Two hours after leaving Rødøya we also left the Arctic Circle. This somehow felt a little momentous. We have spent the last three weeks or so north of the Arctic Circle, which put us level (in terms of latitude) with Greenland and the northern part of Alaska. We were even north of the whole of Iceland, but not any more ….. Now we are heading south …..
The marker, as previously, was the Arctic Circle monument on Vikingen Island – a token symbol as it isn’t actually on the Arctic Circle, but it still felt symbolic. From there on it was a straightforward passage – some reasonable sailing, but towards the end the wind died and headed us, so the engine went on.
As we approached Nesna we started seeing large groups of small black birds on the water. Almost casually we got the binoculars out to see what they were and were slightly astonished to find that they were groups of puffins – our closest view of them yet. We tried to potter as close as possible and some attempted to fly off – an inelegant process at the best of times as they seem to try and beat the water into submission with their wings. Others though showed their true relationship with the environment as they rapidly dived and vanished. We spent a very enjoyable half hour or so spotting them and watching them as we approached.
Once in the harbour in Nesna, we moored up just inside the entrance, but realised (with the help of Google Translate!) that these were short-term visitor spaces, so we moved across to the hammerhead of one of the pontoons.
