Stokkøya to Grandholmen. 47 km, 6.4 km/hr average speed. Start 0945 arrive 1815.
As we took advantage of a stop in the rain to pack the tents we saw a wet and drab sign advertising for a bakery in a strange building just down the “road”. It should open in 20 minutes. We didn’t exactly get our hopes up, but the alternative was oatmeal porridge in the “service house”. Not much to lose.
Good thinking. Stokkøya was just about to improve a lot on second impression. The strange building turned out to be a “village box”, first we’ve ever seen. Basically an multipurpose mostly unisolated hall. Adjacent was the bakery. It had first class bread and outstanding pastry, delivering far and wide. Croissant and danish beats oatmeal for breakfast any day!
We were the early birds and the young lady serving us had time for a chat. We explained about our Russian-Scandinavian paddling adventure hoping to make a bit of an impression. Elin found it interesting, although she didn’t do much paddling. She was more into motorbikes. Her summer vacation last year was spent riding her motorcycle from Trøndelag to Mali (west Africa). So much for paddling through Russia….
It turned out Elin was the daughter of missionaries and had grown up in the Ivory Coast and Mali. Now she was planning to go back to do social work with kids. By plane, but still. We were thoroughly impressed by such dedication and courage. Pastry and food for thought all in one helping. Stokkøya climbed drastically in our ranking.
Still no time to linger. We had 47 km to go to our planned campsite at Grandholmen. So shortly before 1000 we were on our way. Today the conditions were good and we were back to our normal speed of 6+ km/hr. Remembering the struggles of the last two days we chose the short, not the scenic route.
So lots of open water, and not a lot to write about. Just one reflection. We realized that the whole three weeks we have probably not paddled a single meter without line of sight to a fish farm. They are littered all over. The last couple of days we haven’t paddled a meter without line of sight to windmills either. It’s massive things, it seems the economic fundament of these societies are changing before our eyes.
We got to Grandholmen without incident. We found the campsite just as “advertised” on Google Maps. Just one thing, the piton google was obviously taken on low tide. Judging from the sea weed on our planned campsite there would be occasions where that was under water…
What about tonight at 0300? Against camping, it was a full moon so high tide. For camping the seaweed was well dried, it would probably take a storm surge to get more seaweed up there, and no wind was forecast.
We set up the tents and put the kayaks at the same level..
Just as we were having dinner a young lady came walking towards us along the shore. Surprise, this was a small islet with no connection to mainland.
It turned out she was the owner of the farm to which this islet belonged. She was here with her husband and father to look after a small cabin that stood on the islet. She explained that the cabin was open for people like us as was many other small cabins round here. The cabins were built around 1920 when harvesting shells for longline bait was an important industry here.
Very generous. But the tents were already up and we could hear the sleeping bags beckoning. We decided to take our chances with the tide.
Tomorrow we will paddle to Sandstad on Hitra. WP, and it looks good. From there Erling will leave to visit Ålesund to take part in his uncle’s 70ieth birthday party, returning Sunday. By then Stein will have left for Oslo on Saturday. Which means Karianne will be left to look after the gear. Possibly a superfluous function, since no one in their right mind and a sense of smell would take anything….
Unless the tide takes our kayaks tonight of course.
The Russian - Scandinavian Kayak Expedition 2018 -2022 