We wake up and realise: bad weather is approaching fast – we have to go!
Lois is given a crash course to prepare her for the journey ahead. The weather data shows that strong winds are coming from the east, which will soon make it impossible to continue the journey. If we don’t leave immediately, we will be blocked for days. There is no need for discussion.
Out in the open sea it is already breezy, and we rock back and forth accordingly. I accelerate to our cruising speed, we ride through the wave tops – it shakes violently. Lois doesn’t seem concerned, that’s just the way it is… After about three hours we reach Kristiansand. I refuel and Lois asks in a closed restaurant if they could prepare something for us – and indeed, she is successful!
We have an excellent talk with the owners, but also notice that the bad weather is following us. So, refreshed with a fine fish soup, we get back on board and continue ‘around the edge’, around the southernmost peak of Norway over to the west coast. Another three hours later we drive through Egersund – filled with mighty fishing vessels, with cranky maintenance ships, indeed a huge fishing and shipping industry.
The lovely image of nature-loving Norway is cracked… Here, everything is done to survive in the harsh nature, even more: to harvest the valuable fruits of this nature. – I refuel, and Lois chats with employees of the surrounding fleet associations. She learns a lot about the people here, about the region, and about the rising wind…
Further on, we decide, let’s drive towards Stavanger. – The further north we get along the west coast of Norway, the better. So we drive another three hours, also across the bay off Stavanger, into one of the many water veins to a place called Haugesund: an almost explosively expanding harbour town that serves as a booming logistics centre for the oil production facilities off the coast, and at the same time as a settlement area for the workforce and their families.
Wow, we covered at least 450 km today, that was fast – on the map we see that we drove around the entire south coast of Norway in one go! That would have been ‘unimaginable’ if we had planned it. But it gives me courage; with regard to my further journey, I now know what is actually possible.
What will we take with us from today? – We have made some contacts, but actually we have only driven away from the danger of bad weather. From here on, we are no longer exposed to the open sea, but can head north every now and then under the protection of the islands. Now it should be calmer!
The newly built marina here in Haugesund is still very busy late at night. Next door, countless Viking replica boats have moored – these days there is supposed to be a meeting of these hobby Vikings, who come here from all over Norway, driven by muscle power and wind support… For me, it has something carnival-like, something defiant too. Because we are surrounded by high-tech ships in a country increasingly dominated by industrial robots. There is something nostalgic, something socially romantic, about throwing oneself into linen robes and manoeuvring along the not so safe coasts in sleek wooden boats. (In Switzerland, too, there is this return to traditions, to mountain life, which is transfigured and serves as a source of strength for the unbelievably rapid social and technological transformations).
We can take a shower in a nearby hotel (the new harbour facilities do not yet work), eat a meal quickly prepared with hot water on the pier, and go to sleep – an overlong day, full throttle into the reality of life in Norway shaped by the sea, has made us totally tired.