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Posts from the ‘Outdoors’ Category

Mar 10

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Epilogue

The night before we left Boston to spend a year on Rødøy, we got cold feet. Sitting among 6 giant duffle bags, we asked ourselves, “Why are we doing this?”

We had a good life and had no need to escape anything. Instead of staying on that path, I resigned from my job and we set off to live on a small island north of the Arctic Circle for a year, with nothing planned beyond the year. It was crazy.

That night, we proceeded to work out all the necessary steps to reverse course. Despite the last minute doubts, we stuck to the plan. And it turned out to be the best thing our family has ever done.

6 months after we came back from our year off, the children are happy and well adjusted socially and intellectually. Kristin is teaching part-time at a private school in nearby Cambridge, and she loves her job. The app I started writing, Voice Dream Reader, has acquired a passionate customer-base around the globe, reaching top 10 grossing educations apps at one point or another in 48 countries. That doesn’t make us rich, but we live comfortably while my work gives me profound satisfaction: I feel closely connected to my customers and I’m making a small but positive difference in their lives.

I’ve changed. I think. It’s difficult to tell because I’m hardly a neutral observer of myself. When I talked to companies about jobs after I came back, I smiled and nodded but my heart just wasn’t in it. Meanwhile, I kept going back to work on my app even when sales had not taken off, stubbornly tolerating being unemployed far longer than the old me would have. Perhaps, the knowledge that we could live happily with less gave me strength. At the same time, I’m a lot less stressed about things, and I sometimes find the level of stress around me incomprehensible. I’d like to think that I became a better person.

But even if we did not end up at a better place after the year, we would still do it again without hesitation. Because we had an amazing year that is a treasure of experience and memory. For that we’re deeply grateful to Rødøy and everyone there. For the rest of our lives, in good times and bad, this year will be a reference point for what life could be.

Here are the photographic highlights from our year living on Rødøy, and below are some representative blog posts:

Island Scenery

Fishing

Miscellaneous

Jun 17

Clusters of Islands and Beaches Next to Rødøy
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Beach Camping under the Midnight Sun

We just came back from a weekend camping on a nearby island, all feverish from the sun, wind and the buzz of having picture perfect beaches all to ourselves for two days. Read more

Apr 1

The Big One
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The Mother of All Cod

It’s been so long since I wrote a blog post that some friends worried if everything is okay. Yes, everything is okay. I haven’t written because there was nothing blog-worthy to write about. The bad weather had a lot to do with it. And I was completely absorbed, obsessed, addicted, in-the-zone, building the next release of my app. I just didn’t have any spare brain cycles to think of what to write about.

But the last 48 hours have certainly been blog-worthy. Read more

Mar 11

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This Weather Stinks

It’s 3:25 PM. Gusts of wind shook the house, setting off squeaking sounds from things that shouldn’t squeak. Like the ceiling beams. The seas are covered with white caps as far as the eye can see. The water has stayed at the high-tide mark for a few hours – the walkways to the docks have been flat. A minute ago there was a sudden burst of hail, followed by a few pathetic flurries. And now the sun is shining with a joker’s glee. Read more

Jan 13

Cod Tongues
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Cod Offal

I didn’t know that cod had tongues. I didn’t even know they could speak. Kristin’s father told me about them being a delicacy a long time ago, and I had been anxious to try them ever since. Until last week, I only caught relatively small cod whose tongues were too small. Read more

Jan 9

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Here Come the Big Ones

Every year, big arctic cod and pollock (sei in Norwegian) from Barents Sea come to the northern part of Norway to lay their eggs. With keen eyes for beauty, they have chosen Lofoten, a chain of islands about 50 miles north of there, as their favorite spawning ground. Read more

Dec 18

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The Sun’s Striptease

December 22, which is 4 days from now, is Winter Solstice. For those of us living north of the equator, it’ll be the shortest day of the year. For those of us living along the Arctic Circle, the sun will not rise above the horizon. On December 22, sunrise here will be at 11:37 am, and sunset will be at 12:25 pm, making a “day” of 48 minutes. In Boston on the same day, there’ll be 9 hours between sunrise and sunset.

So you ask, I thought sun doesn’t come up north of the Arctic Circle? Read more

Dec 5

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Fishing with the Pros

Two days ago, I went fishing on a real fishing boat! Our next door neighbor Ove and his friend Kjell took me and another foreign resident, Pawel, to get out for a few hours on Kjell’s boat. Read more

Oct 26

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Scaling the Lion, Part 2

I confess. The last time I hiked up to Rødøyløva, the mountain peak on the island, I didn’t actually make it to the very, very top. I stopped about 30 feet from it. Why didn’t I do it, if I was so close? Because from where I stood, I saw that the very top is actually a protrusion of stone a few feet thick over 1,200 feet of air. Read more

Oct 18

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There Is No Bad Weather

“There is no bad weather, only bad clothing,” goes a popular Norwegian saying. The weather sure has been bad. It’s been 3 weeks since the autumn rain started, and it has rained every day. Today we had 40 mile-a-hour wind and hail. But we braved this weather like true Vikings. Read more

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