We left Strömstad one nice morning and set course for Norway.
We planned to find a nice anchorage south of Sandefjord. The first part of the trip was quite good sailing, but then the wind died and we had to motor the rest of the way that day. I caught three nice mackerels midway between Sweden and Norway, so the dinner was saved. We didn’t find any good place to stay for the night until we came o the outer part of the fjord leading to Larvik, here we stayed for the night on the south east side of Malmöya.
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The next day we continued to Risör and the Nordfjorden till the anchorage at Narvika close to Haavik. What a nice and secluded place that was, really pretty and lots of wild birds all around.
We had followed the weather forecast closely and in a few days the weather would be uncomfortable to pass the south and southwest coast, so there was one choice to reach Bergen, our final destination in Norway, before the bad weather arrived and that was to sail nonstop round the tip of Norway. Our intentions had been to do the Sörlandet (south east coast) but then the stay in Bergen would have to be shorter than we wanted, so we started our nonstop cruising to Bergen the next day. The first night we anchored in a nice little lagoon south of Haugesund on the south east part of Dragöya.
It took us 29 hrs to Haugesund of which most of the trip
was done motoring due to less than sailable wind. We passed Stavanger and
entered the sound between the main land and Karmöya.
We did not want to stay moored to the town quay, so we continued to check out three places we had found as possible anchorages for a few days. The first and the second one was not at all to our liking, but the third one was just paradise. In fact it was so nice that we stayed there 4 days. The place is called Lammavaagen and is situated very close to Auklandshamn. Every day I was out fishing with the dinghy. I got cod, mackerel and garfish and we mostly smoked the catch. Of course the sea gulls got there share.
The following photos are from the trip from Lammavaagen to Kattanes on the north east part of Tysnes island.
Anyway, we had a lot of friends to catch up with in the area south of Bergen. It was not the town itself we were interested in, although a visit was planned to this beautiful town, situated on a few islands right beneath Flöyfjellet that rises sharply to the east.
We started to visit my old friend and chief pilot, Magnus Straume and his lovely wife Florence. In my “former life”, at a period, I was a helicopter pilot on the west coast of Norway, serving the offshore oil installations. Magnus and I hadn´t seen each other for over 20 years and it was nice to meet again, of course talking about the old times which bored our wives as usual. Magnus had his pontoon in a lagoon called Kattanes on the island Tysnes on the southern shore of Björnafjorden.
Some more photos from this wonderful place Kattanes, a lagoon surrounded by high mountains and forest.
It was quite a coincidence because Kattanes in Norwegian means cat naze.
Here we go. One morning when I was going to visit Magnus he came with something small in his hand that turned out to be a little black kitten. There had been too many births of half wild cats in the neighbourhood so some had to go. I just couldn´t let that happened, so I took over the responsibility for the little life. Bea and I named the little kitten, Lisa. Lisa was really too young to leave her mother, only about 5 weeks old, but it was better than to be dead. The little kitten took our hearts immediately and she adopted us as her new parents. She found her new home onboard acceptable and made herself a comfortable sleeping place on my pillow. I was glad to have it back when I wanted to sleep. We had a litter box from a former cat adventure in Belgium the last spring and that one came to good use at once. Lisa was naturally house clean the very first day she came onboard, it is amazing how that works with cats so fast. Then we had to stock up with kitten food, sand for the litter box, so we became busy all of a sudden as new cat parents. We had had now got a cat from Kattanes.
We had to set up some safety rules for the cat, like never on deck or in cockpit while sailing etc. Lisa has not shown any sign of sea sickness despite rough sea when crossing the North Sea, the Irish Sea and the Biscay later with up to 50 knots in rough seas, she just think it is funny when her toys are rolling from side to side without the need to push them. In the coming pages and later newsletters you will of course see a lot of our little Lisa that has now become a nearly full grown lady cat. She has the nicest temperament and personality, she is a dream cat for Bea and myself. In marinas and other places where we meet other people, she quickly becomes very popular among the boat people, everyone wants to come and play with her.
By now (end of the year 2009) she has all her vaccinations and had a microchip implanted under the skin for identification. She has had her little female cat operation as well and now we are waiting for the result of her blood test for antibodies of rabies. When that test shows OK, she will get a “Pet Passport”, which makes it easier to travel with a pet onboard.
This was the story of how we got our new crewmember Lisa onboard.
Although we like Magnus´s lagoon “Kattanes”, we had to see other places, but first we needed to get some diesel fuel, so we headed for a little town called Os. In Os we were in short distance from my old house neighbours and other friends from my time in Bergen and Norway during the 70ies and early 80ies. It was very nice to meet with them again and also for Bea to meet my old friends from the past. We should continue to see the friends for some weeks as we were cruising in the archipelago around Os and up to Bergen on one side and up in Samnangerfjord on the other side.
We left Os to sail up to a beautiful bay called Lysefjorden where at the inner end the fantastic little island Lysöya is situated. Ole Bull, the famous Norwegian pianist and composer from late 1800 had his summer house on this island, which is also called Ole Bull´s island. We moored to a small private pontoon on the mainland opposite the island and stayed there for 10 days. I was fishing and Bea was picking blueberries and wild strawberries every day on the island. The pontoon we moored to was belonging to a restaurant called Ole B. The owner, Reidar was looking after us really well all the time and we can happily recommend Ole B to anyone who happened to sail in the neighborhood of Lysöya.
We saw my old friends Morten and Anne-Lise, their son and daughter Espen and Hanne and the other couple I used to have as neighbours, Petter and Astrid and Astrid´s parents Norolf and Henny. Even if it was between 15 and 20 years ago I saw my friends, it felt like yesterday. It was also nice for Bea as she felt really welcome by my friends and they got along well together. Thank you guys, you really spoiled us during our stay in Os and Lysefjorden. A special thanks to Astrid for borrowing your car to us when the cat needed to visit the veterinary clinic.
We did get a new friend in the area as well. The first night we stayed in Os, on our way from Magnus, we became a bit worried as the depth in the harbour showed just above 2 meters close to the town quay. So we planned to leave already the first evening, but as we prepared to leave someone from a balcony in a house close to the quay called us. The man asked us why we were going so late. As I explained that we were not happy with the depth and it was spring, we had to move, the man told us to moor on a private pontoon 50 meters from where we were. I said that we couldn´t just go to a private pontoon, just like that and without permission. The man answered us, “it is my pontoon and you are welcome to stay as long as you want.” That was how Tore became a new friend of ours. Out of the big cities, you find this old fashion Norwegian hospitality and it is heart warming. Tore, thank you for your hospitality during our stay in Os.
We did some sailing up the Samnanger fjord and found a beautiful little bay where we stayed for a few days.
The time went fast and we had to continue to Scotland before the weather started to get bad on the North Sea. Before we left we had to say bye to our friends Magnus and Florence in Kattanes and our friends from Hellebakkene in Lysefjorden. We sailed to Os a last time to fill the diesel tanks and then we started the crossing of the North Sea to Scotland. A cousin of mine had asked to join us for the trip over to Scotland and he arrived the last day before we left Norway. It is always nice for the watch keeping to be more than two onboard, but sadly enough my cousin became seasick the first day and out of the sailing game and we were only two again.
One has to take care not to collide with oilrigs in the North Sea, as there are lots of them between Norway and Scotland. We were navigating carefully and passed a few rigs at a safe distance.
The next newsletter will be from the Caledonian Canal and sailing from Fort William down the Firth of Lorn and Sound of Jura.