A Day in Svolvær

It’s Saturday, August 12, and that can only mean one thing: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TIM! To the guy who plans all our adventures, we wish you lots and lots of the best adventures in this new year (with the rest of us joining, of course).

Saturday started out with a bit of rain. We ate breakfast more quickly than usual, as we needed to get into town for our Trollfjord RIB (rigid inflatable boat) Safari with Lofoten Explorer.

Once at Lofoten Explorer’s shop, we were told to put on cold water flotation suits, which were big and bulky and quite warm. We placed life vests over our suits; these life vests were the kind that inflate when they come into contact with water. On our way down to the boat, we grabbed goggles.

Putting on the suits!

Our boat captain helped us onto the RIB. We were onboard with six other people. Taylor and Wyatt sat on one side of the boat; Tim and I sat on the other. We slowly cruised out of the harbor, but once on the open sea, the captain gunned it. He slowed the boat down after about 15 minutes to point out sea eagles, also known as fish eagles, to us. About half of the world’s population of sea eagles lives in Europe; about half of the European population lives in Norway. These are majestic birds.

The captain tossed frozen fish into the sea to attract the sea eagles. We were able to see some of the eagles fly (against the wind, how about that?) down to the water, scoop up the fish with their talons, and fly back to the rocks to eat the fish.

Let's do this!

That would be Taylor on the left and Wyatt on the right.

Norway, you're beautiful.

It's a sea eagle!

There's a sea eagle on the grassy rock. You just can't see it.

We kept motoring in the Vestfjorden and saw more sea eagles, salmon farms, and a century-old homestead that was just recently wired for electricity along the water. A little more than an hour into the trip, we reached Trollfjord. This is a well-known fjord in Norway, one that’s only accessible by boat or a 10k hike. The fjord has a narrow entrance and steep-sided mountains surrounding it.

Trollfjord was incredible. We drifted around the inlet and took in the sights. I asked our captain about the water temperature and he replied that it was 13 or 14 degrees Celsius. In the winter, he said the water temperature hovers about 0 degrees Celsius. He shared that the flotation suits we were all wearing add about 20 minutes of survival time in the water, should an emergency occur. If you weren’t wearing one of the suits, you’d last about 10 minutes in the water (even less in the winter).

Trollfjord, with its narrow entrance.

Posing in Trollfjord.

More posing. 

We left Trollfjord and headed back to Svolvær, stopping to see more sea eagles along the way. It was a super cool RIB trip, one that did not require testing those flotation suits (two thumbs up).

Once back on land, we tended to the practical and charged our electric car. (That required some Google Translate help, but #success.)

Charge it up!

We bought lunch at the Lofoten Bakeri and ate it in the main square, which was really a circle.

After lunch, we walked back to the car, unplugged the charge, and headed home to our apartment. We changed into shorts, as by now the sun had come up, refilled our water bottles, and headed for Svolvaergeita, also called “The Goat,” a pinnacle of rock that is a popular rock climbing spot in the Lofoten Islands. It’s named The Goat because of the two horns of rock that sit atop the rock. There are some climbers who leap from one horn to the other. (No no no no no no no no no no no way.)

Because it was Tim’s birthday, I offered to carry our daypack with the water bottles up Svolvaergeita. Mind you, these aren’t your typical hiking water bottles (read: light). These are dang heavy water bottles purchased at Target and carried around to school and elsewhere. The hike was billed as challenging, but we had already conquered the Reinebringen steps and Mount Matten; we knew we could tackle Svolvaergeita (right?).

But when I reached the third step – because again, there were sherpa steps put in to combat trail erosion – I called out, “I need to stop!” I was so winded and my legs were already on fire. (I’m going to blame my morning runs; I was doing hills in the morning AND during our hikes. Does that fly?) Tim grabbed the daypack from me and wore it up the mountain; thanks to him, my climb up was much easier (and his was harder).

Taking a little break from all the stair climbing. 

We climbed 500 steps and then the trail divided. We turned right because we wanted to get closer to the base of Svolvaergeita. From here on up, we part hiked and part climbed. There were some parts of the hike where I couldn’t look down; it was a sheer drop down the cliff.

Still on our way up.

Getting up there. 

We kept going higher and higher and the rest of my family showed no signs of stopping. Meanwhile, I’m starting to freak out; one, because I seem to have developed a fear of falling from heights in the past few years, and two, because my overactive imagination has convinced the rest of me that my children were going to fall off the side of the mountain. I started to sound my anxiety: “I think we’re good, everyone! Wow, look how far we’ve come. Time to turn around!” But no one responded; they were intent to continue. I hiked a little more and then complained more loudly: “Hey! Remember, we still have to go down. Let’s go back down!”

Tim stopped the kids and we had a family meeting high up on the trail. It was decided that I would stay put with the daypack and Tim and the kids would climb for five more minutes. I sat on a small stone and when the three of them disappeared, I ran through all the worst-case scenarios in my head; I also made sure my phone worked in case I needed to make an emergency call.

Me, having my existential crisis on the side of a mountain, convinced my family would never return.

Meanwhile, the kids are totally fine.

This looks...not safe.

That's Tim down there in the bottom right corner. You can see the goat horns in the top right, although the very tip of the horns is cut off by the photo.

Those three dots in the middle are Tim, Taylor, and Wyatt.

The view from the top. It was indeed spectacular, high blood pressure aside. 

I zoomed in on the three from my perch on the rock.

This is the zoomed out version of the photo directly above. Can you see them?

Yes, I went a little crazy up there. Turns out Tim and the kids made it back just fine, and I put my phone away for the hike back down the mountain. Not that I was ever, ever interested, but this hike reinforced for me that climbing is not my sport (and hiking that turns into climbing up cliffs ain’t for me, either). My stomach turned just watching the 10 or so people climb up Svolvaergeita to the top of the goat horns.

Then there’s Wyatt, hopping down the mountain from rock to rock. And my stomach turned again with each jump he made. Taylor, in the meantime, was super cautious, carefully placing her feet in firm spots the whole way down. Taylor is my kid, and Wyatt is Tim’s. ;)

I realized on the way back down that this sign said "very demanding path."

Back on the flat gravel road that leads us to our car, our legs were once again like jello. Big time jello. We drove back to our apartment, got cleaned up, and walked over to the hotel restaurant for a birthday dinner.

Tim ordered the “Lofoten starter” as an appetizer. This dish included different fish from the region, including whale. Tim and Wyatt ate the whale, and then challenged me to. I did and I’m good, like, forever. Don’t need to eat whale again.

Back at our apartment, we revisited some posts from our 2022 South America blog until the internet went out (we had weak internet there to begin with). That was a sign to pull the blackout curtains closed and go to bed.

I think it was a good birthday for Tim, even if he had to carry that ridiculously heavy daypack up a mountain.

The birthday guy after dinner.