After a very pleasant day in Bergen, we decided, with a reasonable forecast to try and get some further miles north done, so we headed off once again at 4am. The early hour was partly as we had a fair distance to do, but in equal measure because the forecast was deteriorating for the afternoon, so we decided to try and get there before lunch. The breeze played ball for around half the passage and we had some lovely sailing, but we did have to motor for the first few hours.
Our destination was Skjerjehamn. This had been recommended to us by a boat we met in Haugesund, but had also been suggested as a good destination by others. They were all absolutely right …. When we arrived, there was just one yacht there and so we managed to go behind him on the jetty.
Skjerjehamn is a fascinating place. Its known history seems to date back to around 1641 when it first appeared in written documentation, but it is likely to have been a trading post long before that – probably back before Viking times. Indeed in 1923 two Stone Age settlements were discovered. By 1641 though there was an inn there and it seems to have had a chequered history with most of the owners having a sideline in dodgy liquor, tobacco and pipes. In an attempt to stop this in 1840, the guest house was bought by the local priest though the former manager bought it back in 1847 when he promised not to sell liquor to locals, but just to travellers – an interesting distinction! It seemed to prosper with further buildings being built so that by 1929, 17 different steamer routes stopped at Skjerjehamn and there was a general store, post office, slipway, mechanical workshop, lumber warehouse, telegraph and guesthouse all on site. The post office is now the reception for the harbour and has been maintained in its original guise.
The site has now been bought by a fish farm business and has clearly had a lot of investment. The original workshop has now become a restaurant and we can confirm that it is indeed a very good one! They even hold a music festival there at the end of July when the harbour becomes completely packed with boats. A degree of fame, or perhaps infamy, was conferred on Skjerjehamn in 2006 when they bid to have a statue of King Olav V. The statue, by the well known sculptor Knut Steen had been commissioned by Oslo municipality, but after he completed it, they declined to install it. This may have been partly because the statue’s raised right arm was reminiscent of a Roman salute. Steen emphasized that this was the pose that King Olav was known for when he greeted the people, but this didn’t seem to convince the people of Oslo. So various Norwegian municipalities bid for it; Skjerjehamn was chosen by the sculptor to install it.
