Paddling with Vikings
Lofoten, Norway - July 1998
 (Author: Dave B.)

Photo Courtesy of Crossing Lattitudes

 

Day 1: Sunday 13 July
Place: Bodø
Stay: Youth Hostel
Comments: Met Tim, Lena, Ed & Max. Walked from airport, smelled the fish from Bodø all the way across town, and talked to a nice girl along the way.

Log: Ok I'm here. In Bodø that is. I'm in the hostel, nestled down in my single-bed room. I'm writing this by the sunlight coming in through my window at 11.30 pm. Pretty weird. The flights went well. I was fed everything from chicken cordon-blue to bacon, eggs & hashbrowns. I have not slept in over 36 hours, but am fast on my way. Other people with the trip are here also. I have met a few of them already. There is one guy, Ed Smith, who is from Columbia Maryland. He belongs to the same kayaking club in Washington D.C. that I do, and saw the ad for the trip in the same place as I did(the club newsletter). Small world. We are planning to get up and meet in the lobby of the train station(of which the hostel is above) and walk to the bus stop in town. We have been told that we will take a ferry to the lofoten islands tomorrow and begin the trip there.

Day 2: Monday 14 July
Place: Vågan i Lofoten
Stay: A cabin in a campground
Comments: Took a bus to Salstraumen with Tim, Ed, Åsa & the Barkers(Townsend & Anne). Took the Ofoten ferry shuttle from Bodø to Svolvær in the evening.

Log: It is the second day. Already it is difficult to deal with the 'midnight sun'. Actually the midnight sun is over. That ended just a week or two ago. That is when the sun just barely dips below the horizon at midnight, creating a great colorful sunset across the sky. Now, the sun remains above the horizon for the entire turn of the clock.
There is no hint that you should be sleeping. It is 12.00 midnight and as bright as late afternoon. We are now staying in a cabin in the Lofoten islands. The place is a huge campground. It looks like it should be a favorite local vacation spot.

This morning I awoke in the hostel, went downstairs to the cafeteria of the train station and tried to ask the waitress how I should order breakfast and what I could get. She did not speak English well, so I tried my Norsk. She appreciated it and said that she thought I spoke well. We took a water ferry called the 'Ofoten' from Bodø to here. It was a fast ferry, but still took about four hours to cover the distance. This ferry carried the post and even delivered goods to small towns along the way. Lena says that Norway supports people by encouraging them to remain living where they are and builds schools and electrical suppliers for them in their local areas. All of the people going on the trip are here now, and we are planning to practice rescues later today, and begin the journey tomorrow. There are eight people in total. There are the two main guides, Tim & Lena Conlan; a quiet married couple, Townsend and Anne his wife; Ed from Maryland; Åsa, Lena's younger sister; and Max a previous student of Lena and Tim's. Åsa and Max are here to gain experience as guides to help Lena and Tim expand their trip capability next year. I almost forgot that we spent the morning at a local attraction of Bodø called the Salstraumen. It is a narrow channel of water leading into a small inland bay that has a incredible rip-like flow of water both in and out. It even has its own learning center dedicated to the attraction.

Day 3: Tuesday 15 July
Place: Vågan i Lofoten
Stay: Tents in a campground
Comment : Walked to Kabelvåg, saw aquarium & church there. Had dinner with Jann.

Tim Waking up to a New Adventure

Log: It's the third day about 4.30 pm. and the sun has yet to set. We are still in the campground but have switched over from a cabin to tents. Åsa just dropped her mother's wedding ring, which she has been wearing. We have been searching for it in the grass for at least an hour. She finally goes to the camp office and gets a plastic rake. Incredibly, she finds it in her first try, after we have been pulling out all the grass by hand. Some of us took the boats out for a couple of hours earlier today. This helped us to get acquainted with them. Then a few of us brave people here went swimming. While the weather has been an impressive heat wave into the eighties, the water is barely 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The guides treat us to a great dinner in town tonight. We all had pepper grilled cod, baked new potatoes and whipped cheese with raspberry sauce for dessert. It is pretty obvious how important fish is here.

The man who supplied the boats for the trip (Jann) lives in this town. He has lived here his whole life, and appears to be well known everywhere in the islands. He has said that eating fish was once so popular that it would not even be served in restaurants until about seven years ago. People would just take out a boat and catch all the fish they want, then cook it at home. Going out to eat usually meant going over to a neighbors house and meeting others for dinner. Jann and his wife have said that they did not even get to see a banana or orange until they were almost ten years old. We also went to the Kabelvåg aquarium today. It is a pretty big attraction here, next to the historical church and the huge stone with all the king's signatures, who have passed this way, carved into it. The aquarium was not very large. It had all the local types of fish and shellfish, and a couple of seals that have had pups. It was great to see it none-the-less.

Day 4: Wednesday 16 July
Place: Outside Malnes
Stay: Tents on the beach
Comments: Lunched on an island outside Henningsvaær. Camped on beach so fresh that the sand was not packed. Marsh behind beach was very untrodden also. Tim and Åsa went for water into Moland and met an old man who was surprised by the expanding water jugs.

Log: We have paddled our first actual stretch of water today. The sun was blistering. We left from close to Kabelvåg and travelled all the way around the massive mountain of Vågakallen. We stopped off at the most incredible beach for lunch. You would have no clue that we were in the arctic circle, unless you would have gone into the water. The sand was white, the water was so clear and blue-green in color, that I could see starfish on the bottom from ten to twelve feet above. There were sea urchins on the rocks that the birds must have caught and eaten. Another group of English speaking teenagers came to this island, while we were eating lunch. They came by motor boat from the nearby town. They turned out to be Canadians. These Canadians went swimming in the water that I swore made my feet numb when standing in it up to my ankles. But, they said it was great and stayed in for a long time. So, now we are camped and ready to go to sleep. Lena made pasta for dinner. We all sat around the maps afterwards and discussed what we would like to attempt tomorrow for our paddling route. The beach we are on appears to be so fresh and untrodden that when we walk on it we sink into the sand up to our ankles, except for the area of the immediate tide lines. The marsh behind the beach is similar. There are no paths, only little hillocks of grass that sink when stepped on. It makes you wonder if anyone has ever walked here before. Tim and Åsa took one of the double kayaks and went to a nearby house, about a half mile or so away. They met and old man who let them fill the water jugs. The man was surprised at the expandable accordion jugs and commented how it took more water than it first looked like.

Day 5: Thursday 17 July
Place: Sandøya
Stay: Tents on the beach
Comments: Went through Sundklakkstraumen this morning. Lunched on island outside Smedvika. Walked to house in evening to get fresh water as a heavy fog bank rolled over.

Log: Once again we are camped on a nice little beach. We paddled hard today. It started out rough! At first Anne had trouble with her rudder peddles. We had to delay for a half hour while Tim fixed them as best as he could. He was then rather pissed about the situation. Well, we got started and had to navigate a straumen or straight. We paddled into strong winds and tide, but we made it with no trouble. Our lunch was on a small island inhabited by gulls or boobies and some farmers sheep. It appears that the sheep are simply boated out to islands and left to graze for the summer. That sure makes keeping them in pasture easy. When we finally came to our final place for the evening, a couple of us had to walk down the dirt road close to camp to see if we could get fresh water.

Day 6: Friday 18 July
Place: Unstad
Stay: Tents on the beach
Comments: One of the most incredible stays. This bay had a picturesque small town and some of the most unimaginable scenery of the trip. Well worth a visit from land. We stopped briefly on a beach west off Eggum.

Log: I was so tired last night that I could not even finish writing about the day. We had a much shorter trip today, therefore I do not feel as exhausted. I'll attempt to add some more details. Lena has told me that in Norway, one is free to camp anywhere along the beaches for one evening.

The beach is open property, owned by the state, and anyone can camp there. If one camps within sight of a house though, it is common courtesy to ask permission of the owner. There were two men in the house that Lena, Townsend and myself visited in our search for water last night. One, the older of the two, owned the small house and was living there year round. He was saying that he had to hurry to finish insulating the house. Winter is coming fast. Of course neither one of the men spoke English, so Lena had to translate for Townsend and myself. The younger man owned the surrounding fields for harvesting crops. He appeared to be at the house visiting, having a coffee and a good chat. This man was eating orange peels. The two had obviously finished the orange and he was carefully cutting away the white meat of the peel from the outer surface and eating it. That night Max made Spanish rice and new potatoes with pickled herring and herring in curry sauce(both from a jar). Everyone in Norway eats herring, tuna, shrimp, caviar, shrimp cheese, etc. The mayonnaise comes in a tube like toothpaste.
The beach we stayed on was impressive. It was well sheltered from the rising wind, and again had white sand. The sand on all the beaches appears to be finely ground sea shells. The only two bad features were the stinging nettles and the endless amounts of drying seaweed. The seaweed attracts specialized beach flies that do not fly. They just do long wing assisted hops around amongst the rotting vegetation. These flies got into everything, and stayed on and in the boats all the next day. As we landed, a fog rolled in quickly from the far horizon. As it covered us, we could hardly see the houses only a half mile away. The men in the house had assured us that there was no storm in the forecast, only fog and wind. The next morning, Lena made pancakes, then we got under way again. The fog got progressively heavier and the wind colder. We landed at about noon on a pure white beach with crystal clear water with massive mountains rising straight up into the low clouds. This was somewhat west of Eggum. Here we saw small motor boats that were all clinker built from wood panels. They obviously were newly built, but using this ancient style of craftsmanship. We launched again with the idea of making it further before lunch. We rounded the Eggum point and got the full force of the Atlantic wind on us. There was no where to land on the other side of the town. We did see an old stone structure that looked like a square castle turret. It may have protected this area at one time, maybe during the war. The wind was rising in intensity and again I could see how Tim and Lena were getting worried that we would be caught in a storm on the edge of the Atlantic with nothing but a rocky shoreline. Finally at about 4.00 pm. we found a protected bay. When our group first came into the protected bay around Unstad, I was the first to rush to the beach and get out of my boat. Ed followed but with some hesitation. The rest of the group gathered at some point off of the surf to look over the area, as Ed and myself should have done. A man from the town came down to the beach to see what was happening, along with a few young girls.
He greeted me in English, and we talked for a few minutes while the others decided what to do. He told me that he had lived in this town his entire life. He must have been about 40 years old. When I told him I was from Washington D.C. on vacation, he told me that a lady from the town had married a lawyer from D.C. I was meanwhile struggling to hold the boats from being carried away in the surf. At one point I had to run into the surf to rescue the boats that were almost carried away. The man then helped me to drag the boats above the surf line, while the rest of the team took out farther down the beach. The town nestled in this bay is called Unstad. It could not have contained more than 30 houses. We thought ourselves lucky to have found such a protected bay after traveling through rough swells in the wind and fog. It has huge mountains rising up on either side of the bay, over which the heavy clouds of fog could not pass, being not much more that 100 feet above the water. This bay has brilliant sunshine while outside of it the ocean is still covered by the fog. During our stay here, which was a little longer than our other stays since we stopped early, we got to see a lot. This valley is so incredible to see. The small cluster of houses is at the back of the valley niched between two mountains. There are two windy dirt roads leading up through the pass and over to the kingsroad on the other side. We set our tents and cooking tarps up on the back of the beach. Ed and myself walked around and saw a tiny graveyard with a tiny church, and the town dump on one side of the valley. On the other side there is a tiny forest, a stream fed by snow melt and a path leading up the mountain and around the outside of the bay. Before dinner, Lena, Åsa, Max and myself took water jugs and walked towards the mountain path. We filled the jugs at the stream, left them there and continued to walk up the path which was supposedly developed by one of the outdoor leadership groups of Sweden and Norway. The wind grew tremendously strong as we walked up the far side of the valley wall. By the time we rounded the corner of the valley, some couple of hundred feet above sea level, the wind was so fierce that we thought that we could fly off of the cliffs. On the way back to camp, I decided to stop and bath in the stream. There was a bowl-like depression in the lower portion that was made by earlier travelers that acted as a great big tub. Actually, this snow melt stream was warmer than the icy ocean water. When we got back to camp, Lena and Åsa made a silly sign saying 'Welcome to Chef Conlan's. Tonight's Menu is Soup, Calzones, Cheese, Bread, etc.' and hung it under the cook tarp where Tim was to be making dinner after he awoke. Tim changed his menu that night and made soup, rice and pan bread instead of calzones. It was excellent as usual. I'd like to add here the method of washing dishes that I learned during the trip. We learned from Tim and Lena to wash our dishes with dry or slightly wet sand. This removes all the grime. Then we would wash them out in the surf or a stream, if close by. For grease, we preceded this method by a rinse in hot water. It worked well. Also, we learned many helpful camping tips from the two of them. They talked to us every night about 'leave-no-trace' camping, safety tips, weather tips, etc. They were interested that we would learn from our experiences as well as to enjoy them.

Day 7: Saturday 19 July
Place: Nusfjord
Stay: Tents on the beach
Comments: This was the longest day. We had no lunch since we thought that we were running from a storm all day. Max & myself go into the little town of Sund.

Log: This was the longest day of paddling. Thankfully, the wind was with us the whole way. We did at least 18 miles today. We started by making a break for it out of the protected bay since the weather looked promising. Lena had little luck the night before getting any weather reports on her portable radio. It quickly turned to a chilly, windy day with moderate swells coming in from the open ocean. Again, I could tell that Tim was getting worried about the group. We could see a bank of clouds off on the horizon. It did appear to be a storm rolling in, but it turned out to be fog, and it never came of much. We paddled hard this day. Lena showed off her umbrella. She always carried an umbrella on her boat. She says that it is usefill if you need to pack or unpack in the rain. It also works as a great sail in a trailing wind. She really 'blew' by us when she put it up. We started seeing glimpses of sea eagles this day. They were always far off in the distance, either on the cliffs or circling above the rock ledges. These are great big birds that nest close to the water, similar to bald eagles. We took a break, but no lunch, after we found an area shaded from the wind. It must have been somewhere around the Viksukta or Vågjepollen areas. Here we saw a small farmstead where the farmer was watering one of his fields with a great big sprayer, even though the sky was overcast. He must have known there was to be no rain in the forecast. We ate candy bars, decided to try to go to Sund to checkout a story of an artist there, and went on our way again. We saw a porpoise from far off. It appeared to be scared of us and swam underneath our boats until it was far away. We then came to a narrow straight where the current was strong in some patches. But more strangely, we saw cars speeding down the road and simply disappearing behind the rocks just before the edge of the water. It was a tunnel going under the straight. None of us expected this. We tried to take out for lunch by this tunnel, but the tide and rocks prevented it. We did notice a whole line of nicely kept little red houses just beside the entrance to the tunnel. The only reason that we could think of to explain these houses was that they were for tunnel workers during construction or maintenance.

We continued on for Sund. We took out on a small muddy beach behind a natural rock breaker wall. Lena had learned, possibly from Jann, that there was an artist here, locally known for his statues. He was supposed to have set up a small museum of his own. Well, Max and I volunteered to go into town and ask around. We walked to the first house and there saw a young girl playing with a bird in the grass. Max asked about the artist, but the girl did not know. So we knocked at two doors with no luck. At the third house, we found a talkative lady and her noisy dog. Just as Max was leaning down to pet the dog, the lady said 'don't get your face too close to him'. We did not pet him after that. The lady had not heard of the artist either. She said that we should ask the old man down the street(at the first house we tried), but that we was napping now and would awake in an hour. Max mentioned that the artist's name may be Frank, and the lady immediately started to talk about someone else down the street. 'Oh, Frank! I know him. He lives right down the street.' She was sure there was no artist there and suggested that we might have the wrong Sund. There is another town with the same name farther on down the road. So we all gathered around the map, except for me. I fell asleep in the sun for a while. Somehow the decision was made to continue on for Nusfjord. I think that it involved some strong coercion from Anne, miss 'I'm born to paddle'. I passed out a handful of my power bars that I had been hoarding in the bottom of one of my dry bags. We portaged the boats across the growing mud beach, as the tide was going out, and we were off again. This stretch of paddling turned out to be one of the most interesting. I got to see sea urchins, starfish, kelp, sea anemones, sponges and a harbor seal as we travelled on towards Nusfjord. Lena let Anne and me try the umbrella sail. It works great, as long as the rudder of your boat can steer you on a straight course. Anne managed to turn her umbrella inside out. We passed a 3000 year old cave where bones were found, as we later learned. We made it to Nusfjord by 8:00 pm. Lena cooked up another quick pasta dish, excellent as always, as the rest of us unpacked the boats and set up camp on a rocky beach just outside of town. Åsa, Max, Tim and myself then went into town before the general store closed at 9:00 pm. I got to call home and leave messages, drink milk and buy a tourist guide to the Lofoten islands. The book was highly over priced in this little store. Tim bought groceries to replenish our dwindling stock. Åsa checked out the bar and grill and told us that they sold a local dish of fried skate wings(if we translated it correctly). Since we camped on a grassy hill above the beach, I found unusual black slugs all around. These slugs looked like a common garden slug, except that they were 3 to 4 inches long and jet black. There was also a fisherman's house or a rorbu on the edge of the beach which had a string of dried cod heads hung underneath. Åsa says that it is good luck to do this with your first catch of fish in the season.

Day 8: Sunday 20 July
Place: Mulstøa
Stay: Tents on the beach
Comments: Max and I ran into the fishing village of Fredvang for water. We raced the tide through the narrow straights outside of the real Sund. We had lunch under a lighthouse on the point outside of Krystad.

Log: Today was not a day of long distance paddling, but it was a tiring day. We had to fight wind, current and tides as we went. It started by our planning the evening before to get an early start this morning. The plan was to have the tide with us as we rounded the point on which the real(larger) town of Sund lay. The tide would help us travel into the straight, then when it started receding, it would help to push us out the other side. It was a good plan and for all mentionable purposes, it worked well, but we had to paddle hard to keep with the timing of the plan. We started off by rounding the island of Kunna on the inside, since the wind was strong from the south and this afforded us some protection. There was what appeared to be a huge cruise ship docked against the side of the Blåfjellkammen mountain. It made for a great sight. We then went around the town of Sund. This was the Sund that we originally wanted to stop in to look for the artist, but we now had no time for this. I do remember seeing great pallets of stacked dry stock fish in a open walled warehouse close to shore. And, there were fish farming enclosure rings along the edges of the straight. There were similar enclosures outside of Nusfjord the night before. It seems that auto fish feeding machinery periodically spreads food into the rings and the fish simply feed until the time they are to be harvested. Åsa comments that she doesn't like these farms for two reasons; one is that they are cruel and the other is that they produce fatty fish. It does seem that people here appreciate the fish caught wild more than farmed fish. Ed, Townsend and myself seem to have some extra energy to burn this morning. After Tim's constant urging to rush so that we will not be caught by the tide, we three pull ahead and raced for the narrow that will signal the turn of the tide. We cross under a bridge and get to see how skinny the roads are through the islands. One car has to stop and pull as far aside as possible to allow another to pass. We three leaders finally reach the midpoint of the straight and relax, letting the changing current direction carry us onward while we wait for the others to catch up.
The current kept getting stronger until just outside of Straumsness it was so powerful that a four foot high green buoy was continuously sucked under water and spit back out without warning. Needless to say, we did little paddling on this stretch. We found a small beach under a little lighthouse outside Krystad. It was a great lunch of brød, smør, ost, ramen soups, caviar, syltetøy, geitost & more. We all appreciated it immensely. It was now time to head off towards the barren western side of the islands. Even the map shows how deserted it is, with almost no houses existing on that side. Knowing that we might be without water for sometime, we stopped in at one of the last towns, Fredvang, to refill one last time.
The only place we could find to take out was a low lying boat launch. Max, Townsend & me went into the town with the water jugs, but no one was to be found. The part of the town which we saw looked like an evacuated fishing warehouse, marina, and dorm building. We went into the dorm building and started filling the jugs at the nearest sink. Max sees a sign on the main desk telling customers to dial #6 to reach the manager. He gets a man on the phone at his home. After Max explains our situation, the man says to take all the water that we want. I also grabbed a small booklet advertising the town. This I later noticed reeked of cod. That must say something for how much fish is in this town during the fishing season. We then loaded ourselves back into the boats and headed for the west side. We paddled on for a couple more hours. Lena's foot peddle in one of the double boats begins to give her trouble. She and Tim complain about the quality of the boats rented from the local Jann, but do not take time to do a repair until the next morning. We see a couple of houses far out on the point of land reaching into the Atlantic, and cannot imagine how anyone could live or even spend the summer here. It would appear that one good storm would wipe them off the map. Tim and Lena tell us about a beach they found when they circled the islands earlier this year in a fishing boat. We aim for this delightful target. It turns out to be a very nice protected beach on the very tip of one of the large peninsulas at Mulstøa. There is one small cabin here, but it is locked tight. All the tents go up and Åsa cooks us pasta tonight. I had not really noticed how much pasta we were eating, but it always tasted great. The girls had a tendency to mix in some cabbage into the sauce to give us our badly needed roughage. At this beach, I saw tiny hermit crabs crawling along the sand juts below the water line. These I watched as I washed the dishes in the surf that night.

Day 9: Monday 21 July
Place: Bunesfjorden
Stay: Tents on the beach
Comments: Nicest beach of the entire trip. Fought swells on Atlantic, and got seasick. Ed swears off the solo kayak for the rest of the trip. Saw a Puffin in the swells in the morning.

Log: This was the prime example day of paddling on the exposed west side of the Lofoten island chain. It was certainly the greatest test of our endurance in the boats. But, even thought it was the roughest day, it was in reality much less troublesome than we may have experienced, given that we were exposed to the Atlantic. We were always lucky with the weather for the entire time of the trip. The weather had shown some light rain the night before and we had intermingled clouds and sun throughout the day today. The wind was constant from the north, just opposite of what we had yesterday. The swells of the open ocean today were tall enough to obscure you from the other boats at a distance of 20 to 30 feet. Just after we launched from the beach, Lena decided that the rudder pedal had completely given out. Tim did not like this, so he went about fixing it while we drifted just offshore. The two double kayaks floated side by side for about 40 minutes as Tim performed an acrobatic feat of shoving half his body into Lena's cockpit and totally disassembling the footpad with a pocket knife. He finally fixed it to a satisfactory degree, and we were off. As we rounded the opposite side of the peninsula on which we had camped last night, we saw a Puffin playing in the swells. This was unfortunately the only glimpse I had of these birds while in Norway. We paddled on for an hour or two towards what appeared to be a protected beach. It is amazing how one's perception of distance is distorted on the open water. What appears to be a half mile away may turn out to be a good two miles in distance. Once we finally got close to the beach, we found that it was being pounded by large enough waves to make it unworthy of attempting to put ashore for a break. And, a few of us really needed to take a breather. Lena gave the more desperate of us instructions on how to relieve oneself while still in your kayak on the water. It worked such that a companion boat pulled up alongside while the desperate individual heaved themselves out of the cockpit and sort of sat between the boats, supported by his/her straight arms behind them on the companion boat. Then one may proceed to do their business. Townsend cheated by using his paddle float as an extra bladder, washing it in the water afterwards. I held out until we finally landed that afternoon. Fortunately I had not had a lot to drink the night before.
We saw some incredible sights on this stretch. Giant thunderclaps sounded as waves crashed against the bare rock walls. Impressive cliffs rising straight up out of the water would have flat patches of green far above us as well as white patches of snow that would never melt throughout the summer. We passed rock islands covered with screaming birds and circled by waving fields of kelp. Norway is truly beautiful. Lena told us how she, Tim and a few others did a shorter kayak trip in this area just after their film crew/fishing boat circle of the islands. They had stopped at the beach of Bunesfjorden then. This was also to be our target for this evening. Lena did not continue around the islands then, since she had to rush back to Bodø to greet new clients(this may have been our group). She portaged her kayak over the beach and caught the ferry at Reine back to Bodø. Tim and another man, continued on around the islands, circling the bottom and coming up the other side to Å in a single day. We will do this same circle over the next two days.
Lena told us how she had left her favorite 'Winnie-the-pooh' spoon behind on the beach by accident. She was hoping that it would still be there, but was having little confidence. By the time that we finally reached the beach of Bunesfjorden, we were all exhausted. Many of us, including Max, Ed and myself, were complaining about our being seasick after rolling through the swells all day. Ed swore off the solo kayak for the rest of the trip in favor of the front seat of a double. He said that the last hour of paddling was pure agony. But, this beach was well worth all the trouble. It was certainly the most magnificent beach we saw amongst the islands. It must have been almost two kilometers across, and was pure sand, not crushed shells. There were sand dunes and waterfalls and countless assortments of washed up items all throughout the beach. We saw many aluminum or steel balls, some only about eight inches in diameter and others up to two feet or more. These must have been floats for fishing nets. Ed and me jokingly called them 'nordballs', since we felt like they were part of the Nordlands scenery. Our tents went up next to a locked cabin at the corner of the sheltered end of the beach. Lena went to look on the porch bench of the cabin to see if her spoon was still there, but alas it was gone. She was sad. She said that she had owned the spoon since she was a child. But she soon forgot it as we enjoyed the great scenery of our new home for the night.

After we ate, some of us went exploring, the area. Åsa and me climbed up the rocky mountainside. After about an hours effort, we reached a patch of the snow that remains all year. We put some into a plastic bag and brought it back to camp, just so we could throw snowballs at Max. Later, Åsa, Anne, Lena and me went for a walk across the vast dessert of a beach. I swear that this beach reminded me of a scene out of 'Planet of the Apes'. While the three girls plodded across the sand, I made a detour to the snow melt waterfall and had a really wonderful shower. Just me, my camp soap and towel. It was well needed and well enjoyed. At the opposite side of the beach, Lena, Åsa and myself walked on to the a local house down by the water, Anne turned back. Lena wanted to call the rurbu at Å and ask if we could reserve it for two days instead of one. It turns out that we all paddled so hard that we were a day ahead of schedule. We would now stay in Å Wednesday and Thursday night. On our way back to the camp, we found an outhouse that was placed amongst the rocks opposite on the beach from where we put the tents. It was impossible to see from far off since it blended into the rocks perfectly. We gladly used it. The following morning, Ed and me scooted across again to the outhouse for one more quick spin. Sometimes the simplest pleasures mean so much.

Day 10: Tuesday 22 July
Place: Helle
Stay: Tents on the beach
Comments: Yes, we paddled to Helle and back! This had to be my worst day. I was really worn out. We saw a cave with old cave paintings & a deserted Sami village. We also saw the Maelstrom in action.

Log: This was pretty much an uneventful day until we nearly reached the tip of the islands. By this I mean the tip where the old town of Helle once stood, close to the smaller islands of Værøy. These islands we did not paddle to, since it would mean crossing the Maelstrom. About all I remember of the first half of the day was being extremely tired and grumpy. By this time I was beginning to feel that my endurance of expedition paddling was being tested. During the day we paddled in and out of many coves, and under incredibly tall and steep mountain sides. The scenery was as indescribable as ever. We were then on the far west side, where few people get to see the sights the way that we did. It is incredible how anyone can ever come to accept these scenes as common place. For me, only the pictures can begin to describe how wonderful it is, and these even lack the awe that I felt all the time. We eventually got all the way down to the Revsvika inlet without a lunch break. We only took a short break to relieve ourselves over the side of the boats. In this inlet, Tim and Lena pointed out an old deserted Sami village which they had learned about from local fisherman. We could see the old foundations of the village. A single chimney was still standing among the broken walls of houses and gardens. A few short fruit trees were clustered where a garden once flourished. Also in this inlet is an ancient cave which we had learnt of earlier. There, we were told, are 3000 year old cave paintings of stick figures. We tried to land the boats under the face of the cave, but the rocks and tide were too much, so we paddled back over to the beach by the deserted village and put ashore there. The beach was covered by some ugly brown powder washing up in the surf. We later found old peat moss bags and guessed that some cargo ship must have spilled its cargo of peat moss in this area. We had a quick lunch in this area, before trying to hike over to the cave. Max was acting a little silly. He walked down the beach and returned dragging a bunch of items; a plastic crate, which he turned over to use as a table; an old green net, which he used as a table cloth; and a washed up green bottle, which he put flowers into and placed in the center of the table.

After we ate, everyone except Ed walked the mile or so to the cave. The going was rough. There was a tiny mountain path trailing up steep slopes and over fields strewn with glacier debris. Max, Tim and myself blazed ahead of the others. Some fishermen had once told Tim that the Sami children of this deserted village used to take this path all the way up and over the incredibly steep pass between the mountain peeks, just to reach the school in Helle. This I cannot imagine, since I was worn out from the walk to the cave only. We reached the cave and found a big rock just inside that had scraps of wood scattered on top of it. These were pieces of driftwood, signed by earlier visitors to the cave. Tim scooped up one that he had made on his earlier trip through. Max and I signed and dated a new one before the pen, which we had found laying there, dried out completely. Then, I got to use my flashlight for the only time during the trip as we looked around for the paintings. It was impressive to think that these paintings may actually have been made 3000 years ago, but hard to believe that it could be proven. The three of us then followed one of the branches of the cave as far as we could go and waited for the others to catch up with us. Townsend finally came around the corner and we got a good laugh by trying to scare him with ghostly noises from our dark corner. Everyone scooted around to all possible corners of the cave, but nothing else of interest could be found. On our way out, I had everyone pose for a picture at the mouth of the cave. It turned out to be a great silhouette. Anne did not want to walk all the way back to the boats, so we left her under the face of the cave and hurried back to the boats. The tide had gone down so that we had to haul the boats, fully loaded, down to the water line. The water was so cold, that I had trouble standing in a foot depth while holding the boats together. Neoprene socks are a necessity here.

Everyone took a last 'pee break', some right on the beach in plain view, and we took off to pick up Anne and continue on our way. We had planned to reach the bottom of the islands at lowest tide. This is when the Maelstrom is at its quietest. Even though we rounded the point at this time, we could still feel the power of the current. It must be mighty scarry to be in the water in this area at high tide. The story is that the Gulf Stream meets the tide coming in from around both sides of the islands and huge whirlpools form in the middle of the sea here. Writers, including Poe, have written horror stories about this effect. It is said that it has sucked down whole ships and spit them up onto the shores. As we finally rounded the tip and then turned into the protected cove in front of Helle, I was mighty grateful. I was questioning my sanity for being on this trip. It certainly felt like an evening in Hell that night, but we all slept sound. Åsa made another pasta dinner for us all. I had a Norwegian favorite, a hot berry toddy. I was surprised by the tea bags that were to be found in Norway. There was a lot of fruit flavored teas, and they all had caffeine in them. This is unusual here in the US where fruit flavored teas are usually herbal based not black or green tea based as in Norway. Before we all went to bed, Max, Åsa, Tim, Townsend and myself went for a walk along the coast to find a spot to look out over the Maelstrom. We found a place where we could look out and see the current passing between us and the islands of Vaerey. There were a few old building foundations in this area and what must have once been cultivated fields. No one lives here in Helle any longer. I was told that is was evacuated when the government refused to build a water break here. We watched the current through binoculars and could see white water form where there was no visible reef. We thought we saw whirlpools forming in the distance, but could not be sure. At any rate, it was pretty obvious how strong the current must be as the various waters came together at this point.

Day 11: Wednesday 23 July
Place: Å
Stay: Rorbu
Comments: I was delighted to be out of the boats. The rorbu felt like heaven at this point. We walked around Å, cleaned the boats and had dinner with Jann.

Log: After the two long walks that I had yesterday, including the one late in the evening, I was dead tired by morning. I vaguely remember Åsa waking Ed and me up, much too early. I was grouchy and tired. I didn't want to eat breakfast. I really felt like I was stretching my endurance. I wanted a restaurant, a good bed and simply to get on the way. It was the morning out of Helle. What made it worse was that everyone else was ridiculously cheerful. I even remember Tim peacefully lying and reading his book during breakfast. I guess that it was the last day on the water and everyone felt and understood this, except me. Lena climbed to the top of a huge rock in the center of the beach that morning. She made us all bunch up together below her and peer upwards for a group photo.

Then, we were off again for our last paddle together. We had intentionally woke up early to have the lowest tide possible. Tim did not want to take any chances with the hungry Maelstrom. We easily rounded the bottom of the island chain and headed on our last journey towards the town of Å. Å is the southernmost town accessible by the King's road. We were delighted to be on the way, and had fun making up slogans for some future 'Crossing Latitudes' tee-shirts. Some of the recommendations were: 'Crushing Attitudes', 'We paddled to Helle and back with Crossing Latitudes', etc. As we passed along the coast, we again saw some life in the form of strange bright orange creatures hanging from the rocks at the tide line. They were either sponges or sea anemones. About halfway through our three hour paddle, Anne decided that she had to stop for a relief break. We chose a small inlet a couple of miles below Å. When we got into the small bay, we saw some strange forms built from rock. Here were some huge boat docks and a wave breaker built by neatly choosing and piling immense rocks one on another. This must have taken an unimaginable amount of effort and time. We later learned from Jann that this was a village abandoned within the last hundred years that was once totally dependent on the fisheries trade. When asked why they would take on a construction task that probably took such a long time, Jann responded by saying that their concept of time was not as we see it. There was nothing to rush for, time was the same every year, and every year showed an improvement in the work. After struggling to walk over these rocks for a brief rest period, we moved on. After we were out on the water again, Max asked Townsend if he had seen the sea eagle that took to flight right over his head. Max said that it made Townsend look small in comparison. Of course, I missed it too. Well, we finally got to Å. We were all excited to have finally reached our destination. We huddled in a group of kayaks outside of the bay and looked around for our best strategy. We saw a small free-form campground on the cliff below town. There was just a scattering of tents all clustered on the rock. It looked like we were attracting some attention from the people camping there. We also saw the ferry leaving the town right across the bay from Å and carrying passengers and their cars back to the mainland. We would be taking this boat back to Bodø in a couple of days. We all entered the bay, following Tim's boat. Tim, knowing that we had a reservation for a rorbu, was eager to find a place to get the boats out that could also allow us to carry them away from the water. We could not find a place. We tried all the docks, and all the corners behind the buildings, which were right over the water, built on wood and steel stilts coming right out of the rock. The only way we could see that larger boats were even put into the water was by a boat lift. Lena finally jumped out into the shallows and walked to the reservation building. She found out which rorbu was ours and pointed it out to us. We ended up taking the boats from the water just below the rorbu, over the rocks, and among the sewage that was trailing out from the buildings. It was ugly. But, I did get to see a baby haddock. It looked like a tiny, one inch long flounder, flittering in amongst the rocks.

We slowly unloaded and carried all the boats up to the rorbu and laid them on an unused portable wooden dock. Then we found that the group of girls that had the rorbu before us had not left yet. We told them that we were there for the building, and they quickly packed and evacuated. Once I got to see the inside of the building, I was impressed. It seems that these rorbus are in all the larger towns throughout the islands. They are a legacy from an early king who devised this plan of supplying housing for the fishermen during the height of the fishing season. Now they are used mostly as tourist housing, but they are incredible. They are fully furnished, including bed linen, clothes washer, stove, refrigerator, dishes, everything. It was really great! Our first job, after unpacking, was to clean the boats and equipment and then dry it all. We discovered a hose in the bathroom/wash room, all neatly coiled up on a emergency reel with instructs of how to use it if a fire breaks out. We unwound this, fed it out of the bathroom window and used it to wash everything down. This took a couple of hours, but much less time than everyone though it would if we had done it by hand. After this, Ed and I decided to walk around town. We found out that the majority of Å was made up of either the tourist rorbus or the Lofoten Fishery Museum. The museum was in every other building in town. Of course it was entrance by admission cost only, so we decide to skip it. We had seen enough of the water to want to see how the fish came out of it. We found a tiny food store and a tiny tourist shop. Both of these took only kroner. We could not spend money by VISA, check or even American Express checks. They only way we could even get money was in a town at least 10 miles away. We also saw people walking through the streets with a whole stockfish stuffed under one arm. This is the dried results of the cod fishing industry. These people would be eating little pieces ripped from the fish as though it was beef jerky. Later, we rejoined everyone in the rorbu and Jann drove into town to meet us. He was here to collect the boats and to have a last dinner with us. Lena and Åsa cooked more pasta, and all eight of us travellers and Jann had a big dinner complete with beer, coffee, chocolate fudge log(courtesy of Åsa) and chocolate ice cream cake, which I bought earlier that day. Jann is the most knowledgeable person I had seen in these islands. It would appear that many locals pride themselves in learning about their history, but no one could repeat it on demand as Jann could. He told us about many of the towns and museums that some of us were planning to visit the following day. We asked him about some of the sights we had seen along the way, and he had a detailed answer for each question. He told us about the stockfish, the fishing industry, some favorite stockfish recipes of the area, and his favorite recipe for stockfish pizza. This man is truly a natural wonder when it comes to storytelling. He runs the biggest adventure company in the islands, which involves renting out boats as well as scheduling bus trips for hoards of visitors, in fact, the only other kayaks we even caught any glimpses of on the trip were rentals from Jann also. He immediately knew who they were when we described their whereabouts.

After dinner, we discussed possibilities for the next day, since we did not have plans to return to Bodø until two mornings from now. Lena, Åsa and I opted for taking a bus to Borge in the morning to see the Viking museum there, despite that Jann gave it a bad review. Ed, Townsend and Anne decided on a shorter trip to a nearby town called Reine, just to see local sights. Tim and Max needed to be spending the day repacking gear. They are going to take the two Feathercraft to a race/ramble up north that weekend. So we all went to sleep, gratefully. Of course, I woke at 4:00 am to call home and let everyone know I was still alive. My 4:00 am was conveniently their 10:00 pm.

Day 12: Thursday 24 July
Place: Å
Stay: Rorbu
Comments: Visited an excellent Viking museum in Borge. Spent a great time with Lena and Åsa. Spent our last evening in the islands.

Log: This morning, we got up early and had breakfast. Lena pulled out some yogurt that she had bought at the local store the day before. It was in a one quart container, like a milk carton, although it poured much easier that one would expect of yogurt in the US. They poured it over their cereal.

I just found it great to pour a glass of yogurt and chug that down with a coffee for breakfast. The three of us got on our bus at the parking lot at the far end of town. Lena paid our fares. She later said that she claimed Åsa and I were a couple in order to get a better fare. The bus was a huge air-conditioned thing, like a greyhound. People would put their big luggage pieces in the stash-hold before getting on, tell the driver(usually a lady) where they were going, get a receipt and pay in cash. The driver would stuff the money in a purse hanging from a machine next to the driver's seat that printed out the receipts, and look as if there was no concern for burglary at all. This could never work in the US for obvious reasons. We traveled for about three to three and a half hours, passing through towns and over roads that I recognized from our slow trip down in the boats. We transferred busses in Leknes and arrived in Borge before noon. We immediately went straight for the museum. It turned out that the two girls really liked to go through museums. I told them that I thought that was not how most Americans acted towards history. They just shrugged this off. The Borge Viking museum turned out to be the best Viking museum that I have ever seen. It was a long house reconstruction built on a sight where a real long house was excavated. This long house had three divided sections. One section had real and reproduction artifacts in museum cases for visitors to wander through. Another was the great hall complete with the high seat. This appeared to be used for special occasions or re-enactment events. The third was the active re-enactment area. This was the center of activity. There were about four or five people doing re-enactment activities when we visited. One lady was weaving baskets. She answered many question that the three of us asked of her. Two men were working on making axes or wood carvings, and a third was busy painting the carvings on the side of the high seat. This section of the hall was filled with reproduction items of exquisite quality. There were leather shoes, huge looms, real animal skins on the floors and walls, food, fireplaces, tables, games, weapons, etc. Every possible item of the smallest detail was there, and the visitors were completely free to hold, handle or otherwise examine anything available. It was without comparison to any museum one could see in the US. The building was built with the standard smoke hole in the center of the roof. The hole was of massive proportion, some three by six feet. There was a long fire pit in the center of the floor with a moderate fire being kept aflame. The two girls and I went from table to table picking up and opening everything, trying on costumes and playing board games. About a mile away from the long house was a reconstructed Viking ship, modeled after the Gogstad ship in Oslo. We walked down and took a look. The ship is fully functional and even has an authentic boat house built for it for storage in the winter. Although the ship was watched by a museum employee in costume, anyone could walk on the ship and look around all they wanted.

After we had seen all of the museum and the museum shop, we walked back to the bus stop and caught the next bus through Borge. We learned that on weekdays there is no connecting bus to Å in the afternoon. We would have to get off in Leknes and wait for the evening bus at 6.00 pm. In Leknes we walked around town and looked in a couple of shops. I found a Norwegian Donald Duck book for my Norsk instructor. We decided to eat lunch in a Chinese restaurant. This was the only time that I recall eating chicken in Norway. The restaurant had only one dish that was vegetarian on the menu, and it was not available on the lunch special. Since, Åsa was vegetarian, she had to settle for this. After lunch, the girls decided to try their hand at hitchhiking back to Å instead of hanging around town until evening. We walked out of town to the King's road, and they took their best shot. Nobody stopped for us. They tried for hours. Åsa even stood on the side of the road reading between cars, with her arm extended and thumb up. After trying too long, we settled down in a covered bus stop and decided to wait for 6.00. The girls went on reading while I fell asleep on the pavement. A buss rolled past and woke me up. I jumped up and asked the girls if the buss that just went by was the one we had been waiting for. They both looked up from their books and said that they thought I was watching out. Just as I was convinced that we had missed the only bus, another one appeared over the hill and we were again off for the rorbu in Å. We met up with everyone else back at the rorbu and went for one last dinner together in Å at the only restaurant in town. All that was on the menu was fish. Townsend tried to order the whale steak, but they were out. Ed and I bought the first two rounds of beer. Max's fish came under cooked and he had to return it. As the waitress appeared to be ignoring all the tables, it took forever to get all the food at the table. I noticed a cool looking tee shirt over the counter with the town's name on it. I asked if I could buy one, and was told that they were only sold at the rorbu rental office, so Ed and I walked down there after dinner.

Day 13: Friday 25 July
Place: Bode
Stay: Youth Hostel
Comments: Our last day together. Max and Tim have gone off to a kayaking race. The rest of us have dinner one last time.

Log: We all got up early in the morning and frantically packed all our bags. Lena called a cab, which turned out to be a van big enough to hold the six of us who were leaving. Max and Tim were preparing to go their separate ways in order to go to another kayaking event up north. It was to be a promotional stop for 'Crossing Latitudes', at a kayak race and ramble. Well, our van took the six of us and all our luggage over to the next closest town. Here there was a large ferry that was taking cars and passengers across to the mainland. Lena talked the cab into driving onto the boat so that we could unload easier. After we unloaded and stashed our bags in one large pile in a comer of the car hold, we went upstairs. The ferry had a very nice passenger area. We grabbed a couple of tables and started unpacking the food that the girls brought along. We feasted on a great breakfast of cereal, cheese eggs, etc. After breakfast we passed around addresses and phone numbers and then everyone started fading off into separate corners. The weather had picked up quite a bit and the water was very choppy at this time. The ferry was rocking back and forth enough that we were all starting to get seasick. Ed went out onto the deck somewhere for the rest of the trip. The fresh air helps to appease the stomach. Townsend tried to fight it for a while, then gave in an went outside too. Anne curled up on a bench underneath a table in the center of the room and went to sleep. Lena laid on a bench and read a book. Åsa was getting really sick, so she curled up on a bench too and was soon asleep. I just kept eating and writing postcards home. After a couple of hours, we reached Bodø. Here Lena called another taxi which took us back to the youth hostel where we had started from. We checked into our rooms and decided that we would meet up in two or three hours for lunch at the SAS Radisson. Ed and I decided to walk around town for a while, so we laid out any wet clothes and started off down the street. In the center of town, by the mall, we found an open air market. There we simple street venders with their booths set up and there were even a couple of Sami vendors that had a few odd items like reindeer skins. I almost bought a couple of skins, but by the time I decided that I would risk carrying them home, the vendors had closed up shop and left for the day. I ended up buying a couple of small gifts for people at home, but left most of the shopping for the duty free shops at the airports. Ed and I met up with Lena, Åsa, Anne and Townsend for lunch. We all snacked some salads that Lena bought for us. Lena made a great impression on me this last day by footing the bill for almost everything from the ferry ride, the taxis, lunch, dinner and even the hostel rooms for the night. I asked her why she was doing this, but she just said that we were still on her trip and she was still responsible for us. Somewhere about this time I asked Lena if she was actually making any money on this trip. She laughed and said no. She said that they had actually lost money on this trip since they had to pay for Åsa and Max as well as not making any money from Anne and Townsend. I felt bad for her and gave her some money to help with food and sort of as a gratuity also. She did say that she would appreciate it if I tried to get an article or two into a local newsletter or even a magazine. This would help them greatly with advertisement, which seemed to mean more to them now with their new company than anything else. After lunch we all took a poll and chose to go to the Nordlands museum at the other end of town then try to get in a bit more shopping before dinner. The museum had a lot of history of the Sami people as well as the early fishing and other work industries of the past century or two. We even saw a iron age stone monument out on the grounds. Bodø may not be a large town compared to those in the US but it certainly has a great share of character. We gravitated over to the one duty free shop in town and everyone ended up buying something here. Lena had left us at the museum to go off and take care of some business of her own. She met us again here at this shop. Then I went off to a couple of grocery stores and bought up a bunch of Swedish cookies called 'Ballerina'. These are great chocolate filled cookies. Lena and Åsa told me that the cookies are made in their home town in Sweden. They remember their mom buying great bags of broken rejected cookies from the factory that they ate and ate and ate. We went back to the Radisson for dinner. Lena had made reservations for all of us to eat the nightly buffet. It turned out to be a seafood buffet, to no one's surprise. We gorged ourselves on every possible fish prepared in every possible way. I had early on given up eating shrimp here due to how they are prepared. The shrimp is acquired fresh from the boats and steamed. The heads are left on. I was shown the finesse of popping the heads from the shrimp early on in the trip, but this was too much for me.

While everyone else ate massive amounts of shrimp, I left them alone this night. After we had all eaten enough food and dessert, we went up to the thirteenth floor. This was a small bar enclosed by glass all around, so that one could get some great views of the town. We had a couple of beers here amongst many other tourists and most likely natives. As we were all getting tired and most of us had to get up early to catch planes out, we decided to head for the hostel. Lena, Åsa and I noticed a bowling alley in the basement of the hotel on our way out. We went down there and played a few rounds of air hockey. We had a great time and we all got really worked up. Of course, Lena won in the end. These two girls are great fun to hang out with. I hope that I get to see then again. Then, we went back to the hostel to get some sleep. Ed and I had to get up at about 6.00 am to get on early planes. Mine was leaving at 7.30 in the morning.

Day 14: Saturday 26 July
Place: Home
Stay: Home
Comments: On my way out. Saying my last good-byes. Being sad. I get to see the museums in Oslo.

Log: This morning I woke up bright and early at 6.00 am. I went to wake up Ed, since we had decided to share a cab to the airport, but he was already awake. We split some bread, cheese and milk for breakfast that I had picked up at the grocery store last night. Lena and Åsa surprised us and appeared in the eating room of the hostel to share breakfast with us. We talked for a bit, then the girls helped us carry our stuff down to the front of the building. The cab showed up right on time. We said our sad good-byes to the girls as we packed everything in the trunk. A few hugs were shared, then Ed and me were off for the airport. I will miss those two. Not only were they the ideal adventure companions, but they were just great to be with. Maybe I will get to see them again; I hope! We got to the airport before 7.00 am. Having had to spend lots of time checking into the airport in Baltimore, I expected to do the same in Bodø. No way. There was no one in the airport except for a couple other silly travelers with the same silly idea of getting there early. We had to wait at least a half an hour before any employees showed up to open the check-in counters. After checking in, I still had about 20 minutes to kill, so I sat and talked with Ed for a bit. As we were killing time, Anne and Townsend walked in. They had been staying in a hotel in town. Maybe the Radisson. They had a tremendous amount of luggage, which they said they left a lot of at the hotel during the kayak trip. They were also dressed up in suits and ties for some odd reason. I cannot explain this at all. I got Ed's address and number as well as Tim and Lena's. These I will soon have to write to to let them know that I am trying to get an article together, and that I got some great photos from the trip.
As I had a long layover again in Oslo today, I decided to try my best at seeing the museums at Bygdøy. I had the experience from my last flight into Oslo and remembered that there was a trolly that ferried between the museums. This would help me to get around faster. After getting off the flight in Oslo, I immediately hurried to the baggage claim as I had done on the way in. I waited for a good 30 minutes before I gave up and asked where my luggage was. I was informed that it was automatically transferred onto my next flight out. It would have been nice if I was told this earlier. Then I went to the baggage hold counter to try to drop off my carry-on so that I would not have to carry it around to the museums. When I got there, the guy ahead of me was making some awful fuss over a lost motorcycle jacket and helmet. The clerk was making him fill out every piece of paper in the place. I gave up on this also, and decide that I could carry my baggage after all.
I went outside and got a cab. Every cabbie that I got in Oslo was really friendly and willing to talk English. In fact, I'm sure that one of them was Indian and another was Irish. I got dropped off at the Viking Ship museum and quickly bought a bunch of trinkets there for myself as well as people in the Viking Camp. They will make great gifts at the winter solstice feast. I did my best at calculating the exchange rate and then subtracting it from by account. I could not tell any other way how much money I had left. As it turned out later, I had under estimated the exchange and used up less money than I thought. I found the trolly that went onto the Thor Heyerdahl museum. This museum was not as big as I expected, but I enjoyed it immensely even so. It has the original Kon Tiki raft and Ra II boat inside the museum. There are countless other artifacts there also, but the main theme of the museum was the story that was told along all the walls. The story was about Thor's vision and how he tested it through all his adventures and discoveries. At the gift counter, I bought a couple of pictures and a huge commemorative book, which was in the form of a biography. The lady here told me that on August eighth, just a couple of weeks away, there would be a fiftieth year celebration there of Thor's completion of the Kon Tiki voyage. My timing was off by that little. After this, I realized that I still had time, so I went through the Fram ship museum. This museum was literally built around the Fram ship which is a great piece of Norwegian history. This ship made world records in the exploration of the poles. Besides the ship and many many artifacts that were brought back with the ship or belonged to the crew of the ship, there were some other small craft displayed around the museum. To me, the best displays were the original Greenland skin kayaks that had been brought back or reconstructed by some crew of the Fram. I returned to the airport by taxi, got on the plane and flew off out of Norway. On this flight I was served breakfast. It consisted of meatballs, eggs, juice, etc. I am pretty sure that the meatballs must have been reindeer meet or a combination with beef. They were rather good. I had a short one hour stop over in Iceland. I sat next to a guy on the flight that was from Norway and was staying in Iceland for a week with some buddies before going to the States. They were going to try camping and traveling as far as they could go before leaving Iceland. He said that he knew a girl on the plane that was going on a three week adventure trip of riding the Icelandic ponies across the island. I ran to the duty free shop in the Iceland airport to buy all the trinkets that I could find. I got myself some great shirts, and sagas. I also bought some runes and chocolate for others at home. After this, I had to hurry back to the plane again. On this second flight I met a nice guy who was going to the States on vacation to see his girlfriend who was working there. They were going to travel down to Florida with his uncle. He lived in northern Norway above Bodø and as we talked I learned how the weather around the year was very pleasant in these coastal towns. It would be a great place to live.

Well, I eventually got back to Baltimore and was picked up and taken home. I fell asleep pretty quickly. I remember waking up in the middle of the night about 3.00 am. I suddenly realized that it was dark and that I had no idea where I was. I had not seen complete darkness for the past couple of weeks and it was spooky. It does take a while to readjust, especially after such a great vacation. I cannot imagine having gone to any better place on earth or meeting any more adventurous people.

I really hope that I return, soon.