Josin’s 2025 cruise, #9

From Dingja into the Sognefjord.


Sunday was church-quiet under low grey skies and drizzle. No hurry. Snooze again after breakfast, then wait. Not even the German fishing tourists were busy. But the weather gradually cleared leaving a flat calm sea and no wind. At around mid day the shop opened its doors and the place gradually woke up.
So I set a short route and we left after lunch, for motor, and we entered the Sognefjord proper.
Just round the corner we anchored up in a well-sheltered small bay with a few summer cottages, one in use.
Another sailboat approached, he’d probably seen Josin on the AIS, and came in looking for a place, but had to back out as there wasn’t room for two. He chose the next-door bay.

Next morning was still calm after a very quiet night, so we motored out into the fjord and headed east. Not a breath of wind but gradually a very fine day.

Sognefjord is listed as the longest and largest fjord in Norway, (probably deepest too, Josin’s sounder went blank), and I was duly impressed. It is huge. 2 to 3 nautical miles wide, high mountains on both sides and stretching into the middle distance. Seems rather featureless actually. One feels ant-tiny in comparison, and progress seems pathetically slow. Very little traffic.


By going closer to the shore, small, isolated farms appeared, looking very green after the first spring mowing.


Occasionally the wind blew gently, and the genoa got rolled out to take advantage, but it never lasted very long. Fickle winds in the fjords if they are not blowing straight in, or out.


We arrived in Ortnevik in time for tea. Primitive pontoon with no tie-up points.
Very quiet and not a soul. I wandered to explore and found the local shop, behind the ferry terminal, (open except when closed), it was open. Chatted with the manager, a teenager, probably on a summer job, and stocked up on some of the items I lacked. The while she sat at the till, with her boyfriend sitting beside her reading aloud from a thick book. Unusual.

It is now tuesday morning and promises to be a sunny day, (good for tourists), but no wind to speak of, so we will motor eastward onwards into the fjord. Goal is Balestrand, a very glamorous tourist-y place. I shall visit only to find bread, preferably sourdough. Then videre to Leikanger.

Alls well,
SogneJohn.

Josin’s 2025 cruise, #8

From Kyrkeholmen to Dingja

Thursday morning, 3rd july. Still chilly and northerly winds, so muffle up and motor.
Unstable weather brings spectacular and unusual clouds, and there were plenty about

Just keep your distance, I don’t want to get wet!

Plenty of rain under that one

As you see, calm waters in amongst the islands away from the North Sea, so it was relaxing.
In a long, narrow, rather wiggly part, requiring much navigating to avoid the solid bits, it was of course then raining and I was huddled under the spray hood trying to see forward. But, I should have paid more attention aft, as remarkably suddenly I was warned by the sound of powerful engines and one of these high speed catamaran ferries came up from behind at full speed and roared past only a boat’s length away. He didn’t acknowledge my “wave”. Josin and I rolled and rocked madly in its wake and spilled the coffee. Hardly had I relaxed again and was counting my lucky stars when another one, even larger, followed, but this time I’d seen him coming and could steer a bit more out of his way.
Lesson learned: At 20 to 25 knots, (ca 50 km/t), it doesn’t take long between seeing them at a respectable distance and them being upon you, so frequent looks-around are mandatory. Whatever the Rules may say, it is best to let them have Right-of-Way!

Screenshot

The yellow line is our track.
The narrow bits opened up into Fensfjord, and the wind strength and angle were such that we enjoyed over an hour of brisk sailing and engine-silence. After another bout of islands, again open water and we sailed to the goal for the day, Dingja, near the entrance to the Sognefjord, which I hoped would give shelter from the weather over the next couple of days.
This is Denja. It has, amongst other attractions, what is called a “Landhandel”, or local store, selling everything, and I mean everything, in small quantities, except maybe for ice cream and fish hooks. Isolation begets mangfold.


Dingja has given shelter, intermittently. Enough to take pics and hurry to the washing facilities. Had to buy OMO. Last packet. It came in a carton, no best-before date, and quite solid. But still effective when hacked into manageable lumps.

Lunch time, and a splash of sunshine.
Alls well.
ShelteringJohn

Josin’s 2025 cruise, #7

Kari goes ashore in Strusshamn.

Yesterday, tuesday 1 july, was a mixed day, some good, some less good. We arranged to meet Kari’s daughter Hanne and her partner Sander for a restaurant meal in Bergen, prior to Kari travelling home to Sandefjord, by several busses.
Packing didn’t take long, as Kari knew that space on Josin was restricted, and one bag, quite voluminous, and surprisingly heavy, was enough.
Then a taxi to the bus terminal and bus to Bergen.

Note the crutches hanging from a thin blue-and-white rope. Very useful apparently.

We ate Indian, very tasty and quite enough, (no room for pud), but for my ears, equipped with new and much better hearing aids, too much noise. Rather spoiled the possibility for conversation.
Another taxi, via my bus stop to heave me out, to Hanne and Sander’s for the night.
So, this morning, Hanne accompanied Kari to her bus and off she went:

I left Strusshamn after breakfast and motored in to the boat-things shop in Bergen to buy new connection bits, to change out the damaged ones and cure the AIS alarms for good, (I hope), then set off north in glorious sunshine, (Bergen…. amazing!), but with a strong wind on the nose, to find a place to hide from the rain forecast for tomorrow evening and two days.Tonight we are tied up to a mini-jetty on an island where I’ve been before, but not the shelter from the coming wind direction, so we’ll go a bit further tomorrow.

So now I’m back to solo sailing and must start planning, as Shetland is now off. Tomorrow is another day.

Alls well,

SoloJohn

Josin’s 2025 cruise, #6

Mosterhavn to Huftarøy to Strusshamn

If you were a follower of my blogg last year, you will remember a pic of the new bridge being built over to Sotra. Here is an update:

West side much taller. East side more than just begun.

This engineer thinks this is very impressive. The human workers are ant-sized, and yet they create such huge structures.

Kari has written all about the rest of this day’s events in facebook, so I won’t repeat, but I would like to add a few photos of the trouble-shooting now today to murder the alarm.

We have had an irritating alarm since approaching Haugesund, saying that the “AIS connection is lost”, and after a varied pause, would disappear, and AIS would come back again. Yesterday things got gradually worse and the instruments went haywire so everything had to be turned off, including the autopilot, so we were back to old-fashioned sailing and no info on MarineTraffic.
Tied up in Strusshamn, I asked Raymarine’s help pages for advice and got a long list of possible reasons, the most daunting of which was to “check all connections”. There are lots.
Having eaten an exotic meal of Heinz Beanz and diverse vegetables, (remarkably succulent and sustaining), I started checking, the easiest-to-get-at first. (I know, I learned during my graduate apprenticeship at Vauxhall Motors that you should start with the most difficult one, (that’s a long story, but very educational), but I was tired wasn’t !?). Nothing changed as each easily-accessible coupling was disconnected, inspected and re-connected. Enough for tonight.
But the brain would’t go to sleep, giving me nightmares of never finding the cause, until a flash of insight/brainwave/guess pointed to a connection under the floor to the autopilot compass. Sleep at last.
Fortified by breakfast the battle began:

A too-powerful tool was needed to disconnect (alright, wrench apart) the suspect, and there, lo!, with now-ruined hat removed, and in very bright light, were two corroded pins, and the dreaded and exasperating alarm went blissfully absent. We waited at least an hour. Still silence. Relief!

Mission accomplished!

Interestingly, it has taken ten seasons for the original sealing to leak salty moisture and cause problems.

So, next, a trip to the nearest boat-ey emporium for new bits, to be installed with tubes-full of sealant, should banish the alarms for good.

Next disaster?

Alls better,

ConnectionJohn

Josin’s 2025 cruise, #5

Tananger to Haugesund to Mosterhavn.

Kari has been much more productive in writing and photographing and publishing on her facebook page than I have in this blogg, so many of you are maybe up-to-date already, in Norwegian. I have got generous permission to reproduce some of her pictures, and use her text as inspiration for this in English

So, wednesday, 25th. It did get slightly less, and we set off under a bright blue sky:

Unfortunately, wind on the nose, so we motored all the way over a gradually less-wave’y sea and eventually arrived in Haugesund at 21:30.
Underway, Kari, who titles herself as “Fender, Second Class”, learned the process of getting the navigation system to accept a waypoint to go to, and make the boat go there. Well done! Promoted. “Navigator, Second Class” instead.
Captain did the last bit of navigating as he’d been here before.
Proceeded to the guest pontoon. Fenders out. Ropes arranged. Touchdown.
And there it was, the dreadful fate befell…… Well, not serious dreadful…. Kari tripped as she jumped ashore, fell short and into the water. Life vest inflated. Good. Ladder close by, lucky. Climb out and drip. Pause. Check health. Right knee no longer normal.
Back on board and into dry clothes. Dinner. Discussion. Expert advice seemed sensible, so a trip to A&E. An attentive and thorough doctor, (a little bit yawny as by now it was thursday) could reassure Kari that nothing was broken, just stretched in her knee, and we returned to the boat with crutches and advice to rest, and things would gradually get back to normal.
Now trying to get Kari to rest when she wants to help and learn is not so easy, but we compromise.

Rest of thursday: Rain. Wash salt out of clothes. John shopped for knee-support, then to the ship’s chandler with a deflated, sorry-looking, life vest.
Help? Of course, and an ironic “You’re not the first and will certainly not be the last!” Service procedure carried out with humour. Back to boat.

Kari the while had demoted herself back to Fender, Second Class, (not approved), and had used her skills to repair the Åsgårdstrand Seilforening pennant whose string had disintegrated, (NB, inform club’s buyer). She also nursed a swelling ring finger which had taken a bump in the ducking somehow, so the engineer on board sharpened his tools and cut the ring off. Relief!


Next day, friday 27th, promised clearance. It happened. So we left a bad-memory-place, and having bunkered diesel, motored north, hoisted sail to catch the little breeze there was and motorsailed to Mosterhavn.

Gentle breeze does’nt really fill the main. The cumulus was in streets for glider pilots.

The logg had been showing very variable speed recently, so something had obviously got entangled. Water in Mosterhavn is crystal-clear, so wetsuit and the rest was struggled into and I sank to inspect. Seagrowth in the form of thin string was the culprit. Dra ut. All clear. Hopefully correct logg-speed in future.

The skipper deserved an anchor-dram afterwards, to get blood circulation going again in his fingers. Water temp 12 degrees.
Next task: Finding out why the AIS, (position indicating system) has gone intermittent. Thats a trickier one.

Alls almost well.

Josin’s 2025 cruise, #4

From Tananger to Tananger

Yes, that’s right. Embarrassing. Frustrating.
Yesterday’s attempt to sail away to new destinations was curtailed by strong winds contra, and short, very uncomfortable waves too. Discretion being the better part of valour, we scurried back to our berth from which we had hopefully departed less than an hour earlier. (The yellow line is our track).
How do you say hello so shortly after having said goodbye?

Tomorrow is another day, or rather now, today. Wednesday. It is still blowing, slightly less, but the sun is slightly shining and the forecast is slightly promising, so there is a slight possibility that we will try again this afternoon.
Boating days disappear, that’s the frustrating thing.
Meanwhile, after coffee, a gentle tour to the shops, about twenty minutes walk away according to google maps, followed by a climb up to the top of the ridge between the harbour and the sea, to the pilot’s lookout post, and suss the sailability.

Alls well,

ImpatientJohn

Josin’s 2025 cruise, #3

From Egersund to Tananger

Saturday was a lovely sunny day with a fine breeze, and several sailing boats set off to go north, and we were among them. Unfortunately the breeze was right on the nose, so it was motoring, for nearly six hours, until we rounded Jærkyst lightbuoy and headed north east and we could sail the remaining two hours. Long day, and rather tiring as the waves, also on the nose, were short, and Josin nodded. The engine behaved impeccably, reliable as before, so that’s a worry behind us.
Tananger is obviously a popular staging post, as three of the boats from Egersund were there too, and we exchanged experiences.

Tanager guest harbour is well tucked in away from the sea, on the way you pass a very busy and large offshore base with many strange vessels specific to the North Sea Oil and Gas activity. Also this:

Is it a sailing boat? No. Is it a sailing ship? Maybe 10% ?. I’ve read about it in the technical press, but it was rather intrigued to see it in reality. The theory behind the reason that these rotating cylinders help to push the ship along is well defined and known, but I must admit that the economics seem a bit suspect. It’ll be interesting to read about experience in operation.

Today is monday, another nice sunny day contrary to the weather forecast, and Kari came on board this afternoon. I’d spent the morning tidying and cleaning and moving out of drawers and cupboard space, (one has a tendency to fill up the available space, yes?), and Kari was quickly installed and organised. Showing her around where everything was kept resulted in even more space and several things the boat gremlins had hidden from me. Welcome aboard!

It is now raining, and is forecast to continue until lunchtime tomorrow. Education time, the magic of navigation and such boaty activities.
We will make the short (hopefully)sail to Skudeneshavn about three hours away.

Alls very well.

Josin’s 2025 cruise, #2

Its been too many days since John Magnus helped me get started again, but there have been many things happening to get in the way. Now however, we are a good way from home waters, tied up in Egersund in fact, and P & Q is all around.

Worst was that the engine got weaker and weaker after leaving Sandefjord, with much black smoke out of the exhaust. Luckily the winds blew well in the right direction and we ended up, effectively engine-less, with Kristiansands Boat and Motor, who had the right competence and spare parts store. Very friendly people. Turned out that the exhaust exit from the engine was blocked by a build-up of soot and koks, effectively choking things, (there’s a lot of it about I understand).
One day later, finger nails grimy, yards of dirty rags, better knowledge of strained muscles, but weary and happy, (except for the bill for spare parts). Josin’s engine was back to full power.

Then Josin was pointed south west with suitable wind abaft, and we made nearly 100 nm in two days, making up for lost time, to Egersund, rounding Lindesnes with relief, as for a while before, I didn’t think we were going to make it soon.
I imagine I can see a Josin smudge seen from the webcam on the lighthouse, can you?. No? Never mind, we were there, honest!

Screenshot

I’d had several visiting plans and a gentle sail down the coast, but had to scrap all of them in favour of fixing the engine problem.

What now? Well, the original plan for this season’s cruise was to explore places and fjords not visited before, after rounding Lindesnes, but then Kari asked me “didn’t I want to visit Shetland again, and could she be crew”?. Yes, but Yes!
So that’s the plan. We meet up in Tananger, west for Stavanger, in a few day’s time, sail up to Bergen learning the while, (Kari has earlier titled herself “Second fender”, but soon she will be advanced to sailor, navigator, radio operator, sometimes ships cook, and other crewey activities), before the right weather window arrives. Bergen to Lerwick is the shortest crossing, just under 200 nm, which should take us less than 40 hours.
Watch this space!

Alls well, from JosinJohn

Josin’s 2024 cruise, #22

From Mandal to Kristiansand, (58 08.6N / 008 00.2E), to Lillesand,(58 14.8N / 008 22.8E), to Risør, (58 44.0N / 009 13.6E), to Tallakshavn, (59 04.6N / 010 18.4E), to Åsgårdstrand, (59 21.1N / 010 28.2E).

HOME AGAIN !

Just as a compensation for all the earlier motoring, we SAILED the rest of the way home.
Early morning i Mandal was quiet at boat level, but there were small clouds moving across the sky at a respectable pace, so I ate breakfast in the hope of a good sail.
Mandal is at the outlet of a river into a large bay, so far OK, But, at the outer end of the bay, we met yesterdays Skagerakk rollers and waves, pushed by the strong SW wind. Josin bounced and rolled, and it was rather uncomfortable and energetic, so Plan B. This involved scuttling back in amongst the islands to sheltered waters and much navigation. Wind still more than adequate to push us along though and good time was made to Kristiansand.

On the way, we “squeezed” through the narrow gap at New Hellesund, all quiet at this time of the season. A harbour for fishermen and the local pilot in its day, but now just summer-dwellers. One dwelling was a bit unique: A converted fuel tank! One up, one down. Imaginative.


The disaster of the day was a tooth-filling which fell out while eating a lunchtime sandwich. What to do? Would the gap go bad if it didn’t get fixed? Can it wait til I’m home and confront the dentist. (She filled it in early May, not good).
We got in to Kristiansand early afternoon, and a quick google produced several dentists, one within ten minutes walk from the harbour. Temporary fix? Easy, should last, but not absolutely necessary if you wait ten days. Half an our later my tongue was inquisitively investigating the filled hole, and I returned to Josin, reassured.
Next day the wind had reduced a bit, but the waves were not as big, and we had a lovely sail to Risør, (Finnøy, home of the Risør Seilforening), in the sunshine, initially through the islands but later out at sea. Just genoa was more than enough sail and the wind pilot coped well.
Woke next morning early to calm, and a small breeze. Would the wind get up again later? It did, and after motoring out into the open sea we had another lovely sail all the way to Tallakshavn a natural, sheltered harbour and a mooring buoy. Long day, many miles. Tired!
Next day, and still the wind blew in our direction, but the option of sailing out to sea and round “Lands End” as the local map has it, was not enticing, as it would have meant beating to windward through those waves for the first hour or so, and that would have been very rough. So, the quieter way, following a short blast across the fjord, and then inshore until after Tønsberg and the last few miles in the open, back to Åsgårdstrand.
Such was progress that I had to reduce sail to a small triangle in order to not arrive too early as Kari and Gilbert wanted to welcome me with flags and hurras. They DID.

What a welcome!! Big hugs and hot food. They look after their Dad! Lucky ME.


A summary of the cruise in another post. Bye for now.

Alls well
HomeAgainJohn