B
ack in 1983, before Norway cashed in on North Sea oil,
I was cruising around the west coast in the pilot cutter
Hirta with my wife, my four-year-old daughter and a
couple of mates. One sunny morning we drifted through
the constricted entrance of a landlocked fjord, charted with the
interesting label Straumen. Not a ripple disturbed the magic so,
being young and foolish I didn’t consider what this might mean.
Leaving under power two hours later, we discovered the tide
ripping in through the gap like a waterfall. The boat wasn’t
making a yard flat out, so we swung around and swept back in
again, having learned the meaning of Straumen.
As we careered over the visible bottom, my mate John noticed
that the place was black with fish. The minute the boat swung
again to her hook out of the tide, he and crewman Chris
clattered down into the dinghy with the fishing gear. Half an
hour later they were back with a bumper haul which we left on
deck in buckets to keep cool.
We cleared out after dinner at slack water in the perpetual
twilight of the northlands and were headed for open water when
the weather took a rapid turn for the worse. Staying out all night
was unattractive in the pouring rain and rising wind, but a
glance at the chart revealed a place called Leirvik with a
lighthouse, a long, narrow approach and a dog-leg at the end. It
was on a dead lee shore and it featured a second kink halfway up
the channel around some sunken rocks, but a further light
promised to keep us in deep water.
By midnight it was blowing a full gale with mist on its
breath. Leirvik was looking less inviting by the minute, but a
night at sea was getting no votes. Making our final approach
towards what looked like an impenetrable wall of rock we
began to get a bad feeling about the lights. Usually, summer
nights are so bright hereabouts that nobody is interested inThe wind had risen to a howl, but the
lighthouse would guide us in...
ILLUSTRATION CLAUDIA MYATT
‘A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE’
TOM CUNLIFFE
them, but by now the cloud was low and thick over the
stair-rod rain and it was virtually dark.
“Where are they, John?” I asked. John was noted in those days
for his X-ray vision and was toting the binoculars.
“Sorry Skip. Can’t see a candle in there.”
This was ugly news and running into a cliff under full
mainsail in 40 knots of wind was not appealing, so we rounded
up with a thunder of canvas. Ros took the wheel, Hannah
lurked in the companionway and the rest of us ditched the jib
and rattled down the staysail at the double.
The 850sq ft flax mainsail was soaking wet, stiff as a plank
and probably weighed 400lb, but we finally hammered it into
submission and tied it up on the long boom. Four pairs of eyes
swivelled towards those dreadful crags to find the lights.
The wind had now risen to a howl and the driving damp was
a living thing creeping in everywhere. Ros swung in to approach
what we hoped was the right hole at a sensible speed, but the
boat tore away under bare poles at 5 knots. All around, the
jagged black mountains lowered through the murk.
You had to hand it to John for cool. I started raving about
square-eyed mates who couldn’t see Blackpool Tower at 50
yards, but he ignored me and kept on looking. Then he passed
the glasses to Ros, whose father flew Spitfires and who has
inherited his gimlet vision.
“Look low down under the cliff on the starboard bow,” he
said, “and tell me what you see.”