The Moskenstraumen
The Moskenstraumen
The Maelström is the world strongest tidal current in open waters resulting in strong eddies and whirpools. The maelström is located in the straight between the islet of Mosken and the island of Moskenesøya, which is five miles wide and around 50 metre deep , much lower lan the surrounding waters. The four metre tides are filling the Vestfjord twice a day. At mid-tide, the whirlpools begin to appear with a speed up to 6 knots eventhough speed up to 12 knots have been reported.
The largest whirpools can reach 40 to 50 metres in diameters and a water riddles up to one metre.
The mealström on carta maria, 1539
The Maelström in the carta marina, 1539
Olaus Magnus developed the carta marina in 1539. He included the maelström off the coast of Norway and attributed it to divine forces and stated that it was more powerfull than other known whirlpools.
A Descent into the Maelstrom, Edgar Allan Poe, 1841
“The island in the distance,” resumed the old man, “is called by the Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. That a mile to the northward is Ambaaren. Yonder are Islesen, Hotholm, Keildhelm, Suarven, and Buckholm. Farther off—between Moskoe and Vurrgh—are Otterholm, Flimen, Sandflesen, and Stockholm. These are the true names of the places—but why it has been thought necessary to name them at all, is more than either you or I can understand. Do you hear anything? Do you see any change in the water?” We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen, to which we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we had caught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from the summit. As the old man spoke, I became aware of a loud and gradually increasing sound, like the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie; and at the same moment I perceived that what seamen term the chopping character of the ocean beneath us, was rapidly changing into a cur rent which set to the eastward. Even while I gazed, this current acquired a monstrous velocity. Each moment added to its speed—to its headlong impetuosity. In five minutes the whole sea, as far as Vurrgh, was lashed into ungovernable fury; but it was between Moskoe and the coast that the main uproar held its sway. Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into phrensied convulsion—heaving, boiling, hissing—gyrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the eastward with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes except in precipitous descents.
20,000 Leagues Under the Seas, Jules Verne,
The Canadian had stopped in his work. But one word many times repeated, a dreadful word, revealed the cause of the agitation spreading on board the Nautilus. It was not we the crew were looking after!
"The maelstrom! the maelstrom!" Could a more dreadful word in a more dreadful situation have sounded in our ears! We were then upon the dangerous coast of Norway. Was the Nautilus being drawn into this gulf at the moment our boat was going to leave its sides? We knew that at the tide the pent-up waters between the islands of Ferroe and Loffoden rush with irresistible violence, forming a whirlpool from which no vessel ever escapes. From every point of the horizon enormous waves were meeting, forming a gulf justly called the "Navel of the Ocean," whose power of attraction extends to a distance of twelve miles. There, not only vessels, but whales are sacrificed, as well as white bears from the northern regions.
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