Bessaker - Utvorda

Bessaker was a lovely area to stop for a couple of nights. The marina we stayed in was fairly new and neither of our electronic charts showed the causeway which linked the islelet to the mainland and formed the breakwater for the marina, something that was a bit confusing as we pulled in!

Every boat seems to squeeze in the small gaps

It was quite a surprise to arrive at the same time as the Jensine was towed in, interesting to see people doing in effect what we are doing, exploring north in Norway by boat. We wish them all the best with the rest of the journey, they have the part arriving today and should be on their way shortly after, at 8knots they will likely beat us to Tromso!
Having waited for the weather to calm down further north of Bessaker we left the marina in the late afternoon and edged our way on.

Fast ferry

The lighthouse we attempted to walk to in 2014, Setervagen

There was one of the handful of passages which are totally open to the sea shortly following Bessaker, so with no option of shelter we planned to do this in the calmest weather we could, despite waiting for virtually no wind the ever rumbling swell can quickly bring back memories of the crossing from Shetland and associated seasickness! When safe we ducked in behind the skerries and found a much calmer motion, further out there were waves breaking on rocks which were 4.5m below sea level, in the calmer areas we barely noticed any motion.

Navigational aids

After sun set

The sun set for about 3 hours and we were left navigating in the still bright sky, between the stunning skerries and islets, finding the best route based on currents and wind. Navigating at night, during the bright summer nights, is actually our preference, in general there are less ships, certainly pleasure boats to avoid and plan around, being the slowest boat around means keeping a close eye as ships even several miles away require avoidance planning. Some of the large fast ferries travelling at 37knots wouldn't really appreciate RIBs toodling along at 4knots in their path, and we wouldn't really appreciate a 50m ferry speeding up behind us either!

Lovely calm night

View out to see at Utvorda

Quickstep

In the early hours we found a place to pull in and tied up for a quick nights rest as the sun was rising. This morning we decided to explore the area at Utvorda, its particularly rich in world war history with gun emplacements and old war buildings everywhere. A look out spot for the German army with the stunning wide views across the sea. We wandered around not particularly following the route and stumbled across several of the buildings, without a torch with us and a phone light which was threatening to go flat at any moment. Like the typical horror film scene we walked through the buildings using our camera flash as a torch, snippets of scenes and then black dark.

Guardroom

The command bunker was made up of several levels and as we headed down the stairs you could feel the cold air, much different from the warm sunny day outside. There were walking routes between the bunkers and guns, we can imagine its probably a popular spot for locals. The guardrooms and ammunition holds once the centre of war plans and hate now riddled with barbeques and family picnic benches. Time moves on and nature is taking back what is its own, with trees and moss covering the rusting metals and degrading cement.
We saw the fist signs of cloudberries, a few more weeks and they will be ready to eat, we also spotted the less tasty Moose berries! The forested areas are filled with Moose and while we would be happy to get a photo we prefer not being too close to, or on the wrong side of a 700kg wild animal!

Command Bunker

One of the many Guns

Leading the way with camera flash

We decided to move on this afternoon and as I type we are heading along Namsfjorden towards Namsos where we may stop for a few nights if we can find a chandlery, averaging just over 4 knots we are taking in the scenery, with my Granny's (Margaret Rendall) accordion music on the stereo! The sun is out and the wind low but quite a swell travels down the fjord and so we are not having the calms we had the entire journey in 2014, not that we are complaining, this is far from the storms we had a few days after arriving in Norway while we were at Faeroy.