Come Sail Away

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.