Paddle Posts

Yesterday I made it to Rome with no problems and found Julie at the hotel. She had made reservations for dinner at a really neat place not too far from the hotel. Great food and we were outside in our own little bubble with candles and wine. Very romantic.

We took the overnight ferry from Italy proper to Sardinia and arrived at 0630. The passage was very calm and Julie and I had a very nice cabin on the outside. Marco had picked us up at our hotel and then we drove to a town near the ferry where we picked up Lidia. After that it was on to the ferry and then a couple beers and I fell asleep with no problems.

After finding our way off the ferry we headed outside of Olbia to a good paddling spot with a short stop for breakfast along the way. By 0900, we were on the water 😛.

Our launching beach was beautiful with a long curved sandy shoreline just like you might imagine for Sardinia. Since the season is just getting underway there we’re not too many people even for a Sunday.

Some more pictures from this morning paddle.

We did about ten miles of beautiful paddling and got back to the beach in time to have a nice lunch and for Marco to head to the airport to pick up Lou. After her retrieval Marco took her out for a warmup paddle and Julie and I started loading kayaks back on the trailer.

With all of us and our gear loaded into the van we started a one our drive north into the mountains and a fantastic, rustic agrotourismo which will be our base for the next five nights.

The past two weeks, I’ve been wearing down parkas and paddling in my dry suit. Now it’s shorts and paddle shirts. What a way to start out our Sardinia adventure.

We are quite a way up into the mountains off an old dirt road. Our hosts are terrific people and the county is beautiful. We had an excellent dinner and called it a night.

As we got closer to Norway, the weather started to improve. I was up at 0400 and went up to the pilot house for the last watch into Norway. Siggi or Anuka always had the helm and when any of us were on watch with them we were “gofers”.

So that’s it for the North Atlantic traverse adventure. We ended up sailing a lot and not paddling enough but it was great regardless. I’ll make my way to the Air BnB for the night and catch the plane in the morning. I don’t have to much flying to do. I fly to Rome and meet up with Julie. Together we’ll spend time kayaking with Marco in Sardinia. That’s the next adventure and I need to get those posts completed in the next couple days so I’m caught up before heading out again.

Thanks to Matt, Siggi and Anuka for organizing this trip. Check out www.expeditionengineering.com for other great paddle adventures.

We thought it might be possible for a paddle when we got up this morning but no go. The wind was up too much. We did find a cruise ship on the other side of the pier this morning and we’re told we had to move our boat for some sort of security reason. Go figure, the harbor master told us to tie up there. Anyway, we undid the lines and tied up on the other side of the harbor.

After some great pancakes by Siggi, we spent most of the morning taking apart and stowing the folding kayaks and washing dry suits. With that all done, I wandered around town, did a little shopping and then found Chippies. I had a great lunch of, you guessed it, fish and chips. Really good!

After lunch, most of the group were out hiking around and that made a perfect time to walk around to where we initially tied up. The cruise ship had put one of their mooring lines on top of ours around the cleat so we had to leave it this morning until after the cruise ship left. I was able to get the big coil of rope over my shoulder and bring it back to our boat. With that done, it was time to find the local ice cream shop. Yum.

We’ll have dinner around eight and then get underway for Norway. We will try to skirt most of the foul weather that is in the forecast. We’ll see how well that works. Tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night at sea and then we’ll be in Bergen. This has been a fantastic trip and one to remember but it’s not over yet.

The next day was a blur. We had some pretty big seas and rock and rolling again. Most everyone was hanging out in the bunks. We were lucky to miss the biggest parts of the storm.

Luck is holding for today. We have another beautiful day. We got underway from Scalloway with the game plan in place. We will motor around the southern tip of the Shetland Islands and then north up the east coast. The goal is to get to the best “jumping off” point for the. Crossing to Norway. All this because of a forecast of a sizable storm that we’ll have to deal with as we head east from the Shetlands.

We got underway with beautiful conditions.

Our first stop will be the ancient Jarlshof Prehistoric and Norse Settlement . This is an amazing place with several layers of civilization. It contains more than 4,000 years of human settlement in the same location. Neolithic people first settled at this site in Shetland around 2700 BC, and it remained in use until the AD 1600s. Discoveries made here include oval-shaped Bronze Age houses, an Iron Age broch and wheelhouses, Norse long houses, a medieval farmstead, and a laird’s house dating from the 1500s.

After we all got back on board the BYR, we set sail and rounded the southern point and then headed north to the town of Lerwick. This will be our “jumping off point” for the crossing to Norway.

We did get to pass prehistoric Broch of Mousa along the way. A broch is a prehistoric stone tower and there are several in the Shetland Islands.

That’s it for this day of making our way around the Shetland Islands.

Slightly overcast and no wind with calm seas. Today we paddle and circumnavigate the island. The island is full of caves to paddle in, arches and cuts in the rocks. We have also discovered that there is a subterranean passage we will see if we can find. Not much to say as the pictures tell the story.

So here’s the deal. We all had brought our headlamps and we had VHF radios. Matt went thru in his double first and let us know on VHF that it was good to go. I was next. What you don’t see in the picture above is that there is a pretty good sized swell going into the passage. The overall distance inside is close to a football field in length.

I popped on my headlamp after checking to see that is was on and headed inside. The outside light helps until you get to the first corner and then it disappears. So here I am rounding the corner, sloshing up and down with the swell and current and things are getting very dark. I still had my dark sunglasses on because they are prescription. So I pulled the glasses down in hopes to see better since I was unable to see anything at all, pitch black. Turns out my headlamp was on a very low setting and not helping at all. Pretty weird feeling being in a kayak, in a tunnel with swell and current and not being able to see anything. So, I started messing with the headlamp to make it go to bright. As luck would have it, it came on very bright right off the bat. But, go figure, as soon as I could see my surroundings, there was a wall right in front of me, like within a couple feet of my bow and the current was pushing hard. I had a brief thought of slamming the wall, going over and having to roll up inside the tunnel. Nope, not a good idea so some hard paddling and I made it into the center of the passage. Around the next bend I could start seeing light from the end and paddled hard. Once outside I could relax a bit. Pretty exciting for sure. Lesson learned – make sure your headlamp is on bright mode BEFORE going into a long subterranean passage. No pictures from inside the passage – too much going on to take any.

Papa Stour, what can I say – it has to be one of the neatest places I’ve ever paddled – what fun for sure.

Time to load the kayaks and get underway with our destination being Scalloway. We need to make progress heading around the south end of the Shetlands as the weather is not looking good for our final crossing to Norway.

We had a beautiful sail to Scalloway with nice seas, light winds and overcast sky’s.

OK, that’s it for this day. We’ll spend the night here and get underway in the morning to round the south end of the Shetlands and head north on the east side.

All I can say is “what a fantastic crossing!” Nice wind, minimal wave action and all pushing us in the right direction. We pulled into the little island of Papa Stour. There is a small cove that has one pier and we got lucky to find it empty so we were able to tie up there. Here are pics for the day.

So that’s it for a great crossing and landing in the Shetland Islands.

It just doesn’t get any better. I was topside around eight to find another gorgeous sunny day. The weather has been amazing even for the locals. This morning I explored town a little more and found a great book on the Faroe Islands so the will be my one purchase. It’s almost noon and the plan is to get underway for the Shetland Islands around one.

The wind is looking good and we’ll see what the sea state is when we make our way out of the Faroe Islands. The crossing is expected to be about 30 hours.

We were all up early and into our dry suits at 0630. It was another perfect morning, sunny, very light breeze and warm. Matt asked where we should paddle and I told him that we needed to go out to the finger. He asked if I was going to go solo again and explore other areas. He told me later that when I told him no, that I would paddle with the group that he thought something might be up. And he was correct. We all paddled out to the finger and the group was able to discover the arches I had found yesterday. Everyone had a great time paddling around in there. Then it was a beeline back to the boat to load the kayaked and get underway for our next mooring location.

We are on our way. It’s sunny, no clouds and a light breeze. It could not get any better. We have the tidal current with us and are motoring along and about 12 knots which is great. We should make it to todays destination around one this afternoon.

We pulled into the capital of the Faroe Islands, Torshavn, back on the island of Streymoy and tied up right next to the original part of town which is several hundred years old. The town is actually much older but those buildings no longer exist.

After getting the boat secure it was into town to check it out and have a few beers. We all hiked around town, I found ice cream again so all is good!

Another couple of beers on the way back to the boat and then dinner and I called it a day.

I was up early and went topside to check out the conditions. Another great day. A light breeze and hardly a cloud in the sky. The locals we have talked to have all said we are very lucky. The weather is mostly windy and rainy here so Mother Nature is shining on us again. The plan is to motor over to another fjord this morning and then paddle and hike a bit. Here are some pictures along our route to the next town.

We had a great trip around to our next destination, Miovagur on Vagar, to tie up. After getting all settled, the whole bunch minus me, went on a hike to the lake and waterfall that we saw on our way around.

I on the other hand got my kayak in the water and went out exploring. I made my way out to the finger and headed across the fjord to the point on the other side. I set a time limit and if I did not make it across by my limit I would turn around. Everything is so big out here that judging distances from the kayak is quite difficult. I was looking at making it to a cave on the other side. When I thought I was a little over 3/4 of the way across I was almost at my time limit so I changed course and headed up the fjord for a little and than turned and headed back towards the finger. Funny thing, later in the evening when I checked my paddle tracks I discovered that I had only gone a little over halfway across before turning around. The distance across was a lot more than it looked like and I had a good current against me. I would have needed another hour to make it to the other side. Regardless, it was a fantastic paddle out and back. And I did come across a very large seal in the surface chowing down on something big.

I had a fantastic paddle and found the neatest set of arches to paddle around in. What fun and just an amazing place to paddle. I made my way back towards town and got waves and hollers from the boys rowing team. A little later as I was about to pass the break water I met up with the girls rowing team. They were very interested in our sailboat and where we all came from. I asked them if they could show me their fast start which really got them excited. They wanted to show off so the coach relented and got them ready. Then the countdown and off they went. Pretty impressive how quickly they got up to speed. I gave them a shout out and headed back to the landing and our boat.

At dinner everyone decided it would be good to get up early for a morning paddle. I did not tell anyone about all the arches to paddle in so they could be surprised if we paddled out there.

The rest of the crew did have a great hike up to the lake and water fall so everyone was happy for such a great day.

More pictures from our paddling.

We paddled back to the boat and then into shore to check out the little village. We found the only tavern right above our kayaks and they opened up for us so we could have a beer.

What a great way to end a paddle day. After our beer we checked out the village and then paddled back to the boat. After getting all the kayaks onboard we pulled anchor and motored to Sorvagur, the town at the end of the fjord and tied up at the commercial pier.

For our first paddle day in the Faroe Islands, it does not get any better.