I'm sailing ALONE towards the North Pole! - Chapter 1

I had taken on my biggest challenge of my sailing career when deciding to follow the trails of my big polar expedition heroes Roald Amundsen and the Andres Arctic Balloon Expedition. They had one certain goal in common to be the first to reach the North Pole. As Svalbard is the closest land to the pole this was chosen as a natural start point for many North Pole expeditions. In their honor I set out on a 3600 nautical miles journey from my hometown of Haugesund and northwards all along the vast coast of Norway to Svalbard. To complete the challenge I set out from Svalbard to make my best attempt to get as far north as possible by boat until I reached the edge of the North Pole Ice Cap. We are here. The North Pole Ice Edge. This is crazy. What might seem as a crazy idea started out on the southwest coast of Norway at my hometown of Haugesund 1500 nautical miles from the Pole Ice Cap. The most stressful part of any of my expeditions is the last moments before departure. My thoughts are spinning thinking if I remembered everything I need. Now is the last chance to figure it out. Ok, so we are here. One year of preparation. I have been dreaming for this for actually 10 years. Ok, there is just one thing to say left. And that is goodbye, I guess. Bye bye. We are going to miss you. Ok. Before I knew it, we were off. Bye bye. Off to my biggest challenge I have ever set out on. So that is us on our way from Haugesund my beautiful hometown to my first destination on this trip. Melva, 111 nautical miles away. About 20 hours sailing. So now I am a little bit nervous but whatever. It would be crazy if I were not. I had a 1800 nautical miles journey in front of me. Plan was getting up the Norwegian coast. The Barents Sea would carry me up to Svalbard all the way up to Kvitøya after a quick visit at the north pole ice edge. It is safe to say I was nervous about the matter. Tiger and Teddy was luckily joining for moral support. A heavy rain squall set in as I hoisted the sails just to set the mood right. All right, let's turn around. With a little turn on the wheel Tessie was set to steer straight northwards towards the first destination. A three months adventure has started. 6.8 knots, that's much better. Let's switch that engine on. Some quiet. Beautiful. Although being offshore I still have wifi connection from shore but that doesn't mean it's completely safe so I think it's time to look at the sponsor of this video NordVPN and I'll see you in a minute. When sailing we are not only busy navigating we are also often online to check weather reports and information about our next destinations. In most cases our device is connected to a random unencrypted cellular 5G or wifi provider out there. In marinas, cafes or anchorages you are exposing your private data to everyone else connected to the same network. This is why I have installed NordVPN on all my devices. With one click all your data is encrypted protecting your passwords, banking info and your location. Several times a year I'm cruising international waters docking in all kinds of ports. By changing my virtual location I can still watch my favorite shows, news or even get a good deal on hotels or flights. NordVPN is also the fastest VPN service out there which is great on Apache Connection. Head over to nordvpn.com to get 4 months extra on a 2 year plan. It's also risk free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee. Now let's continue northwards. Alright, so I'm getting hungry and my mom actually provided me with some homemade pizza here. It's frozen but it's actually not too bad now. But I can eat it cold as well, no problem. That's delicious, cold pizza. Tusen takk mama, van vittigo. I decided to take the outer coastal route in open water to be able to get some rest through the night. It's also a lot faster and you get to see the real coastal treasures like this first destination. During the morning a high pressure had pushed the rain away. Anyway, a northerly strong gale was incoming. Good morning, we are passing Utvåra Island. I've been there last time I went up north with Tessie. It's an absolutely beautiful place. But the next now is Melvar, 60 NM away. So we're getting there. So, I guess we're here, Melvar. Far out in the ocean here, the west side of Norway. Absolutely beautiful. Look at this. A compilation of 300 small islands creates Bylande. The islands are connected with a web of bridges and breakwaters and is Norway's most westerly fishing community. So I'm going to need to find my way inside here now and find a nice berth. And yeah, take a little rest. I sailed all of the Norwegian coast back in 2020 visiting most of the small fishing communities sitting on Ytter Island out west in the ocean. Sneak inside to have a look here. This time I want to show you all the places I haven't been to. It's kind of like rediscovering the outer coast of Norway and I'm very glad to bring you all along. I hope you enjoy the ride on board Tessie together with me, Teddy and Tiger. Peace and quiet. And a safe, beautiful berth. So now I've been working for weeks and weeks without any certain pause. So this is my first real day of actually relaxing. Tessie is all fired up to go to Svalbard with all the bits and pieces. And I just need some hours of good sleep without stress. But that's what's going to happen now and I will see you in a bit. During the afternoon the northerly gale showed up. This left me in port waiting for four days straight. With a shaky camera I tried to capture the atmosphere around the settlement of Bulande. I believe this old fishing community has seen the worst of storms through the years. Even on the most westerly island people had once built their own fishing settlement. I guess it shortened the way to the fishing spots as they had to row their boats to get there in all kinds of weather. Four days. So that's the code zero up. Ready to go tomorrow. Then the weather turned. Next morning we were ready to proceed northwards. The winds has turned to south. Let's go. The favorable weather would lead us past the feared end point of Statt and to a tiny little community lying on a rock called Ona. Ok, we're on the west side of the islands now and we're heading northwards and it's time to get some speed up. We've been waiting four days for this now and the weather is absolutely beautiful. Eight knots on the side here so let's get that code zero out. Step by step Tessie found her way along the course line. Meantime I had to do a little self-maintenance. I've been lucky enough after many discussions with my doctor to bring actually my medicine for my Crohn's disease on board with me on this trip. Usually I go to the hospital to get a half liter of medicine into my arm but now I have these small pens that I can self-medicine with. So let me show you how it works. It has to be in the refrigerator and it's called Remsima. 120 milligrams. It looks like this. So this is actually the first time I do it on my own. There's also some alcohol to clean. There's a piston that drives the medicine through the needle. Find a piece of fat on your belly. Luckily I got some. Wait for a click. And ten seconds. One, two, ten. That's it. High energy food like egg and bacon gets you going for hours. Days are busy with wind shifts and sail adjustments several times an hour to get moving efficiently. During the late night I passed the fair end point of Statt. Luckily the weather was good. Still the Norwegian coast is treacherous and things can turn around fast. On the next day the weather suddenly picked up way above the weather reports. Good morning. Suddenly 28 knots there. 30 knots. Full mainsail. I need to take this sail down now. There was too much pressure on the sail while sailing downwind to pull it down by hand. Turn up in the wind. A better option was to turn the boat into the wind and let the nature do its job. That was scary. I was having a rest downstairs with my eyes shut and almost disappearing and then everything. And then the boom suddenly chimed and I didn't know what was happening. All my plates fell out of the lockers and everything. So that was like that. But now we're safe again. I was heading 20 degrees to port of Ouna to keep wind pressure on the sail to again keep the speed up. That eventually sent us way off the course line. And Tessie had to be gybed the opposite way to head back towards Ouna. All right, let's find Ouna lighthouse. The waves picked up as we entered more shallow water and so did the rain squalls. So it was time to dress up and look cool. Some islands started to get visible in the distance. After passing a range of shoals and rounds the lighthouse on Ouna stood out through the squalls. What was just a dot in the horizon is now a beautiful sheltered community providing a safe harbour. The breakwater quickly calmed the seas letting me into the narrow harbour. Still, the wind had a good grip as I closed in along the guest pontoon. During a brief moment the wind shifted and Tessie was suddenly leaving the dock by herself. She was about to take off without her captain. The second attempt went a little better tying off the bow first. We had officially arrived Ouna lighthouse. Wow, that was a windy one. 25 knots in here, inside here. So that was, I had to do two attempts to get in here. But now we're tied up and everything is good and what an exceptionally beautiful place. I have to have a stroll around and check this beautiful island out. All right, let's go. The community of Ouna consists of two islands connected with a bridge. Fishing activities started around year 1100. A catastrophic ocean storm flow occurred in 1670 washing away many houses. Everyone on the island perished except two families. Through time they managed to rebuild this incredible community. Through countless winter storms the most conspicuous and weather exposed building is still doing its job today. The 14.7 meter tall cast iron construction of Ouna lighthouse was raised back in 1867. To top off the experience I pampered myself over at Ouna havstua with a three course meal catch of the day. That was beautiful Ouna lighthouse. Incredible island, incredible place. But it's time for us to go now. Weather lets us come pretty nicely to my next destination called Sula and that's 18 nautical miles away which will put us there tomorrow morning and now it's 8 o'clock in the evening so 12-14 hours. And if I don't do that I will have a lot of headwinds and so on. So let's just keep the pedal to the floor and keep the pace and let's go. All right, let's continue the adventure. All right, we are about half way and the weather is calm and beautiful but enough to keep the speed up 5-6 knots. But I'm a little bit sleep deprivated so I think this is a perfect chance to get some shut eye for a few moments. Let's just recharge my batteries a little bit. So I have my watch on every 20 minutes just to not fall into really deep sleep. See you on Sula, good night. Tessi had carried on through the night and it was time to wake up. The archipelago closing into Sula is filled with rocks and shoals. There's thousands of scurries around so I need to be careful and follow the charts there. Following the planned route is crucial. The buildings on Sula eventually appeared in between the many islands and rocks. And it got even tighter as we closed into this very remote village. 60 kilometers out from the Norwegian mainland you'll find the remote settlement of Sula. It's known for being a fisherman's paradise as it's surrounded by a vast archipelago making up numerous fishing grounds. With one last short leap we were here. So that's Sula. What an amazing, quiet, beautiful place. So I hope you enjoyed so far. We have gotten about one third up the coast of Norway now. So I'm going to lie here a couple of days until a really strong westerly gale is going to push me all the way to the north of Norway. So stay tuned for that and I will see you very soon. Indeed a storm was coming my way a couple of days away. I decided to spend the night here to get some much needed rest. My sensible side told me to stay here until the storm had passed. But my rather strong adventurous side gave me the idea to proceed to the island of Halten only 30 nautical miles away. From here I could eject myself into the storm and ride it downwind over to Rørvik. My big concern about this was that I had to cross the dangerous open coastline called the Falla Ocean. Westerly winds would for sure stir up this piece of ocean to a dangerous level. However the plan would bring me northwards rapidly and save me time getting to Svalbard. And so the decision was made at least sail to Halten to assess the conditions tomorrow morning. The route led us through the dense concentration of islands until we reached more open water. Now we are just finding our way through this beautiful archipelago here. And I was going to do so for a couple of hours. There is not much use in that sailing. Tricky weak winds made motoring a better choice. Out in the open ocean I wanted to pay a visit to the tiny inhabited islands following towards Halten. Settlements on exposed outer points far out in the ocean has always intrigued me. I tend to be drawn to these places every time I have a chance. Today it is quiet but it is going to be something else tomorrow when a little storm sets in. Here we have been living for hundreds of years far out in the ocean here. We are just passing by one beautiful island community after another on this trip. Wow! That is why I always choose the outer routes along the Norwegian coastline. These places are a long stretch away from the busy inshore waterways. And the whole setting is much more peaceful. Although that was about to change pretty soon. I am testing my little autopilot behind there. My emergency autopilot. It steers the hydro rail rudder down here. It is not too bad. It keeps the course within 10 degrees maybe back in 40-50 sometimes. But it is nice to know you have the alternative. That is nice! On my ass! Oh ----! That sucker had to tie off the wheel to let that one steer. Be careful! After a day sailing the last rock of the island range appeared. So I think we are here! Look at that! At the very end the island of Halten took shape. This is where the journey stops so far. And the ocean takes over. The sunset gave us a warm welcome to one of Norway's most remote island settlements. Halten was the place for those who once dared to live where the ocean rules. To the mainlanders this was the edge of the known world. A place only for the bravest that could take on the challenge of surviving on fishery and some agriculture. The wild bird life is flourishing and some has even claimed their own five star hotel. Looks pretty good! Just got a spot here. Lucky! So this is Halten and it's incredible here. So now the weather is pretty good so it's fun to know that tomorrow this is maybe going to be like really bad. I don't know. 30 knots from south west. But let's see tomorrow what the weather gods brings. But most importantly it's a well deserved beer. It's a cheap one. Pokal. Somebody is going to laugh probably. Beer is beer when you travel for a long time. Oh, perfect. See you tomorrow. Well, I will stop it here and leave next day as a cliffhanger for what will be a very windy and challenging 60 nautical mile ride across the fair ocean of Folla. The predicted gale sure came in with full force. Just keeps coming and coming. Pumping up some scary waves towards the destination of Rørvik. To support this expedition towards the North Pole you can check out my NBJS merchandise following the link in the video description. By supporting me on Patreon you also get access to exclusive content. Any donation on Paypal is also greatly appreciated. Head over to nbjs.no to get a NBJS Burgi. Worldwide shipping. I also do presentations about my stories for any occasion. All information on my website. Subscribe, leave a like and a comment. See you very soon. Erik