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| Færøy |
As we headed south, we were determined to make the best of
the better weather (Comparatively to the northerly journey) and we scoured the
guide books and charts, planning a slightly different route with some nice
stops while still trying to make good time. On our second day (August 6) we
were passed by a flock of geese in perfect V formation and were reminded of how
far north we really were and how far we still had to go. By leaving early on the morning of August 5th,
we were able to time our passage to big wide open areas at night and continue
without stopping. We hit Hustadvika on the second morning out and Stad on the
third. Both outside passages were
uneventful compared to our northerly passage and we arrived in Måløy early
enough on the third day to fill our tank with diesel and do a little shopping
in town.
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| Anna's actual birthdate, August 5, heading south |
We had been told on our way north that Måløy Havneservice AS
had the best diesel prices around and we tied up at the pier against some
enormous old tires, set there for holding back vessels much larger than ours. I
scrambled up over the tires to get our lines tied, not sure I was going to make
it. I barely did. The diesel was self-serve, I was able to select ‘English’ on
the self-serve machine but wasn’t able to get my card to work. The credit card
systems are a little different in Europe, most notably, the cards have
microchips in them so that they are more difficult to use if stolen. The chip
is associated with a PIN. I had no PIN so my card could not work. I found the
service attendant, who found the boss. Instructions were to pump and we would
figure out how to make it work after.
We filled the tank and found the cost not all that
unreasonable considering the horror stories we had been told on the cost of
EVERYTHING in Norway; we added ‘Diesel’ to the short list (with dockage) of
items not too expensive. We joined the attendant in the office and only after a
45 minute conversation with Chase Visa were we able to pay and continue on our
way, now outfitted with four complimentary, red, ‘Måløy Havneservice AS’ hats,
a floating key chain, a PIN code we could use with our card if stuck in the
same pickle again and assurances from
Chase that we would not be charged a cash-advance fee if we did. This was the
special international card I had obtained just before we departed so that we
could avoid the ‘foreign transaction fee’, go figure.
We spent a pleasant evening in Måløy, tempted by the pizza
parlor next door. We did not succumb. We caught up on the lost sleep from the
previous two evenings en route and Finn and I walked to town, stopping in for
Lefse and milk at the supermarket. Lefse is a flat ‘cake’, traditional to
Norway. It is different in different parts of the country and Finn had become
very fond of the Trondelag version sandwiched with sugar, butter and cinnamon.
He now equated going to the grocery store with lefse and we couldn’t stop in
without getting some. We stopped harbor side to munch away while a little
sparrow caught the crumbs Finn inevitably lets fall. It was one of those
special Mom and Son moments. Bob and I subsequently had a long conversation on
the similarity of the word ‘lefsa’ to’ lembas’ and decided that this was
definitely Tolkien’s elfen journey cakes. I am not sure you can get lefse
outside of Norway but I am now armed with the recipe and the Hartshornsalt
(leavening agent made from ground deer antler) for some adventurous day in the
kitchen. Finn will be pleased.
We headed out the next morning, donning our new red hats. It
was late morning, we had slept in after our double overnight voyage. It was a
short but very special day as we traversed the most beautiful scenery of the
trip. The weather was quite a bit better than our northerly journey and we had
a great day, ending at the city guest docks in the City of Florø. Like Måløy,
the docks were self-serve and were less than $20 for an overnight. Bob expertly
piloted Midwatch into a tight dock space and we set off for a walk around town.
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| Finn and Superman |
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| A bank window in Florø |
When we had arrived in Flatanger, Finn started telling
everybody about his ‘floating house’ where he lived with a bunch of three year
old boys and eight year old girls. We were puzzled for the two weeks we were
there, “Where did this come from?” As we were leaving Florø we passed by this lighthouse
perched on a small island with the house taking up the whole footprint of the
island, the effect was…a floating house. Finn jumped up and started hollering,
“That’s it! My Floating House!” Mystery
solved. The problem is now he keeps
telling us we have to go back to Norway to visit his floating house.
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| Finn's Floating House |
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| Trailside art? Færøy |
On our way north we had read about a small island called
Færøy which is known as a ‘farming island’. There was a guest dock listed at a
small farm with Jersey cows, homemade butter and a bakery, definitely my kind
of place. We passed near there on our way north in the morning so did not stop
but rerouted ourselves going south to stop, which occurred midafternoon. We had
two different descriptions of the entrance to the harbor but neither was
absolutely clear and this was the scariest moment in Norway for depth as we
came within two feet of the bottom. But we made it in to the lovely little
harbor and tied up. Unfortunately the
bakery was defunct and there was not a Jersey cow in site but the docks were still
there, at least most of them. There was no ramp from the dock to the shore but
a little leap for Bob and I, a big one for Anna and a transfer of Finn from Mom
to Dad got us onto shore. We had a lovely walk into the little village with its
15 permanent residents and we spent a few minutes chatting with some of the
locals. The island is known for its rose
stone and we had a good discussion on how different the geology was in
different parts of the country, you would think rock was rock J
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| Seals near Færøy |
We settled back into Midwatch for a lovely dinner and sat in
the cockpit enjoying a beautiful sunny evening. We kept waiting for someone to
come down to collect our money but no one showed. Based on the state of the
docks we weren’t sure anyone would show up but I slipped my Kr.100 note through
the designated slot on the shed door. Bob believes it is still sitting
there.
Some shots from our journey south:
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| The Fast Ferry, which passed us several times per day |
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| It took a while to figure out what was approaching us when we saw this coming. |
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| Bomlø Island |
After our stay in Færøy we thought we might tuck back in at
the Customs Dock in Bergen the next night but our going was slow and we
realized too late we would not make it there until the wee hours of the
morning. I had sworn after our last over-night that I would not do it again,
the nights had become too dark but at midnight we found ourselves still a good
distance from Bergen. The area to our south was the stretch we had done when we
arrived in Norway in July and is a wide open area, for the most part. The good
part about covering an area you have already been is you are able to follow your
previous GPS track so we opted to continue. Of course, as always, I was on
watch, a squall came through, it was truly dark, we had to majorly change
directions and a large ship was bearing down on us, I was definitely DONE with
night time traveling now. As it turned out, this was our last stretch in
Norway. We were headed to meet a friend, Marion, whom I had spent time with 21
years ago when I was in the south of Norway. She now lives on Bømlo Island,
about 40 miles south of Bergen. We
arrived midafternoon at her family’s dock and boat house and enjoyed a
wonderful evening of barbecue. The kids were off and playing before we even had
everything stowed. We sat and visited
with Marion and her husband and discussed the trip south. We had made up our
minds that we were not bringing Midwatch around to Sørlandet, the south coast,
given the time restriction. It was a long and outside journey and would take us
farther away from Scotland, our next destination after Norway. The harbor where Marion lives is on the west
coast of the Island and it was a long trip just getting out of the inner
passage and around to Steinsvåg where we would tie up. I had spent a good bit
of the night piloting and decided to spend the afternoon traversing the rolling
open ocean bit of the trip, asleep. During that time, Bob had been looking at
routes and had calculated that because of Bømlo’s westerly position, any
southerly travel along the coast would be taking us east as well and so,
technically we were as close to Scotland as we were going to get. Any more
travel south seemed unnecessary as long as we could get land transportation
from where we were located and we found a safe place to leave Midwatch.
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| Two Annas |
There are two routes from the west coast to the south and we
decided to take the high road. Our route traversed the inner part of Norway up
over the mountains and down the very long Setesdal (Setes Valley), home of
those beautiful louse sweaters. We
stopped for lunch at a stave church. Unfortunately not a dramatic one, but we
enjoyed walking the cemetery and looking at the names on the stones following a
lunch of bread, cheese, salami and lefse, of course.
We continued on our way and arrived early evening at the
home of Bitten, my host mother from the third family I had stayed with 21 years
ago. We spent a few quiet days visiting,
including a day trip to visit another family in the beautiful mountain town of
Åseral. It was at this point that we
started to count the number of nine year old girls we had met along the way and
realized we were up to five, apparently 2003/2004 was a busy period. We had a lovely visit in Åseral with the
Engeli family, including their very own nine year old. This was the first
family I had stayed with and the farm and family were all just as lovely as I
remembered. We returned back to Bitten’s house for a great dinner with her
family, of lapskaus, a traditional stew.
At this point in the trip the kids were starting to really pick up some
Norwegian. I encouraged them every chance I got to use the words they had
learned. At one point during dinner, I leaned over and had Finn say you’re
welcome (I don’t remember why.) I was
then promptly informed that Finn’s accent was significantly better than mine. I
guess three is really the best age to be learning a foreign language. We spent most of our time at Bitten’s
visiting. I had discussed taking the kids to the great zoo they have nearby but
when told what we were thinking, they both moaned “no-oo!”, apparently the
playhouse at Bitten’s had a far higher draw than the zoo! Bitten told us of how
her octogenarian father had built the playhouse for her grandkids with his
brother and how much fun they had had. The kids spent hours and hours there while the
adults relaxed.
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| Bitten's playhouse |
After a very pleasant stay with Bitten and her two of her daughters
who lived near by, we headed off to visit the sixth of my original six families
at a little dairy farm in the hills just north of the south coast. We knew this
family had nine-year-old girl number six and Anna was bursting at the seams to
get there. The family had taken me to a nearby mineral museum when I had
visited 21 years ago and, given Anna’s interest in geology and Finn’s obsession
with Superman’s green crystal, we stopped in to take a look. We had a great
time and Finn loved all the Superman crystals he found. I had taken a photo of
the Three Billy Goats Gruff statue when I was here before and was so excited to
get some with the kids. When I was small, I was given a record album for
Christmas one year that had a narrated telling of The Three Billy Goats Gruff.
I quickly had it memorized and would recruit my Dad to play the troll in
my reenactments of the story. Thirty
years after first memorizing the story, it was still in my head. I found when
the kids were babies that they would quiet to the sound of my voice and the
longest monologue I knew was the Three
Billy Goats. Given Anna’s colic and
Finn’s surgeries, I had ample opportunities to tell this simple story and both kids
have had it memorized in one form or another over the years. 
After our visit to the museum, we headed over to the farm
for a real down-on-the-farm weekend. There were a pile of kids, beds made up in
every corner, loads of food, buckets of rain and long catch-up conversations.
It was lovely.
We talked a lot about the Farm, a very small dairy farm, and
some of the efforts made to keep it viable. The family had kept bees for a
while until, after two emergency runs, realized bee allergies were a problem.
There were strawberries and a new logging truck which was helping. Finn was
thrilled to climb up into the big truck and I was very happy to head back to
Midwatch with honey and strawberry jam. Along with zucchini pickles from
Frosta, potatoes and carrots from Levanger and the jam and honey from Sørlandet,
we were truly stocked with the bounty of this northern country.  |
| Lil Knuten and Anna |
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| Sundet |
We were so sad to leave at the end of the weekend and the whole
clan waved goodbye as we traversed the long driveway and headed north again
until they were miniature waving specks through our teary eyes.
We returned by the coastal route to Bømlo Island in the pouring rain. The waterways were flooding and raging in the tight narrow valleys we passed through on our way to the west coast in some of the most violent water power I have ever seen. We finally hit Stavanger on the west coast and turned right to continue north, reaching Bømlo near dark. We had no GPS and no map other than our computers. It took us an embarrassingly long time to find our way back to Midwatch once on the island but we made it, long after sundown. We had a very efficient day the next day including provisioning for the trip back to Scotland, returning the car and checking out with the Politi on the nearby island of Stord. Marion once again was an angel, driving us around and sitting in the police station with us while the police figured out what they were supposed to do with our passports. We had a nice dinner on Midwatch with Marion and her kids and planned for a noon departure the next day. Everyone came to say goodbye and we untied and waved until they were no longer in site.
It was hard to believe our Norway trip was done but it was
hard to think ‘done’ when we still had more than 7,000 miles to get home. In
reality the uncharted territory (new countries with new languages) adventure is
still to come.
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