Change of Crew

Norway is an incredibly wealthy country on the back of North Sea oil and gas, first discovered in the ‘60’s. Very sensibly they are spending their liquid gold on their infrastructure. The roads, myriad bridges and communications systems are impressive indeed. There are hundreds of islands off this small part of coast alone with any island within bridging distance of another being connected by road, often serving as few as a dozen houses. Every home has electricity cables regardless of how remote. It can’t make economic sense but it keeps the islands alive if you can afford it, and afford it they can. We spent a couple of nights in a small harbour on one of the outlying islands flanked by 2 huge 60’ motor yachts and a small(!) 40 footer, only in Norway (and perhaps Nice) could Moondance be eclipsed by other craft in a small harbour, there is some serious money here!

The cost of living here I reckon is about double the UK. A litre of milk is £3 and a loaf of fresh bread £4 – not a cheap place to hang out! Minimum wage is also double. How they compete internationally I do not know.

Tourism seems to be of little interest to the Norwegians despite what they have to offer. Tourist information is scant and little effort is made to encourage visitors; I can only guess that they are well enough off from oil not to need it. I have seen no commercial fishing or agriculture (the mountainous terrain is not very conducive any way); I can’t really figure what these people do except enjoy themselves in their thousands of holiday homes dotted all around the coast line, not a bad life!

They are a funny lot these Norweigans. They are friendly enough when you engage them but they seem to keep themselves to themselves; they very rarely exchange greetings when they pass you. Extraordinarily there are almost no sailing boats here despite the mass of inlets, islands and lovely boating opportunities; it is all power boats. They worry about cycling through poorly lit tunnels and advise against going up to the tops because there is snow around. I think the Vikings would be ashamed of this lot!

On Saturday Mike set off home whist in the opposite direction on the train from Oslo  came Gordon, my Canadian friend who I did the Himalayas with.

I spent the day servicing the engine and doing domestics, cleaning and doing the washing – by hand as all Norweigans seem to have their own washing machines thus having no need for a laundrette and leaving humble yachties to get out the bucket. Domesticated man, female porn I am told?!

A somewhat jet lagged Gordon appeared on deck to another sunny day on Sunday having arrived at 1am after missing a connection. We headed south, bound ultimately for Oslo, where we would end the first half of this years trip.     P..41

60 miles and no mackerel later (where are they all, are we to starve??!) we pulled in at the mouth of Lyse Fjord, one of the most famous of Norways fjords close to the ferry port of Stavanger.

 

 

A stunning place indeed and the sun continues to shine.

Heading South to Bergen

Sogne fjord is the most northern part of my sailing adventure; today we started to  head south. I think I can hear Melanie cheering from here?! Mind you, with the weather we are having here, who needs the med?!

We are now in amongst the many hundreds of islands strung out down the whole coast of Norway.

From one anchorage we went for a bike ride down the full length of the island to get a taste of the beauty a little inland; we were not disappointed. Rolling hills, fir trees, sparkling crystal clear lakes dotted with wooden chalets; many Norwegians have holiday homes in this area.

There was a pleasant gentle breeze when we got back to the boat so we set off again to do little more than drift south amongst these beautiful islands. We sailed down channels between islands from 1 mile wide to as little as 50 meters wide, a little tight!

We caught a whacking great Pollock trawling behind the boat. I hoped he might get close to Waddy’s Irish cod but sadly my tackle broke as I tried to haul him in over the back of the boat, he must have been huge!

We spent the afternoon wandering round these lovely old buildings at the old wharf, some of which made us feel somewhat drunk just looking at them with the funny angles caused by foundation sinkage over the years.

Bergen has a very interesting history. It was the capital city for hundreds of years. The king decreed that all trade (mostly dried cod caught in the north) traded internationally must go through Bergen. The Hensietcke League who were a huge German trading cartel throughout Europe in the middle ages moved in and pretty much took over the wharf area for 400 years. It was they who built and ran the wharf.

Flam – Sogne Fjord

We spent the night at the head of another arm of the fjord close by at a place called Flam. In 1940 a tourist railway was built to take passengers from the cruise ship up into the mountains and give them a taste of the scenery from above. We took the train up the spectacular 3000’ climb, the train meandering in and out of the valley walls, through tunnels and around switch backs to get to the top. We came back down a little way in the train from where we had a very pleasant 3 hour walk back down to the harbour. We passed a few houses with this somewhat innovative roof insulation!

It was then time to start heading back towards the sea; 4 hours of motoring and a small bonus sail when the wind favoured us got us back to Balestrand.

On Friday morning we set off for a 2-3 hour walk to 1500’ peak nearby; we intended to be back for lunch then make some more miles back up the fjord. The tourist information here is not great. Half an hour into the walk we discovered that we could get to a much higher peak on what looked like a very nice circular walk.

We took stock of supplies. We had 3 crunch bars and a liter of water, decided that where there was snow there was water and that hunger was for cissies and set off for the top. What a fabulous walk. We topped out at 985m (3200’), once again we had lots of snow around us and plenty down our boots! Tired, hungry but very satisfied we got back to the boat, scrumped some more mussels for tea from under the pontoon and headed back out of the fjord.


We have suffered one tragedy this afternoon. Mike’s daughter Jenny had packed him off with a box of the most fabulous chocolate brownies that she had made. Needing to recharge the calories we tucked in for the final time and depression settled over Moondance at the thought of no more of these delights. Perhaps we can sweet talk you into another batch for our next cycling trip Jenny?

Sogne Fjord

the mountains

walking in the snow

Once back down we hopped back on our bikes and took a detour to see another tongue of the glacier from the road; pretty, but it didn’t cut it compared with being at the glacier face.

Back at the boat we cast off to get some miles under the keel. We decided to do a bigger more of this fjord and to head for another subsidiary fjord that was said to be particularly spectacular (what, MORE spectacular than this??!)

e on

The evening made for a very pleasant gentle sail while we had tea in the cockpit – mussels found that morning under the pontoon at Balestrand – very fine they were too!

The North Sea and arrival in Norway

A short flight to Inverness and 3 hours on a bus saw us back at Wick harbour where Moondance had spent the winter. Mike and I came up 3 weeks ago to put her in the water and prepare for the next trip so we had little to do on arrival other than stock up with supplies and nip up the mast to fix a new VHF aerial - spot whats at the top of the mast that isn't usually there- me!

We woke up on Friday morning to a good Scottish drizzle and a mixed forecast; windy at first, dying then picking up again. We set of at 8.30 by which time the sun had come out (temporarily!) and with a stiff Northerly force 6 wind, a hard beat, this was going to be hard work. 

Arrival in Norway

The Orkneys

The Orkneys are a group of islands that begin 20 miles north of John O'Groats across the notorious Pentland Firth and the tidal race known as The Merry Men of May; there isn't much merry about the place, under certain conditions, the race pushes up standing waves of a size able to sink small vessels! The Orkneys are made up of 9 principal Islands, the largest being named 'Mainland' an island 20 miles north of , well, the Mainland , another rather larger island!!




The Orkneys are quite different from anything we have seen on the west coast of Scotland. Instead of a harsh, rocky, weather beaten landscape the Orkneys are straight out of rural England with gently rolling lush green countryside dotted with many fresh water lakes. Certainly one can see why agricultural Neolithic man settled here so abundantly 5000 years ago. Neolithic Man must have been all over Scotland and England but there are an enormous number of relics here, surviving perhaps because of the generally sparse population and little industrialisation of the landscape. The best know relics are of course stone circles, very abundant in varying sizes all over the islands.







Other discoveries have been the entire remains of a Neolithic village at Scara Brea on Mainland and Maes-Howe, a large burial or ceremonial chamber. In 1930 an entire small village was discovered at Scara Brea after a viscious storm blew all the covering sand away, revealing small stone houses with the stone cots, hearth and even larder shelves still standing exactly as they were left 5000 years ago!

Mike and I are now heading home and leaving the boat in Kirkwall, the capital of the Orkneys. I will be back to finish off the trip on 17 July for two weeks when we will explore the rest of the Orkneys, head another 60 miles north to the Shetlands then back down to the Scottish mainland where I will leave the boat for the winter. Bye for now, see you back in the Orkneys in 3 weeks!

Around Cape Wrath

I have been a bit under the weather since Mike’s fine ‘Tarte poulet’. I have had  a virus I think that left me feeling sick and very weak but 4 days later I am back on my feet and bouncing around again.

We rounded Cape Wrath on Wednesday. Far from being wrathful (is that a word?!) we had a terrific sail in sunshine and 20 knots of wind from behind us. I hate to shatter the illusion of romance and danger of Cape Wrath but the name has nothing to do with the wrath that we understand, it is from the Norse word for ‘round the corner’, so round the corner we went to the north coast of Scotland. It felt like quite a milestone in my adventure.

We have had many goes at fishing without success; the cold start to the year seems to have delayed the mackerel coming in but we did finally have success and landed 4 mackerel and 1 pollock, a white fish similar to cod. Now this was a moment we had been waiting for, not just because we wanted fish for dinner or even the wine to go with them but so that we could try my new toy, a smoker! Out of its new wrapper it came looking very smart and shiny with two glistening mackerel on the grill.

 It is simply a tin box with wood chippings scattered in the base then 2 meths burners put underneath to heat the chips and the tin thus smoking and cooking in one. Unfortunately I had not read the instructions properly (no comments about males please) and had brought paraffin instead of meths; no matter, they both burn don’t they? Well, yes and no. The burners lit beautifully but 10 minutes later there were flames billowing out either side of the smoker and my nice new shiny tin was covered in thick black soot! 

Never mind, it was the fish we were after. Look good? Yes, but they tasted FOUL! Upon investigation, the paraffin heat had been so great that the chips had been burned to cinders thus smoking the fish not with tasty chip smoke but charcoal; they tasted rather like the bottom of the tin looked! Oh well, you live and learn; we will have to catch some more (if only it were that easy), we’ve already got the meths!

From the Cape we headed east to Orkney. It was our first windless day for a while so we motored the 35 miles to Hoy and the famous Old Man of Hoy, a very spectacular rock pillar famous with climbers.