Here are some of our favorite photos from the trip:
1) Our destination, Myken, is a fishing village on a small island about 20 miles off the northern coast of Norway. The town has around 20 permanent inhabitants. My friend Roar is building a home on Myken and the goal of this trip was to move his sail boat there so he could live on it while constructing his new house.
2) The Conwhyp, safely docked in the harbor of Myken.
3) What does a small Norwegian fishing village look like, you might ask? Well, here is an answer. The island's general store is on the far left and about 3/4 of the homes are visible in the center of the photo. The rest of the island is rock and tundra.
4) Main street Myken. The only danger to walking on the road are the small children running about or maybe stepping in goose poo.
5) Roar is building his house on top of an old water reservoir used in the past to collect rain water. An osmosis plant was built on Myken, converting salty sea water to pure drinking water, so the reservoirs are no longer used. A 25 ft high, 4 ft thick concrete box makes a pretty impressive foundation for a house!
6) The only vehicle on Myken is this three-wheeled scooter, used on Saturday's to collect the trash.
7) Roar borrowed a boat from the pier in order to give Nils and I a tour of the island. Due to the rocky surface, it is faster to boat around than to hike over.
8) The coastline of the island has a stark beauty. The colors of seaweed, moss, volcanic rock and arctic tundra makes for a subtle but eye catching color pallet.
9) The backdrop to every view on the island are the impressive mountains on the mainland. According to Roar, the water of the Arctic Sea is usually not glass smooth like this. Instead, waves often pound into the coast of the island shooting spray a hundred feet into the air.
10) On a separate island, across the harbor from the village of Myken, is this historic lighthouse. It was built in 1918. The lighthouse is now fully automated but the Norwegian government refinished the interior and now rent it out as a guesthouse. Roar gave us a tour and it is beautiful inside.
11) There are many small islands surrounding the main two islands which make up Myken. The small passages between these islands are generally shallow and filled with rich sea life.
12) If, in this photo, I look like I think this place is cool then the camera accurately captured the moment. The temperature is probably low 40s or high 30s (Fahrenheit) which is why I'm wearing the jacket, hat and gloves.
13) Fresnel lenses are just cool, even this one which was made from cost-saving plastic. The green and red window covers on the right are in a unique pattern which allows boats to positively identify this lighthouse at night.
14) An artsy photo of an air vent inside the lighthouse. The life of metal objects located on an island is a harsh (and proably short) one.
15) The island containing the village of Myken, as seen from the lighthouse. The harbor has two openings to the sea. Originally there were two additional openings but man-made seawalls were built in the early 1900s to block these off and thus calm the currents running through the harbor.
16) During World War II, the Germans occupied the islands of Myken. To control the village of Myken, a concrete bunker was built underneath the lighthouse and a machine gun was installed inside which could target all the buildings across the harbor. A small detachment of German soldiers manned the lighthouse and bunker until the end of the war. Despite the occupation, the Norwegians living in Myken had a small radio hidden in a cave on the far side of the island in order to keep up with the war via BBC radio.
17) There may only be 20 full time humans living on Myken but they are outnumbered about 100:1 by seagulls. This wall of rock below the lighthouse is home to an extremely noisy rookery.
18) The crew of the Conwhyp enjoyed a fine celebratory dinner the night of our arrival. Four days of sailing, plus a day of fascinating sight-seeing, ended in a delicious meal. Life is good.
19) This photo, takening around 1am in the morning, shows why Norway is known as the Land of the Midnight Sun. This is as close as the sun gets to setting during Springtime above the Arctic Circle.
20) Since the purpose of this trip was to get Roar's boat in place so he had a place to live while building his new home, it only made sense that Nils and I help out however we could. Nils apparently drew the short straw and ended up driving a core drill through the three foot thick concrete foundation wall. Roar drew an even shorter straw and had to hold the drill steady while getting blasted in the face with gritty, muddy water. I stood around taking pictures. Roar can thank me later.
21) Once the morning's construction work was done, Roar lead me on a quick hiking tour around the island. The surface of Myken is a combination of big rocks, covered with a few inches of spongy tundra. The tundra is actually a diverse mix of plants, including tiny little flowers, ground hugging evergreens, lichens and succulents.
22) These pretty flowers turn into cloudberries in late spring and are apparently highly sought by the locals. For our hike, they were just an eye-catching part of the scenery
23) On the far south end of the island there is both a navigation pillar and an automated lighthouse. Here Roar provides a sense of scale, as well as imitating one of Sauron's orcs (we couldn't figure out how to mount a giant eye on top of the tower on such short notice).
24) Another artsy shot: these succulents dotted the trail and I found them quite striking.
25) The photos above highlighted the tundra parts of the island, so this photo shows just how rocky it can be. We had to climb sections like this to reach the highest point on the island.
26) The view from the top is beautiful as well. This shows the second opening out to the sea from the harbor.
27) Before the osmosis plant was installed, Myken's water supply came from collecting rain water. This natural pool on top of the island shows just how wet the island can be thanks to frequent rain showers.
28) A few decades ago, dried fish was a popular Norwegian export into southern Europe. This old drying frame in the village is left over from that boom time but is no longer used.
29) My ride off Myken was the MS Rødøyløven, a high speed ferry run by Torghatten Nord AS. This ferry runs for two hours to the coastal port of Tonnes, as which point I transferred over to the MS Ofoten which ran north for four hours to Bodø. In Bodø, I switched over to a Norwegian Air flight back to Trondheim and, from there, back to the US.
30) 1/4 of the entire permanent population of Myken came out to the wharf to see Nils and I off...and then did the wave!
31) The scenery on the ferry ride was every bit as impressive as what we'd seen on the sailing trip over the previous week. Rain kept me off the deck for most of the trip but a short break in the rain drops allowed me to jump out long enough to get this photo. Norway was incredibly beautiful, from my first view on the flight in to the ferry trip on the way back out.
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