Baby on board!!

Our life is turned upside down when a little baby arrived in March!! Fantastic, and we love him so much words cannot describe it! But the plan is to continue our traveling, outdoors activities and active life. We just have to make some changes and adjustments and take things at a completely different pace. Stay tuned and see how this works out! I´ll try to share some relevant tips and if anyone has any for me, please let me know!! :-)

The below pics are from Jr´s first visit in my boat on a really nice, sunny day when he was about a month old. Of course the Beard was with us to look after her new little brother.

Sailing to Kvitsøy and Skudeneshavn

Last weekend we ended up with what looks like the last sailing trip this season, at least with the Tyko boat. We left Friday afternoon and headed for Kvitsøy in summerish weather and light winds. Sailing into the sunset must be one of the best things in the whole wide world!!

Kvitsøy is a group of 365 islands north and a bit west of Stavanger. The waters around are a bit "dirty" with all the rocks, but we had good guidance of "Barba" on our way in to the harbour in the dark. Barba is the boat I sailed to Jan Mayen last year. Great fun to catch up!

On Saturday, we picked up an extra crew member and started sailing in good winds north of Kvitsøy and towards Skudenes havn. I have apparently been sailing here a few times as a child, but cannot remember. The place is great, with a good harbour that gives safety from all angles. No wonder all the big ships went here in the good, old days!

At Skudeneshavn, we had a little sightseeing, and the place reminds me a bit of the small places along the south coast of Norway. I forgot my camera, so only too a few snaps with the iPhone...

On our way home Sunday, the waves were quite high and coming from the rear, there was quite a bit of movement in the boat. Too much for the crew, so after a little while, all three of them were hanging over the side of the boat making frog noises. I was standing in the middle trying to steer the boat as best as I could and just started laughing... Poor people, not sure if the'll come with me out on the water again anytime soon. Maybe a good thing this was the end of the season??

This person actually has a head, it is just really well hidden!

Indian Summer = Sailing

Last weekend, a touch of Indian Summer swept over the Stavanger area. We packed the boat with crew of all ages, the youngest one only beeing three months! Sailing with a baby is actually no issue at all, it is more of a hassle when they get older and can run around on their own - like the three year old that also came along. But with easy sailing and lots of playing, everyone had a good time. It's the first time there has been Lego all over the floor of my boat... :-)

When the wind went to rest, we also tried to catch some fish, but had no luck...

I have to admit that I forgot to take more pics, as we were having such a good time. Oh well, there will be other times...

Sailing in Croatia

I was so lucky to be asked to work as a sailing instructor and skipper in Croatia this summer. What a perfect summer job!!

I was in charge of a 44 feet Elan Impression named Nora (from the famous Ibsen play). We sailed from a marina just outside Split and visited several small harbours and islands in the area, such as famous Hvar, Solta, Brac and Vis.

Hvar city was the biggest and most known place we visited. Beautiful place, but a bit crowded for my taste. And the temperatures on land was over 40 celsius, so we were happy when we were back on the boat and came out in more open water where we could go swimming!

Apparently, the big yacht in the middle is owned by some famous Russian or something.

It is very easy to sail on Croatia's coastline, as basically what you see is what you get, which means there are no hidden rocks etc. Most places is is also deep, so easy to get into land. Only thing is that it sometimes is hard to use the anchor if you do not have a very long chain, as it is too deep...

From the west side of Vis, one of the places I liked the most. 

Enjoying the view at Vis island.

Late one night we "borrowed" an inflatable zebra from a sailboat chartered by a big group of young Americans taking part in the infamous Yacht Week. They had so many inflatable animals onboard that we decided they would not miss the zebra. And I doubt they ever missed it, as it was impossible to use it for bathing (and they were probably never sober enough to ever notice that it was gone...).

One of my crew went swimming with his money, so we ended up sailing around with them drying one afternoon...

I would highly recommend sailing in Croatia. It is easy, the marinas and harbours have good facilities and the prices are still reasonable (compared to Norway). The food is good (great seafood!) and the people are really, really nice and service minded. If you are staying on land, it is a good option to rent a room at someone's home instead of staying at a hotel. I did that a few days at Hvar after I finished my work and it was really cheap and you also get to see a bit more of the local culture.

Oh, I miss the sun and sailing already!! :-)

First sailing trip of the season

Yeeeeaaaa, finally back on the water! It was actually over a month ago, but I misplaced the memory card, so I haven't had any pics to show. But here they are! Enjoy!

This was the Beard's first proper sailing trip, and she did quite well! She got a bit nervous in the waves, but was jumping around on the boat like she's grown up there. She tried to climb into the dinghy on her own once, but as the little dinghy floated further and further away from the mothership and the Beard's feet got loooonger and loooonger, she of course ended up in the water in the end. But the at least we now know that she can swim! :-)

On our way into land to go for a walk. The Beard is READY!

The same weekend, I also visited my best friend and her family at their cabin. Weather was nice and warm and we could enjoy cold beers and good laughs outside until bedtime. Fingers crossed that we get a summer filled with nice, warm weather like this! :-)

Eeeeh...

There are several things wrong with the below pictures. Firstly, heaps of snow in the cockpit of my boat, not very nice! Need to get the tarp on and get her ready for winter. I just dread this kind of work... Secondly, why the hell am I not somewhere skiing in all this snow?!? A planned trip to the mountains got cancelled Friday because of too much work, but maybe we'll take a short daytrip tomorrow. Hope so!

End of the sailing season

The plan for this weekend was to stay at a friend´s cabin and hike to Trolltunga. But with the cabin owner glued to the toiled due to stomach flu, we decided not to go, so I ended up having to help prepare the boats for winter instead. The sailing season it definitively over for this year!

My brother´s boat - slim and fast.

The boats look a bit naked without their rigs on. They will go on land in a few days and stay there high and dry until the spring.

My boat - big, slow and comfy! :-)

Sailing to Sauøy

Friday afternoon, Tyko was sailing again. This time with seven adults, one child and one sausage dog onboard. The weather was not as good as earlier in the week (isn't it typical; it is nice when we are in the office, but then the rain comes with the weekend?!).



Lazy crew enjoying the light winds.

The beautiful Statsraad Lemkhul was also enjoying Ryfylket this weekend.

We ended up at Sauøy, a little island near Finnøy in Ryfylket. Amazingly enough, there were no other boats in the little bay we stayed at, which was probably good as we got quite noisy as the evening went on. A new rule was made for the boat: from now on, tequila is not allowed onboard!!

Just as we had grilled all the nice food and sat down to eat, the rain came pouring down.

Perfect afternoon in the sun!!

The last days we've been blessed with some really nice, warm weather! And today I managed to sneak away from work a bit early and went sailing with some friends. We had a perfect afternoon on the water, with a great dinner, swimming and relaxing in the sun. Fingers crossed that we get a few more evenings like this before the season is over!

The Sausage is ready in her new lifejacket.

The small bay we stayed in and had our dinner - at Usken.

Right after we had put the boat at anchor, several others came as well.
Guess we were not the only ones enjoying our dinner at the water today!

One of the other boats had a dog onboard, so the Sausage was quite busy watching it!

On our way home just as the sun were setting. Doesn't get better than this!

Sailing to Jan Mayen

This summer's vacation was a three weeks long sailing expedition to Jan Mayen. Jan Mayen is a volcanic island belonging to Norway, located north of Iceland at 71 degrees north. Basically in the middle of nowhere!! Big parts of Jan Mayen are covered by glacier and at the northern part, the world's most northern active volcano, Beerenberg, is located, with a peak at 2277 meters above sea level.



Our route: Stavanger, Haugesund, Florø, Jan Mayen. Then via Shetland to Stavanger on our way home.
Almost 2000 nautical miles in 23 days.

We were four people onboard a 37 feet sailboat. It took us five days from Florø to Jan Mayen. We were extremely lucky with the weather and winds - so the trip over was actually quite pleasant!



Quite relaxed on my watch enjoying the sun rise.

I was courious of how it would be to sail in the ocean for five days, in open waters with no land or boats or anything except ourselves, some birds and maybe a whale or two. There are no helicopters or any other means of rescue that can reach us that far out in the ocean, so we were completely left to ourselves. And I loved it!



We even had some nice, warm weather half way across the ocean - which we enjoyed big time.
Not a lot of wind at that point, but quite relaxing onboard.

There are no harbours at Jan Mayen, so we were a bit nervous of how it would be to leave the boat. Due to the restrictions on the island, there are only two places you are allowed to enter; at Baatvika on the east side, or at Kvallrossbukta on the west side. We were lucky with the weather and direction of the wind and could leave the boat at Baatvika when we visited the island and did not have to move her. It would take us about six hours to get her to the other side of the island.



Our boat at anchor at Baatvika with Beerenberg in the background. Beerenberg is the world's most northern active volcano and one of Norway's peaks above 2000 meters (2277 meters above sea level).

Due to the nice winds (or lack of wind really), we could leave the boat for long hours and explore the island. Because of the restrictions, one is not allowed to stay for more than 24 hours on the island - but that gave us plenty of time to make some really nice hikes and explore the fascinating nature that this volcanic island has to offer. We used a small inflatable dinghy to take us on land.



With the dinghy on land. We often had survival suits while in the dinghy, as we sometimes had to jump into the water to get on land. And in the artic ocean, the average water temperature is around 4 dg C.

For facts about Jan Mayen, see http://www.jan-mayen.no/

A rare summer evening

It has not been av very nice summer at our part of the country this year. Well, it can still come.. (fingest crossed!!). But there has been some nice evenings after work, and I have tried to spend as many of them in my boat!

This is from one evening where we brough dinner that we made onboard and sailed towards Kvitsøy, as that was the only place we could find some wind...  Need more evenings like this!!

My favourite travel companion

Meet my favourite travel companion; the Sausage! She is the funniest little creature that comes with me on many of my trips, it beeing sailing, hiking, paddling, skiing or camping. She is a lazy, noisy, annoying little thing that keeps everyone around her happy! A big personality in a small wrapping! (In this picture she is sailing outside of Kristiansand in the summer 2007 on my old boat).