Tag: cruising

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, #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, #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