I have not been writing anything on my blog for a long time. Sorry! I have been busy working on my YouTube channel and most of all I have been kayaking. Surprise! At the end of my post there is a link to my YouTube channel where you kan see all my kayaking videos.
This is a district i Northern Norway where the Arctic Circle is passing through. I was leading a group of 10 kayakers for 11 days out on the marvelous waters and among the many islands in the area.
Preparations and travel.
Checking that all gear and food fits in the kayaks
Sven has arrived and all kayaks and gear are loaded.
Moose and caribou are dangers on the road
Taking a break early morning in the Swedish/Norwegian mountains
I have now been kayaking every month since April 2014. That is every month for three years! And I think that I have been on the Lake Vänern every month as well.
This day me and my friend Christer had snow, rain, wind with us, wind against, calm and sun. Spring weather! We started at the Yttre Bodane nature reserve and at the jetty a bit from the parking lot. Some ice at first but then open water and with a good pace we went mostly outside the islands upp to Vingens hamn and around Gåsön.
As it then started to rain (mixed with some snow) we went ashore and into the trees to have our lunch. After a bit it stopped raining and the sun was back.
At the trip back we had some head winds and with my Gemini I had to paddle hard to keep up with Christer.
We saw the first ospreys for the season, probably getting their nest ready.
All in all a very nice day and good training for a long trip we will have in Norway this summer. (More about that in a later blog post).
Some statistics from the day:
Distance = 22,1 km
Time = 5:17
Travel time = 3:33
Average speed (whole day) = 4.1 km/h
Average speed (paddling) = 6.1 km/h
Max. speed = 8 km/h
Christer is getting ready to go out in the ice.
I put the GoPro on Christers kayak. Here we got some small surf.
Not yet summer!
Christer at our "fika" break
On our way back
Christer in his Arrow play
It's not possible to paddle into the quarry at Trollön with this low water level.
At exactly midnight on Midsummer's Eve I set out with my kayak from Fjällbacka, a small Swedish coastal town. I paddled for 45 minutes until I saw the fire on a beach on "Porsholmen", an small island in the archipelago outside Fjällbacka. There 18 other kayakers were having their Midsummer celebration.
Next morning four of us started earlier then the rest to go out to "Lyngö", an island with a lot of reefs and nice passages passable only with kayak. We had a fantastic day with some wind, swell and a lot of sun. Perfect! Unfortunately I didn't catch the best parts with my camera or the GoPro. In one deep ravine I got stuck with the kayak, too narrow to turn and at an other moment a reflecting wave turned me over but I manged to roll up again.
At lunch we met up with the others at "Långeskär" and after we split up in different groups again. Was with some other friends in the afternoon as we took a trip more outside before heading back to "Porsholmen".
Then we spent a nice evening with food and drink on this beautiful place before going to sleep. Some had then already left us but we were about ten of us who stayed the last night at Porsholmen.
A very nice weekend with old and new friends. Thanks to Caroline, Micke and Marina for arranging this.
