Battling storms as winter looms│Solo sailing in the Arctic

September 20th, 2023. It was cold this morning. For the first time this winter I felt cold when I woke up. Like my heating on board wasn't enough. I need to isolate the boats better. It was snow on the mountains this morning, for the first time this winter. Yesterday I arrived in the village where I'm supposed to overwinter. It was a three-day sail to get here. I sailed south for the first time this year, but I'm still at 70 degrees north. These three days brought on all kinds of weather. Three days ago I was still in Jesver. It was the most beautiful sunny day, like the summer had returned. Jesver is an interesting place. It was mentioned in the Old Norse king sagas over a thousand years ago. The only place in Finnmark to be mentioned. Finnmark is the region that I am currently sailing in. The northernmost region in mainland Norway, and Jesver is just at the northernmost part of it, overlooking the North Cape. In the north, there's the Barents Sea, and nothing else. The village itself has only 70 people today, but it used to be much larger back when small-scale coastal fishing was more normal. These days the large trawlers are grabbing what they can get from the coast, at the cost of everyone living next to the ocean, including the animals. Jesverstappan. Three islands that shoot out of the ocean. You can't imagine Jesver without imagining the islands. But from land they almost look like they are one big mountain. They are the home to thousands of birds in the breeding season. They're protected, so you can't go there all year. And I'm happy that the birds get some peace out there. Jesver is one of the best sheltered natural harbors in the entire region. But it didn't stop a couple of hurricanes from hitting while I was there. Located at 71 degrees north, the village is very exposed to natural forces. It's supposed to be really windy tomorrow. It's already kind of starting tonight. So now I'm securing the entire boat. I'm just putting on all of my mooring lines. I just have to try as best as I can to put up as much mooring lines as I can, and secure everything on deck. I've been securing all the sails, so now the two foresails are kind of tied in with an extra rope. I've also secured everything inside, because I know that the boat tomorrow is gonna lay like this. I mean, I can only do as much as I can to try and secure the boat. Then I just have to wait. I experienced winds up to 70 knots one day. The first hurricane almost broke my engine. Even in the harbor, the waves got so high that water had burst through my exhaust pipe and into the engine itself. It was full of salt water. I pumped out five liters of water from where the oil is supposed to be. Now it says that the start battery is at zero volt, which doesn't make any sense. I'm also at a very inconvenient spot, because it's currently storming outside from every angle. It's gonna be a storm for like a week. It's not a good spot for the boat. There are no mechanics in the area, because this place is very isolated. I was terrified that I would have to replace the entire thing. How would I be able to do that in a place like this? There are no mechanics here, no shipyards, but there is always help to get. This is how the boat is currently looking. The local men have always been at sea, and they have always been at sea in a place where help is usually far away. So they know the tricks, and they know how to overhaul a diesel engine with stuff that you can find in the village. And the news had spread that I was struggling with my engine. At the same time, it felt like everyone in the village had mobilized to get me the parts that I needed. It wasn't a quick fix though. It took me two weeks to get the spare parts I needed, and three oil shifts until I was running again. I only have this 20 kilo dunk. Okay, I'm running the engine now to get the oil going through. I've been running it for one hour, and then I'm going to change the oil now that it's warm. There's a really big blow coming in tonight, so that's gonna start tonight. It's a gale, and then it's gonna blow for a couple of days. So now I've just been going over the deck and securing everything, making sure everything is in order. And I should be prepared. It was quiet on the day I finally ended up leaving. I was anxious when sailing out of the dock, but I knew that I could not have stayed in Jesveit over the winter. I was anxious if my engine was going to make it, because I had to fix most of it myself, and I wasn't sure if I had done everything properly. A lot of things seem to have been falling apart lately. My chartplotter stopped working, and my reverse gear has not been working all year. But at least I made it out of the harbor. My first stop on Jesveit had to be at one of my favorite islands. I stop there every time I pass it. It's full of great anchorages, and it seems like every time I visit I find a new one. The island brings me peace. It almost feels like returning home. The next day started just as sunny as the last one. It was a perfect sail, but the weather can change quickly at sea, and it became very... strange. It was windy, even snowing at times. The conditions kept changing, and I had to keep adjusting the sails to fit them. It was tiring, but at least the hours flew by fast. I had a sense that a strong weather was coming in, and I decided to seek shelter. You can often tell when a shift is about to come. Something about the air changes, and the colors just get a different hue to them. I chose a little fjord that looked nice on the map, but I've never anchored there before. The conditions were not great, over 20 meters deep, and something that sounded like a rock surface. Normally, I prefer anchoring at 5 to 15 meters, nothing more, and I prefer sand and mud and clay for the bottom surface. The mountains in this fjord are so tall. It's like they are keeping secrets from me. They kept the wind away, at times. But every now and then, they would let the wind through, and the wind seemed like it wanted to make up for the time it had been kept away. When the wind gusts came down, the whole fjord started shaking. The winds were measured to 55 knots at a nearby weather station. It's strange, because in between the gusts, there's complete silence, and you get a moment to breathe before the mountain takes a deep breath and it blows at you once again. I got somewhat used to the wind after a while. In the first couple of gusts, I was on my toes, checking the anchor and the chain to see that it all held. After spending hours with the wind, it becomes more like background noise. The fjord feels like a strange place. I know nothing about it. All the houses look abandoned. I didn't get a lot of sleep, the wind kept me up, but the final part of the sail wasn't going to be too challenging anyway. It was quite uneventful, actually. And now I'm here, in the dock where I'm supposed to spend the whole winter. I'm actually looking forward to settling down for a bit. The past six months, I've been continuously sailing. The downs have been very low, but the ups have been in the skies. I need to go now. My fingers are already getting cold from riding this, and I need to get my heater fixed before the real cold comes in. I hope this wasn't my last sail of the year, but the forecasts for the next weeks are not looking good, so I'm happy to be somewhere sheltered. you