Lysøysund to Villa

After fuelling up at the dock, we motored out of Lysøysund, waving goodbye to the sailors we met last night. The day started with a pleasant sail under both the main and the headsail in 10-15 knt winds. We gently gybed through Børøya and the narrower waterways near the town of Bessaker.

Then the wind started to increase again above 20 knt. Mindful of the strong winds of yesterday and the narrow channels with islands, rocks and skerries of the Folda ‘coastal danger area’ ahead of us, we turned around near the Buholmrøsa lighthouse to find shelter. This time it was not so easy, with the first anchorage being too exposed to the wind, the entrance to the next harbour being pounded by waves, and the second and third anchorages too deep for our 60 m anchor chain. We finally found a good spot in the harbour at Vingsand, about 3 nm back along our track. The only issue here though was that the berth we used belonged to a commercial fishing boat that was out fishing. Not keen to upset a fisherman, we decided that we would stay only until the wind dropped a bit, and then we’d head out again to Buholmrøsa lighthouse and perhaps beyond.

Vingsand is another of these tiny Norwegian fishing villages where a handful of active fishing boats remain and the village has a matching set of occupied houses amongst a host of summer houses that give the place an isolated, zombie feel. An old man who was checking his boat told us that it had been raining for months and that he wished he was in Australia where it never rained and didn’t get cold. Again, just like all the others in the Netherlands and Norway who have commented on our flag, he thought we were from New Zealand.

Just before 1800 we slipped our lines and left. With the wind somewhere abaft the beam we were able to head out between the islands and onto the route through the Folda where we made good time with a steady wind pushing us along with just our genoa. We might even have had a bit of sun as we rolled along through an unsettled sea. It wasn’t to last though and as we cleared the Folda shoals rain settled in.

Our destination was an island called Villa, described in one of books as an isolated anchorage with Norway’s first octagonal, coal powered lighthouse and lots of white-tailed eagles. By the time we arrived (about 2100) the cloud was so low that it was almost dark and rain and wind meant that all we could see was the water ahead of us and not much else. Never mind eagles. We wound along through the gloom with skerries and shoals metres away from us on either side before coming out into a pool with the lighthouse jetty and buildings nestling beneath a high round rock hill on one side, a fisherman’s summer hut on another and not much else. Very zombie creepy. As the anchor went down though the rain and cloud lifted lightening the mood somewhat.