watchful assistance. With some more aggressive pruning of the cable, I had soon removed the faulty segment leaving me with the task of putting the unit back together. It has been some years since I’ve been called upon to solder a printed circuit board, so I was extremely pleased when I had secured each of the wires and the device was working properly once again. Upon screwing the unit shut, I spied an opportunity for mischief. Nina is not entirely fond of having her picture taken, so I rested the camera on the table such that the lense was trained on her. I then made a successful test of the remote shutter release; then again and again. Before so very long though, my wide grin tipped her off that something was up and realisation soon dawned. Still I had gotten away with it.

The repair complete we headed back up to the blue cottage, this time to watch ‘Tangled’; another beautifully rendered piece of animation and musical entertainment from the Disney studios. I have always preferred to watch films with company, as I often find my companions reactions to be as interesting as the film its self.

By the time the film was done the cloud cover on the horizon had dissipated enough to allow a gorgeous orange evening sun to shine through, so I decided to head down to the shore with my camera.

The powerful waves that kept us here made a soothing sound, and were pretty enough that I was willing to stand in the full force of the wind, on the outer edge of the island to photograph them. I was very pleased that I had brought along my mountain biking gloves, which are warm but their leather palms still allow me to manipulate the controls on the camera with reasonable dexterity. But for those gloves, I would doubtless have frozen my fingers off in the process.

The orange sun made some wonderful silhouettes... this was an opportunity that couldn’t be missed. This happens to be one of the advantages of my 'solid state' SLR camera; because there is no mirror box it is possible to line-up shots which include the sun (as the AMOLED view finder can't pass its full brilliance through to the user). The trade off is that the camera is often very difficult to focus at night, as the loss of fidelity between the optics and view finder makes the fine detail very hard to see)

Looking back inland the valley had been bathed in a beautiful orange glow.

The choice of blue for this cottage had originally been controversial, but the fullness of time seems to have proved it a good choice.

The sun takes a long time to set at this time of year (by mid July at this latitude it doesn’t set at all; the so called ‘midnight sun’). We took to opportunity to have an extended play with the Frisbee, although the wind was very high. Nina and Chris took great delight in making impossible throws that sent me into the long grass searching for the disk time after time. Our heavy winter walking boots are not the most conducive to this sort of sport.

Late in the session, after a particularly amusing game of “Dan in the middle” it occurred to us that the experience would be further enhanced through the addition of music. We hunted up a ‘boom box’ style stereo and the necessary cables to connect it to Nina’s Mp3 player (some variant to the iPod). Just as we got the first track going we turned back toward the shore, to see a think bank of cloud rolling in. Moments later, just as we finished getting everything inside again, snow began to fall; a reminder that yes, this really is the Arctic.

We opted instead for a 4-way game of ‘war’ a card-game in which players showing a matching card must each try and grab a matchbox played in the centre of the table. It must surely be amongst the most energetic card games going.

I feel this account would not be complete without mention of the plumbing arrangements here on the island. Water is pumped direct from a spring in the hills behind the cottage and provides cool, tasty water (which Nina claims is the best tasting in the world, however as she hasn’t tasted water from all possible sources we feel that this claim isn’t entirely valid). The trade off for the fantastic spring drinking water is that there is no sewer on the island; Norway has strict regulations to prevent contamination of the water (whose clarity I have remarked upon several times). As crass a topic as it is, the account of our stay would seem incomplete without mention of the lavatory. The toilet is an amazing electrical contraption known as a ‘Cinderella’; rather than flushing waste away, it burns it to ash in a chamber in the bottom of the unit. This I am assured represents a great improvement over the old bucket approach, which all present were forbidden to speak of.

This place does odd things to one’s perception of time. Time seems to pass quickly, but the fact that it never really gets dark is also tricky to deal with. The picture above was taken during the darkest part of the night; about 00:45.Læs mere