18-Sep-2004 -- The last remaining confluence point in our neighborhood was 70 N 18 E about 12 NM west of the Island group Risøya in open sea. Autumn had come and we already had several storms and snowfall during the last days and weeks .This weekend though the weather forecast was acceptable and my girlfriend Assami and me started with our boat a Nord West 330 on Friday 18th of September from Tromsø, our town of residence. We stayed for the night at the island group of Risøya in a natural harbor 2 hours away from Tromsø. Risøya is a huge nature reservation containing around hundred small islands. It gives good breading conditions for eagles, geese, comorans and many other birds. On the next morning we made a trip to the main island`s top taking some pictures ( picture #5, picture #6). You can see the island Sandøya which has 3 permanent residents and the Island Fugløya on the left which hosts one of the largest puffin colonies in Norway.

On our way out from Risøya to the confluence point about 14 curious seals observed and followed us.

The weather on this Saturday was overcast, there was a south easterly offshore wind reaching 7-8m/s. The waves were initially small but after a while getting up to 2-3 meters high. My girlfriend who is a doctor and therefore never reads drug prescriptions thought of taking a scopolamine plaster on the way out not realizing that it would take 6 hours before it would work. Our journey out was planned to take 45 minutes as it was 11 NM away from the anchor place. We reached the area at about 16.10 pm and started to make several attempts to hit the spot.

(picture #3, ) Since my girl friend after a short while went so sick that she had to throw up and sit outside with a bucket, I was left alone with all steering, keeping balance, making pictures and nursing my girlfriend. The seas were now 3-4 meters high, it had started to rain and visibility reduced markedly. Land was just in sight in northeast direction which made orientation really difficult. Accuracy of the GPS was indicated as 6-8 meters that day. We use a Garmin GPS 12 connected to a laptop and the C-MAP navigation software which gives us the exact position.

After crossing the confluence point about 10 times but never hitting the 70.00.000N/18.00.000E exactly (picture #4 picture # 7 ) we had finally to give up because my girlfriend was as sick as never before and really looking miserable. I took two more pictures in northeasterly direction as this was the only dirction with visibility (pic #1 & 2)

The nearest point we documented was 69.59.998N/17.59.999 E which should not be more than 4 meters away from the confluence point well underneath the GPS accuracy today.

Celebration at the confluence point was due to given circumstances not possible but was successfully reattempted in the evening at the harbor of Risøya.