Orcas ep3

July 20th Nusfjord - Nyvågar

No wind today and quite grey.

As I passed outside Stamsund the sea behind me started to "boil" and through the binoculars I could see whales. Since I was motoring it was easy to turn around in hope of getting closer. It turned out to be a pod of orcas, at least one male (with the large dorsal fin) a couple of females and some calves. This is the third time I see orcas from the boat this year. Outside Frøya in may and two days ago. Taking pictures is a little hit and miss, but I succeeded acceptably with this calf jumping.

Outside the approach to Henningsvær there skies cleared enough to give a glimpse of the mountain Rulten from the boat Rulten

I didn't believe that there would be any free spaces in Henningsvær but I decided that when being in the vicinity with a boat I should cruise the main "street" anyway. 

As expected I ended up cruising up and down the sound that the houses  of Henningsvær are concentrated around. The sound is closed off at the southern end with a mole, thus the need to go both directions.

Since there were no free spots I continued and made a last minute decision to go to Nyvågar instead of Kabelvåg. Even if there were indications that there could be some too shallow areas around the marina, which there wasn't. 

First orca passage

June 29th    Fillan - Sula

Letting the wind decide where to sail today. With wind from west that meant to north and out toward the outer island chain of Frøya became direction of choice. Tugging along on a pleasant reach orcas suddenly appeared on all sides of the boat, none very close though. I guess that the closest was around hundred meters from the boat. But even at that distance their size is impressing. Regrettably I had no long telephoto lens in the cockpit and didn't want to miss out on a second of the experience by going down below to fetch the SLR and a long lens. Thus the images is quite grainy.

As nice as the reach was, even after the orcas left (or I left the orcas) at a stage I reach the chain of islands, skerries and narrow passages that is Froan. Having decided to go to the westernmost of the fishing villages, Sula, my direction of travel became very upwind and with narrow channels and a plethora of skerries tacking back and forth felt little attractive. Thus sailing became motoring for the last ten miles.

Sula has rich fishing grounds in the ocean just outside the maze of skerries protecting the village and harbour from said ocean. Thus in the time of fishermen sailing and rowing good living could be made here. The village has been inhabited at least from around year 1300 and was used during the season for several hundred years before that. Around 1400 the population was big enough to grant building a church. And still in the 1960 it had a population of more than 500. Modernisation of the fisheries and society at large has since led to a significant decline here as with most other outlying fishing villages and today only around 50 lives here year round. 

Even here far out in the north Atlantic spring is quite lush.