An early start (yes- yet another), but we didn’t intend this one. This one was prompted by a very noisy Polish boat arriving at 5.45am and then chatting loudly outside the boat. This was quite effective at getting us up, but they were blissfully unaware of their impact. Still, it meant we had an early start to Reine and we moored in the guest harbour shortly after 9.30am. That gave Hugh and Liz a chance to look round and take various photos. we had been there already a few days earlier, so pottered around on the boat.
From there we headed along the coast planning to moor at Nusfjord. Another yacht seemed to be on a parallel course and I innocently clicked on the AIS target on the screen. I instantly recognised the yacht name – the Polish boat who had disturbed as that morning. For the next half hour, I carefully watched their course and progress and with a sense of relief reckoned that they were heading beyond Nusfjord. At almost that moment, they suddenly made a ninety-degree turn heading straight in through the entrance crossing about three minutes ahead of us. As we entered the harbour (a beautiful traditional fishing village) they called us in saying that there was room in front of them. As I headed for the space though, I realised that they had little sense of spatial awareness and that their 45 foot boat on a 60 foot pontoon was never going to leave space for a 35 footer in front of them, so I rapidly hit astern and backed out. Plan B – we headed for Ballstad.
The new guest marina at Ballstad looked from the pilot books to be a good place to moor, but as we got there the pontoons were clogged with fishing boats and a replica Viking ship (that probably shouldn’t have been a surprise round here!), so we headed over to Ballstadøya marina opposite. There was another Norwegian boat there who we had met up with from time to time and they helped take the lines, but even before we had had a chance to tie up, the marina manager had come out giving us an effusive welcome (and much of his life story) while Anne was still hanging on to the lines waiting to tie up. We did wonder a little about his assumptions of the British when the first thing he told us was where the local supermarket was for us to buy beer and then offered to drive us into Leknes (about 9 miles away) to go to the Vinmonopolet (the state off-licence). We politely declined suggesting we had enough alcohol on board, but he then offered any other help and told us to come and knock on his door if we needed anything. He even came back later in the evening and gave us a copy of a photo of the marina with the Northern Lights above – they couldn’t have been more welcoming.
A quick Google search revealed a nice-sounding restaurant only ten minutes walk away, so we rashly booked a table. This, as it turned out, was an extremely good move. A starter of whale carpaccio followed by stockfish (and catch of the day for Anne), followed by a brown-cheese pannacotta certainly made us feel like we had sampled all the local delicacies and they were excellent. The waitress was very friendly, though we were surprised when we asked her the Norwegian pronunciation for something and she said she didn’t have a clue as she was Croatian, owned a bar in an Austrian ski resort which she ran in the winter and just came to Norway in the summer!
