The excitement of arriving was dampened somewhat by two factors. The first was the realisation that the boat wasn’t, as we had hoped, ready for us. The boatyard had not flushed the water system properly for the winter (as they had been asked to do!) and as a result, there was some damage where the water had frozen in the system. This required a new pump, new...
Driving to Norway can’t really be considered the easy option, but it is fun and a great way to see the country. We decided on a route which took in two ferries to do some of the miles for us. We started Saturday April 25th with a day ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland. We have done this in the past by taking the night ferry, but that puts pressure on to...
The season is nearly done now, so, after dropping one of the crew for a flight from Kristiansund we headed off at 7am to drop the boat at its final destination for the winter – Hitra Marine. The first 5 hours or so, the wind stayed resolutely distant and then, when it did fill in, it filled in right on the nose. By this time we were heading up Ramsoyfjord and...
We are now in our final few days before having to drop the boat at Hitra, so we decided to head off to a small island to the east of Kristiansund called Ringholmen. This island was one of the many whose purpose started originally as production of clipfish. Klippfisk is the staple of this area and Kristiansund remains one of the key production centres for this dried...
A lovely sail today, back, once again to Kristiansund. We had a great sail. We didn’t leave until lunchtime and the breeze then gradually filled in. As ever round here, it changed ninety degrees when we changed ninety degrees, but with 12-15 knots we had a great sail under full main and staysail, the self-tacking staysail doing what self-tacking staysails do...
With the weather improved and looking more settled we headed off for a sail today. We decided to round the north of Averøya and go once again through the Storeisundet bridge on the Atlantic Ocean Road. This time though we approached it from the east. We managed to sail on and off, but the breeze was variable. Once through the bridge though, the breeze switched back...
Having got to Kristiansund, we decided to have a couple of days there. One deliberately to look around and the other because, once again, the wind decided not to oblige. So, on the first day, after getting various jobs done, we booked to go on the ferry across to Grip. Grip is strictly speaking an archipelago and the island we visited was Gripholmen, the largest and...
This morning at Oldenborg was flat calm, so we had little expectation of a sail to Kristiansund, which was only five miles away. However, as we got out into open water a lovely breeze sprang up – around 10-12 knots from the northeast. It seemed a waste to put sails up and not make the most of a good sailing breeze, so, rather than heading in through the western...
A relaxed morning this morning. A bit of shopping and a bit of visiting …. Once that was done, we headed off around lunchtime to Oldenborg. The weather was bright sunshine and calm when we left, but this is Norway in the summer – a season which gives you a teaser of warm weather and then cruelly drags it away and dumps water and often wind on you instead...
From Smenessundet we decided to head further inland into the fjords behind Kristiansund. We headed for a small jetty mentioned in the pilot book called Tingvoll. This is just outside the Tingvoll Hotel and while it would be very exposed to much breeze from the west, we were expecting a calm night anyway. We had a really nice run (mostly) though it was a lesson in the...