Indre Nodevika, (pos: 57 58,88 / 007 32,18.

Long time no post, sorry! Today is monday, 22.August, and this little bay is perfectly protected from the southwester which blew us here today, from Farsund

But to go back a bit…..

We were in Espevær. Next, a longish motoring day, in mist and sunshine,  to Tananger, where Ballad owner Jan Monstad came aboard for a chat and hopefully some advice as to how to straighten out his pulpit, which had been savaged by a motor cruiser in Bekkjarvik harbour. Not much help unfortunately. But we exchanged mods and fixes.

An early ‘start’ next day, well, 7:30 is pretty early for us, with all the things to do before setting off. Longest day this year, 80 nm, to Skarvøy, a few nm SW of Farsund, arriving just after sunset at 21:30. Motor on all the way, with occasional help from the sails. Careful study of YR.no website for sea currents revealed that although the main, and strong, current past the exposed coast is north-going, there were many places close to the shore where eddies were south-going, so we kept to the ‘shallows’ all the way. A large Dutch motor-sailer didn’t, and we re-took him several times.

The reason for the long day was to try to get ’round the corner, Lindesnes, before the weather changed, but no, the day after was a stay-put day with strong SE winds and rain. So Skarvøy, for two days, where the first was spent sleeping several times to re-charge the batteries a bit.  In the afternoon a flotilla of four local motorboats arrived, tied up and put up a makeshift tent on the jetty. Much merriment trying to tame the tarpaulin in the wind and rain before it got securely lashed down. Then the party stared, it was, after all, saturday evening. I reckoned that it would crescendo till late, so I excused us, and pottered off to the other jetty a couple of hundred meters away, and enjoyed the quiet and my book, and the company of a heron. Sunday was spent reading and snoozing, and the weather gradually improved.

This morning we motored in to Farsund to re-fuel, necessary, as the tank was pretty empty after the previous days’ motoring, Then out to sea and past Lindesnes. Favourable wind, in strength and direction, so we sailed, at speed, but the seas were still large and confused, and we bounced, pitched and rolled our way eastward. Again, shaken but not deterred. Difficult to not spill the coffee. The sea was ’empty’. not another boat in sight the whole day, so for most the summer seems to be over. Or perhaps the seas were a bit daunting.

Two more days to Lillesand, to my Ballad friend Svein Tangen, for more chat and Ballad-eering.

All’s well