After four days of grey skies the sun broke though this afternoon and we quickly readied Drijfsijs for a trip to a secluded beach called Rekvika on the seaward of Vengsøya. Rekvika is a great evening destination in summer as it faces straight towards the sun around midnight. We parked the van very close to the beach in Grøtfjord from where we could easily wheel the boat across the sand. The sand in Grøtfjord is nice and soft so we took the wheels off the boat on the beach and just slid it into the water rather than carry them with us. It was good to practice launching the boat into some small ripples - as in the future we might need to launch from some places that get more surf.
After waiting five minutes for the engine to warm up we were underway towards Vengsøya. Before setting out I was worried about hitting one of several submerged rocks around the island, but I didn't need to as the water was really clear and we could see the bottom even when it was quite deep. We saw a lot of puffins sitting on the sea surface between Grøtfjord and the southern side of Vengsøya. In two years of living in Tromsø I've never seen a puffin from land but there are plenty of them just a few tens of meters from the shore. The puffins we saw were quite shy and dove under the water if we got too close to them.
The beach at Rekvika is hidden until the last moment when approaching from the west and Hanneke was beginning to question it's existence before it came into view. But luckily it was still there!
Rekvika has beautiful white sand so we just hopped into the water and dragged the boat up the beach. Despite the warm sun and white sand the water temperature is only about five degrees, so we didn't spend too long paddling. Instead we explored the beach, which had gathered some impressive pieces of driftwood and a few lost fishing nets. Somebody has made a pair of hammocks by stringing the nets between some trees behind the beach; they made a great place to spend a few hours watching the sun try to set.
After a couple of barbequed sausages and bananas we headed home again as we both had to work in the morning, but I would rather have spent the night in one of the hammocks. It is seldom warm enough to do that around here!
