Come Sail Away

When we first got the boat, we started thinking of new names for it. I couldn't even remember if the boat was called Habu May or Mabu Hay because it meant nothing to us. We ran through all kinds of allusions to electricity and batteries, AC/DC being our favorite. Being us, we hadn't gotten around to renaming and re-christening it when we had a break-down that lead to the following: We were out in Blindleia, a beautiful stretch between Kristiansand and Lillesand with our good friends Vaibhav and Sona. It was our first season with the boat and Reidar had not yet electrified it. We were running on a motor that was at the end of its life, and poor Vaibhav and Sona had been unwittingly held hostage. We lost power and hoped that giving the motor a rest for half an hour might revive it. Not so. Reidar's brother Rune lives in Lillesand so we called him to ask for a tow. He came in his boat with his brother-in-law, Mike who is originally from the Philippines. It was a great relief t...

Reidar had been sick since Gullholmen, and three nights on the boat in Gothenburg hadn't done much to make him better. The weather was miserable, and there was nothing better coming any time soon. He made the tough decision to sail back to Kristiansand as quickly as we could rather than sailing back the way we came. We had packed optimistically (some would say naively, others stupidl) and so I bought us these matching hats at the only place that was open, a Swedish souvenir and sweets shop. There are a lot of candy stores in Sweden. There is also a lot of ice cream being consumed. I am not sure how they all stay so svelte. Anyway, we had hoped not to need winter hats in July. Gothenburg to Kristiansand is 131 nautical miles and we figured with the wind conditions that it would take about 24 hours. I always add a percentage onto our trips so that I am happily surprised when we come in early rather than disappointed at coming in late. We made the decision on Sunday morning while the ...

As the first mate (only mate?) I have quite a few jobs. Here they are, ranked in my order of preference (love to hate), with 2 scores on how well I think I executed them from day one to day 15. Task Pre-score Post-score Comments / explanations for score Bartender   10         10 I started mixing drinks when I was a kid (Pepsi and Sprite) and have just improved steadily ever since. This is one of my talents. I even bought an ice cube machine for the trip. It did not let us down. DJ      10           8 I love to be the DJ because if left to his own devices, the captain would only listen to Norah Jones, Nina Simone and French ballads. I came up with the idea of listening to the Rolling Stone top 100 albums of all time based on this being a four week trip. When we suddenly left for Norway on Sunday I did...

If everything had gone to plan, we would have been entering the Gota Canal about now.  So, it didn't all go to plan. The wind has consistently been against us, so we even had to set up the generator on deck yesterday to extend our battery range to make it all the way to Gothenburg in one shot. The current has given us an extra challenge, also straining the battery power. We spent so long getting to Gothenburg that we had to admit that continuing up the canal would mean rushing a trip where the whole point was to relax and take our time. We requested a refund of our canal ticket and decided to save the trip for another day. I am reminded of one of my favorite poems by Robert Frost. It is a recurring theme in my life. Instead, we have stayed in Gothenburg for the past two nights and with YET another storm tonight, decided to stay one until tomorrow. This is a great city! I can't believe it has been more than 20 years since the last time I was here. I always say that I love small ...

FINALLY.  We got the day that we had been saving the prosecco for. The sun came out and we had a morning walk around Bovallstrand, a very nice little town with bridges connecting a few small islands and rigged up as a swimming spot, complete with changing rooms and toilets. We went to the grocery store and bought some shrimp, the classic nice Norwegian summer day dinner. So, we got a late start but the rest of the day was spent on the boat in sunny weather, still colder than we would have liked but it really does seem that we used up the good weather in Scandinavia in May this year. So, not exactly a SMEIGEDAG in the Southern Norwegian sense of warm. sunny and perfect - but as close as we can get to an occasion for limoncello spritzes and shrimp. Not close enough for the "Perfect Day" playlist I made on Spotify. I am still hoping for an occasion. We went through the " S ö ta Canal " (Sweet Canal - which absolutely lived up to the name) and then started looking for p...

One of the peculiarities of Norway is the Vinmonopol - or wine monopoly. It is an attempt to reduce the damaging effects of alcohol consumption on the Norwegian people. The monopoly has the exclusive right to sell wine, liquor and anything above 4.7% alcohol. There are restricted opening hours and a ban on advertising for alcohol. According to the World Health Organization, Norwegian consumption of alcohol is significantly lower than the European average largely due to the wine monopoly. You can read more about Vinmonopolet here . I'm going to tell you what it means for sailing.  First off, not all towns have a wine monopoly shop. A municipality has to apply for one, and then the state will do an analysis of a number of factors to ascertain whether it can be run responsibly and profitably in that municipality. There are 345 wine shops in Norway, and 75 municipalities are currently being assessed for a wine monopoly. Most of the places in Norway with guest harbors also have wine sh...

 Does not make for a great blogpost, but: - we slept until 8 (9 hours!) - we mostly motored but sailed when we could through the beautiful Swedish coast (video coming soon) - no big waves, not a lot of wind, quite a bit of rain but some sun too - smooth docking in Bovallstrand guest harbor - short walk up to the highest point to get a view - sunset with Lisa Ekdahl playing A wonderful day. 

If ever you are out of coffee and you need to wake up fast, you can try this: (Just to set the scene...Last night, we took a bad spot alone alongside a very vulnerable pier because there were no places available in the harbor other than ones that had been pre-booked and marked with red lights. We called the harbor watchman and asked if there were any of these spots available and if it was OK to be on the pier we had chosen. He said it would probably be OK until the morning but we could call him back at 8 am if we didn't find anything before that, and he would try to find another spot for us because the wind was going to be really bad. I went to bed around 10 pm so that I could try to get some sleep before the storm started full-on. This after two nights of very bad quality sleep due to the bumping undercurrent of the last place we stayed. I woke up at 1:45 to reasonable sloshing, then 4:35 to some proper banging of waves on the windows and then again at 5:45. Reidar was up by then,...

I am now an international sailor! There was wind, there were waves and there was bad weather. There was also some sail drama as the wind took a sheet, but Reidar fixed it all while I steered (impeccably). There were also some incredible rock formations along the way and we had some good sailing part of the time, arriving almost 2 hours earlier than planned. This marks the first time we have taken the Mabu Hay across a border.  I am going to be honest. If I hadn't had Google Maps I would have thought we were still in Norway ;). One of the first places we saw was Cafe Alaska. Strange name. Looks absolutely gorgeous, and if the weather had been slightly better, we would have stopped.  Stromstad harbor is absolutely packed. We are once again badly placed for the coming storm but it is calm at the moment.  We went out for an excellent dinner and made it back to the boat in time to see the shoot-out between England and Switzerland.  SAKA! It is bedtime now. We are going to...

 Coffee, anyone? It was still after the storm, and we both slept until 6 am. It looked calm in harbor, so we decided not to delay. I started the kettle, poured the coffee into the press can and made two pots: one for the Thermos and a couple of cups for us. I envisioned drinking coffee on deck listening to the “morning coffee” playlist curated especially for me by Spotify as we sauntered out of port. I set the Thermos and two cups on the tables up on deck. We got out of port, and I took in the ropes and started removing the 10 fenders left from the night before. The knots were tight and I had to move them to various spots on the fencing on the boat and re-tie them so that we wouldn’t lose them en route. By the time I got to the third fender, the boat was rocking considerably and I wasn’t sure how I would be able to tie off the rest of them. Reidar said to just leave them on the floor, so I did. By the time I got back into the cockpit, the Thermos was on the floor in the cab...

Docking. It's the worst part of sailing because it comes with an audience.  As a wife, you can't win. If you take the position that you're not going to help because it's his boat and his hobby, you come off as a princess or a useless human being. I am neither, but I will tell you what I am. I am a very short person with unusually short legs, weak arms, poor balance, bad spacial perception and no sense of direction. None of these make for great docking material. There are a couple of classic Norwegin videos covering docking. Here is the nightmare:  TA IMOT! So far, we have been lucky to be approached by people waiting on the pier to catch a rope and help so that I have not had to make the leap. I have not had to do much other than get the ropes attached to the boat, fender it up, throw the ropes and wait as Reidar does everything else. It makes me feel a little useless, but I can live with that. Before this trip, the only time I actually jumped onto the dock and tied us ...

With Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran and Stavern Festival happening the marina was packed when we came in last night. Reidar found a halfway decent, but very tight, spot for us but there was no-one on dock to throw a rope to. It soon became apparent that I would have to jump onto the dock with a rope to set the boat. Keep in mind that I am a person who can sprain her ankle during lunch in the wrong shoes. Reidar pulled in as far as he could, but with the wind pushing him it still wasn't close enough for me to jump. (I have very short legs!) So he gave up on that and we headed out again to take an easier spot with the wind on our side. This time, the skipper of the "Storm" got into position to receive a rope and we were tied off quite quickly. However, the wind was already slamming us against the pier aven with all of our fenders in use. We definitely had the worst spot in the harbor, just like in Jomfruland the night before were the boat took a little beating. We had some fish and ...

We have had to dock in Stavern and stay awhile to wait out a storm. Stavern is an excellent "uthavn" - an "outport" or smaller harbor, one of many scattered along the Norwegian coast. These harbours have played a crucial part in Norway's history, culture and economy and Agder County has just published a great website about the historical harbors in Norwegian:  Agders uthavner  and a shorter version in English here. The word "havn" got me thinking about the English word haven. I had to look it up to be sure, and can confirm that it is in fact derived from the old Norse:  hǫfn.  There are many different kinds of harbors along the coast, and over the last 3 years we have experienced quite a few of them from Egersund in the west to Stavern in the east. There are tiny places where just a few boats can drop anchor and either find shelter from the wind or bask in the sunshine, take a dip in the water and enjoy the peace and quiet. Then there are the guest h...

Yesterday was a long day motoring mostly from Arendal to Jomfruland. Loosely translated, Jomfruland is "Virgin country" - just like I imagine the slightly more famous Virgin Islands but without the tax haven, gambling or raucous tourists. It's a beautiful national park, and it was pretty empty last night. I steered up through the Tromøy sound leaving Arendal while Reidar continued to do small jobs on the boat, including attaching a GoPro to the mast.  We took a time-lapse film of the whole trip and Reidar's brother set us up with a YouTube channel to share the videos. If you are all out of things to watch on Netflix, the first one is already here and elapses 10 hours of sailing and a one hour stop for lunch into 14 minutes. The lunch stop wad  Seilmakerfruens kro  which is seriously one of the coziest, nicest pubs on one of the coziest, nicest islands I have ever visited.  There was a group of Americans there at the same time, talking about how one of them had just...