Rotterdam (or Anywhere)

Paul’s parents came to see us three weeks ago, during the last weekend of June. June was very rainy in Tromsø (120 mm fell) – we were only 3 mm away from breaking the all time record! It rained most of the days while they were here as well, but we still went out every day. On the first day we drove to Grøtfjord for a walk on the beach. Not surprisingly we were the only ones there!

It was a very cold day, about 8 degrees! I regretted not bringing gloves, I got so cold. But we enjoyed our walk on the beach. There was an oystercatcher who had a nest somewhere near the beach, he got very alarmed when we came near and flew in circles around us.

In Tromvik we found this gull with a nest on top of some kind of refrigerated container! We continued all the way to the end of the road, in Rekvik. We really liked this house on the coast…

We walked along the coast for a bit, and came to a beach with very red rocks. I’ve never seen that around here before! The rock formations on the beach were very interesting too.

Group portrait on the beach 🙂 The other photo shows the path that follows the coast.

On the way home we saw this reindeer next to the road!

The next day we drove to Sommarøy where we went for a walk. Paul’s parents were attacked by this huge seagull! If you come to near to their nest, they’ll attack you by diving at you repeatedly. They don’t actually come that near and I don’t think they’d actually hit you, but it’s really quite scary when it happens to you! There were some gulls near our house that did the same thing for a while and I didn’t enjoy it. Fortunately there were also friendly birds around there 🙂 We saw a lot of ducks with baby ducks, so cute!

These rorbuer (fishermens’ cottages) are owned by the hotel, must be nice to stay in them! I am not sure what the “house on sticks” in the other photo is used for, probably just for storing fishing gear.

This is a pretty boathouse with grass on the roof. We also met this funny looking goat 🙂

And on the way back, we saw a group of reindeer!

On their last day in Tromsø, the sun finally came out! And what a difference that makes… We went for a walk around Telegrafbukta, enjoying the sunshine. Of course I had to take another photo of my favourite boathouse 🙂

We also made a short visit to the botanical garden, mostly to visit their cafe and eat waffles, mmmmmmmm 😀

So far, July hasn’t been very summary either – still a lot of cloudy and cold days. Fortunately every once in a while there is a nice evening or even almost a day – and you need to take advantage of them when they come around! My parents arrived yesterday, on a beautiful sunny day – but today we are back to nonstop rain and low clouds. Good day to spend inside finally catching up with my blog 😀

For the past week, this is what the weather looked like… (and although these photos look black & white, they aren’t – it really was that grey!). It rained a lot, and the rain was heavy – the kind of weather where I’d rather sit inside with a cup of tea than to even *think* of going outside. These photos were taken on Paul’s birthday (last Saturday). We wanted to get out for a bit after having been inside a lot. I came to regret it, as I fell on the beach bruising my legs and my arm, just after taking the second photo – the wet rocks were so slippery!

It was extra frustrating for Paul, as the boat that he bought had been delivered just before that weekend and he was keen to try it out. However, we thought it was important to have good weather conditions at the first try, so we waited for better weather to come…

The boat is an inflatable zodiac-type boat. You can read all about it on its very own website :D. We have named it Drijfsijs, which is Amsterdam slang for any bird that floats on the water (mostly used for sea gulls and ducks, but even swans would qualify 😉 ).

Finally, on Thursday the rain stopped and the clouds disappeared. More rain was expected the day after, so we decided we shouldn’t waste the opportunity! We drove to a nearby launching point that Paul had spotted. It’s not an official boat ramp, but it’s a nice beach with a parking lot very nearby, and out of the way of the “crowds” at Telegrafbukta – perfect. While Paul pumped up the boat (it only took him 15 minutes!), I was taking photos of the flowers (good deal 😉 ) and the green grass, quite overwhelmed by how colourful the world suddenly had become 😀

The engine is new and that means you have to start using it slowly. The first 15 minutes it had to go as slow as possible. No problem in this nice sunny weather 🙂

Our original plans for the evening were a dinner in town with Nicolas, so we called him to ask if he wanted to come for a boat trip instead. He was quite keen, and so we picked him up from the jetty at Telegrafbukta (the one in the very first photo). The tide was low and the ladder didn’t quite reach down to the waterlevel, so he needed to do some gymnastics before getting into the boat 😀 Below is a map showing our route, we aimed for the island of Grindøya, less than 2 km away.

By now we could use the engine up to half throttle so we could go a bit faster. It took us about half an hour to reach the island. Of course, on such a nice evening, we weren’t the only ones there – there was another zodiac and 2 kayaks.

It’s a beautiful place, we had a bbq on the rocks overlooking the sandy beach and enjoyed the views of the mountains around us. A great evening! We also explored Grindøya on foot a bit, although we couldn’t go very far as most of the island is closed off at this time of year, to protect the nesting birds.

After our walk, we left the island and dropped Nicolas off at the jetty. By now, the tide had come up and the stairs were a bit easier to get to ;). When we got back to the launching place, I was a bit too keen to get out of the water and discovered I should get higher wellies – I managed to step into slightly too deep water 😐 COLD!!!

It was a fun first trip, and I’m looking forward to the many more adventures we’ll have with our boat!