Fog

Here I sit, in the fog with visibility down to about half a mile, engine purring away as it is very good at, watching and waiting for the miles to slip by.

We are now south of Bergen. Spent the night in a tiny harbour on Huftarøy. Very quiet and deserted except for a gang of kids shoving each other into the water to loud and happy screeching and shouting. 

Woke early in the hopes of starting early, but the fog was too thick, so the other ear hit the pillow. By 9, visibility had improved sufficiently and we pottered off, coffeemug at the ready. 

Josin is equipped with three defences against the fog. 

1. The AIS system, which sends out my position signal over the VHF frequencies every 30 seconds, and which all other boats (the vast majority now), can see on their chartplotter, and I can see them.

2. An Echomax active aerial which, when it receives a radar ‘ping’, sends a ‘ping’ out, which means that a receiver thinks that Josin is bigger than she is. No, it isn’t cheating, small sailboats are notoriously poor radar reflectors, and this is in self defence!

3. My ears. I can’t hear bats any more, and operatic sopranos’ high notes are painful, but I am pretty good at rumbles. 

Today, the low-tech was the saviour. These high-speed catamaran ferries are on you before you can say highspeedcatamaranferries, specially if they are coming from aft, and I heard his diesel-rumble before the tech reacted. Of course it was in a relatively small space amongst the islands, and I made a dive for the rocky shore. I think he may have ‘seen’ me as he was doing less than the usual 25 knots as he rushed past, but still leaving Josin bobbing and me relieved. No time in the fog for doing anything else than keeping a sharp look out. 

We are now out in the broad Selbjørnsfjord, visibility is much improved and time and opportunity to write this. Also to dig deeper into the jungle of under-menus on the chartplotter, and whadduknow, the AIS has an audible alarm function, which is now activated. Moral: read all the instructions!

Goal for the day is Espevær, on the southwest corner of Bømlo. It would be nice if the fog would clear, and the wind would blow from north-ish. Sigh. Coffee’s gone cold, but otherwise-

All’s well