Trying to avoid the fate of captain Nemo - first leg up Lofoten.

 July 16th - 17th Røst - Sørvågen

The forecast warned for gale and heavy rain on the 17th so to avoid being stuck on small islands out in the ocean for several days more than planned I decided to continue even though I would have liked to stay longer. For the same reason I also decided to skip Værøy. Thus I had to pass Moskenesstrømmen, the maelstrom between Moskenesøy and Mosken/Værøy made infamous by Jules Verne in his novel Twenty thousand leagues under the sea and the, almost, loss of Nautilus there. 

Today however conditions was not in any shape or form made for a risky, or even unpleasant passage, completely flat, not even a tad of swell (I'm stil out in what is in essence the Norwegian sea). 

The wall of mountains of Lofoten gets really impressive when you approach from a small boat.

The harbour in Reine was full, not even feasible to tie on the outside on anybody else, so I had to continue, or more precisely returning a little to Sørvågen further west. 

Sørvågen radio started test transmission on the radio telegraph connection to Røst in 1903 as the second civilian morse code radiotelegraph in the world, official opening was in 1906. In 1946 the first radio relay communication in Norway was established between Sørvågen and Værøy and Røst. The reason for this pioneering radio communications hub here is the same maelstrom I was trying to avoid that make it difficult to establish and maintain a secure wired connection. All this can be learnt in more detail at the Sørvågen branch of the Norwegian Telecom museum.