Paul had his birthday yesterday, but as the weather suddenly cleared up the evening before, we decided to go for an early birthday BBQ on the beach at Grøtfjord. I never get bored of this place, it’s such a pretty beach…

We stayed on the beach until about 23:00, when the sun is still up but it disappears behind Vengsøya. The light was so pretty on the way back to Tromsø that we stopped several times to take some photos…

At Eidkjosen, Lance (the research ship that Paul spends a lot of time on) was also reflected in the calm waters – beautiful!

One final stop on our way home, on Tromsø island looking towards Kvaløya.

The next day, on his actual birthday, we kept changing our plans. We were going to eat sushi at our favourite restaurant, but it was warm and sunny so we decided to go for a boat trip to Hekkingen. But by the time we were ready to put the boat in the water, it had clouded over. We’re a bit spoilt, so we decided not to go. Instead, we tried to reach Torsnes beach near Sommarøy. It looked like an easy trip on the map, but it turned out to be a nightmare 😉 Lots of marsh and too many small trees, terrible amounts of mosquitos, and finally we couldn’t cross the ridge as you had to climb nearly vertically on huge boulders. Never mind… at least we got some nice views of Sommarøy…

Next time, we’ll follow the beach at the bottom of the ridge instead of trying to cross it 😉