While we like our snug berth in Harstad it is also nice to change home every now and then, so we had been considering moving the boat to Bjarkoy for Christmas. We were keeping our eye on some nice cruising weather on the long term forecast which was stretching away from us and so we were set to stay in Harstad for Christmas day. With that in mind we walked up to Rema 1000 the closest shop to get Christmas dinner sorted, mainly trying to miss that last minute 24th Christmas shopping havoc, even still it was the busiest we've seen the shops. Christmas dinner as it happens will be salmon, sorry to lack a sense of adventure...
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| The communications tower light up for Christmas above Harstad |
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| Ready to leave Harstad around 3.30pm |
It seemed a shame when living on a boat over Christmas not to make the most of it and head to sea, so within the space of half an hour we had decided to take advantage of the lower than predicted winds and move to Gammelhamn, Bjarkoy. A quick tidy aboard as well as filling up a couple of fuel tanks and we were ready to leave, at 4pm it was black dark so our first "night passage" in a few weeks. This was also our first official "Winter passage" in Norway. We were treated to a smooth three hour crossing with the wind following us making for a comfortable voyage. It is nice to move places but on the whole we don't take much from dark passages as we miss out on the beautiful scenery.
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| Inquisitive duck |
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| The shop on Bjarkoy with the pub next door |
With that said it was great to get tied up in Gammelhamn, which was more difficult than you might have thought, with frozen solid ropes, there are some parts of winter life in Norway we would never have considered had we not seen it. The possibility had occurred to us that the clubroom might be closed up for the season, meaning we would have no access to water, showers toilets and an oven big enough for Christmas dinner!! So after securing Quickstep we marched up to the clubroom and were relieved to find it open and heated. Pleased with that we walked back down to the boat to plug in to the electricity and get the boat heated for the evening. To our surprise the electricity didn't work and after trying every outlet on the pontoon we had to make a few decisions. As we proved at the mooring in Kjotta living aboard without mains electricity at this time of year is possible but far from ideal. The prospect of spending a few days or weeks running the generator didn't really appeal to us, so we considered heading the three hours back to Harstad.
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| Bjarkoy Church behind the trees |
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| Lovely Christmas decorations |
Out of options we reached out to our only contact in Bjarkoy to see if they could point us in the right direction, within minutes Glenn and Stig Johnny arrived at the marina and got everything sorted. Exceptionally kind of them to give up part of their evening and on the 23rd of December as well. Again peoples kindness is just staggering.
Today we have gone for a walk around the village on the snowy roads, decorations twinkly in the icy air, its beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!
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| Merry Christmas from us! |
This Christmas will be different for many reasons, we are sad not to be surrounded by our families and while we cannot name everyone we would like to send special Christmas wishes to Amandas Grandparents, Angela and Rachel, Alistair, Anne, Shane, Alison and Daniel, Neville (Wendys father), Daniel (2014 crew member!) and Wendy. We are grateful to all of you who have followed our adventure and to the many sponsors and people who have made this possible, a very merry Christmas.
So, from us here in Gammelhamn we wish you all a very Merry Christmas, God Jul!!
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