Wednesday 11 November 2009

On the hard again

Fettler has been on dry land for a month now and we are very pleased to note that the rudder repair has held up beautifully!

We're just starting on our winter maintenance programme. The main job for this winter is the servicing of the port lights, which were letting in a little water. They'll be sent to the original manufacturer (Branchsound, down in Essex) for refurbishment. We're also planning to replace the lifelines.
Two of the port lights are out already (after a bit of a struggle to free them from the sealant with which they were bedded in), and varnished plywood cutouts carefully sealed in their place. This arrangement should keep things tight until spring, when the windaes can go back in. Hopefully, we'll get the rest of them out this weekend.

Saturday 19 September 2009

Inchcolm


Our programme of late season sailing continues with a visit to the monkish island of Inchcolm. We had hoped to get a little further afield this weekend, but the weather hasn't been quite right for it, so we decided instead to do a bit of local pottering.
Inchcolm has been in our sights for some time so we decided yesterday to make the short hop across there and anchor up for the night.
The island, with the remains of its ancient abbey and more recent wartime fortifications is well worth a visit of several hours, particularly if you have the good fortune of arriving just as the last tourist boat of the day pulls out.




Apart from a mercifully brief visit by a disco boat, the peace of a thousand years' monastic contemplation pervaded the island and anchorage overnight and in the morning we were awakened by the sound of a seal splashing round the boat. A gem of a mini-cruise.

Sunday 13 September 2009

Fidra wildlife

Had to include a few extra shots of some of the creatures that make this wee island their home.

Morning seal
This friendly, curious and very cute seal stopped by for a visit first thing.


Cormorant rocks - almost exclusively


Cormorant sunset

Fidra weekend

After a rather damp and windy August, a weekend of great weather has finally come to the residents of central Scotland. We seized the opportunity to take off on an overnighter to the island of Fidra (we had intended to go a bit further, to Dunbar, but the wind packed in..). It was a very gentle sail out there in the warm autumn sun, a peaceful night and quite a thrilling beat back upriver into a stiff breeze the following morning.

On the approach
Glassy smooth (we were motoring by this time).


The light
An important beacon in the Forth. When the keepers lived there, all was beautifully maintaned and included an extensive vegetable garden. Today only the light itself is looked after.


Looking south


The bay at sunset
You can just see the light up to the right.

Wednesday 5 August 2009

The Peterhead sojourn

Perversely adverse winds held us up for three days in Peterhead. Happily, for us, the Dutch fleet were similarly affected, with about half a dozen boats waiting for a wind shift to carry them back to Holland.

We spent a good deal of time with our new friends, Hans and Gösta, taking in the fleshpots of Peterhead. All were eagerly monitoring the forecast but there was fun to be had in the meantime; visiting the pub, checking out the commercial harbour, basking in the steam room and sauna at the local leisure centre.

It was a joy to wander through a proper working harbour with fishing boats, ice plants, big dry docks and slipways. Sights that used to be a lot more common around our Scottish coast than they are today, sadly.

H&G returned home three years ago following a four-year circumnavigation - meaning that they had plenty of tales with which to regale us. The worst, I think, occurred somewhere in Indonesia when they were sorely tempted by the cheapness of duty-free diesel to fill up to the absolute maximum. The terrible price of a moment's carelessness was discovered shortly thereafter when some freshly prepared lemonade was found to have the most appalling flavour. Diesel in the water tank. Disaster!

I woke up strangely early on Saturday but seemed to be done with sleeping so started the day with a perusal of Pepys, observation of crab-hunting eider ducks and aiding fellow mariners in distress. I had noticed a mast outside the breakwater of the marina, apparently attached to a boat lying at anchor in the outer harbour, so when I heard engine noises reverberating up through our hull I looked out to see the yacht in question being towed into the marina by a small fishing boat. It was blowing like fury and the wind drove them onto the rocks of the breakwater, despite the best efforts of the fisherman. I pulled on some trousers and a fleece and ran across to take a line and haul them across to the pontoon and out of harm's way. Their tale was of contaminated fuel causing the engine to pack in as far south as Eyemouth, but they being northbound anyway and the wind favourable they decided to push on to Peterhead and stop there for repairs. That, however, was not all. As they lay at anchor in the harbour, one of the crew developed severe abdominal pains and appendicitis was feared. She was duly packed off to hospital when they got ashore, where a kidney infection was diagnosed. It never rains but it pours.

By Saturday afternoon the omens were shaping up well for a Sunday morning departure so we bade our farewells over a sensibly small quantity of wine and turned in early. Sure enough, the wind was down in the morning and the 0730 VHF weather broadcast was, if not exactly favourable, at least not unfavourable. Eight or ten boats must have pulled out within the space of half an hour, to the clear vexation of the Harbourmaster, who was radioed every few minutes by another yacht asking clearance to leave the harbour. He was already a bit browned off by the time I called him up: "Aye, you can go. Just go! ...There's a fishing boat heading out as well."

Though the wind was down, the sea was still up and so it was a bumpy ride as we plugged our way as nearly south as we could into the SSW breeze. As the day wore on, even the poor wind we'd had to start with died away and so the 'iron genoa' was fired up once more and we motored nineteen out of the last twenty four hours of our trip.

We've always found the stretch of coast between about Aberdeen and Arbroath a bit of a trial. Time seems to grind almost to a halt, with the tide running agin us and not much joy to the eyes resting on that featureless bit of coast. Night was falling as we left Arbroath astern and we found the rhythm once more.

The sea state gradually improved as we ran down the coast, but it wasn't until we turned the corner into the Forth, with 3o miles to go upriver, that it it finally flattened out and peace was restored for the first time since departing Flekkefjord.

Day breaks over the Firth of Forth:


Norway was so beautiful, so welcoming and such an ideal cruising ground that we were mystified by the absence of large numbers of foreign vessels while we were there. The reason was made abundantly clear on the jouney back, when we realised that our eastward crossing had been entirely typical. The North Sea is a brutish stretch of water. It guards the pristine coastal waters of Norway and guards them well, ensuring that they will remain the preserve of the hardy few.

Monday 3 August 2009

The final Norwegian days, for now



We spent two nights in the beautiful Berefjord, hiking, bathing in the freshwater lakes and even portaging our canoe to explore these lakes. The inflatable canoe (a Sevylor, in Dave and Fran's spirit we have named it Seymour) makes a great tender - easy to inflate on deck, easy to board, even stows on the sidedeck and no need for an outboard engine.

Then we went up to Flekkefjord to meet my parents who were also on holiday in Norway. In Flekkefjord we checked the weather forecast and decided we had better go the next day so we left on Monday, 27 July, in the pouring rain.

The passage back was pretty dreadful. It took 77 hours for the 250 miles to Peterhead. We had headwinds (which made us go as far north as 59 degrees before the wind finally came around to the south as forecast), rough seas, Force 7 forcing us to heave to for 12 hours etc. We were seasick again but not as bad as on the way over. However, not much food was consumed in the course of the three days and it was two ravenous sailors that pulled into the northeastern Scottish port of Peterhead on Thursday. Luckily, a very nice Dutch couple with a beautiful steel boat cooked us dinner for us that night and we recovered quickly.

Perfect anchorages

Southern Norway has the most amazing anchorages - not only are there lots of them, but they are also totally uncrowded and often we had a completely sheltered anchorage all to ourselves. Here are some of our favourites:

Imsasundet (with our super new canoe tender in the foreground)

Imsasundet from above. One of the two islands had a very clean outhouse toilet on it that was conveniently marked on the chart.
Ytre Kalvekilen on Hidra. Hard to find the entrance to this spectacular spot.


Berefjord - possibly the overall favourite. Complete shelter, with a hiking trail to two freshwater lakes and up the hills.
Berefjord seen from the mountaintop.

The light at the end of the Naze

Before rounding the corner again we stayed in a little harbour aptly called Lillehavn. Unfortunately, this had been spoilt by some large new grey holiday complexes. We could, however, hike to Lindesnes lighthouse from there, which was great fun - even if we were a bit surprised by how busy it was when we arrived (but then it's Norway's Land's End equivalent) and by the fact that the whole lighthouse peninsula was cordoned off and entry money was demanded.

At night outside the Lillehavn entrance

We berthed on the side of the harbour that was in a state of disrepair, opposite an ugly holiday development.

Lindesnes lighthouse, Norway's southernmost point

Scenic Svinor

One of the amazingly picturesque places we ended up in was the island of Svinor, formerly home to pilots and fishermen, now all holiday places. Thanks to the kindness of a family who had been holidaying there since 1947 we stayed on their jetty for free. In fact, nowhere in Norway did we have to pay for berthing. What a fantastic country!


Imagine sitting here with a coffee (or a beer) and the paper.

Wednesday 22 July 2009

Krabber!

The one we caught:

And the one we bought:
Just the right size for the pressure cooker and our plates.

We were so absorbed in consuming our crabs that we failed to notice the Norwegian king was in town - a big deal in a town of 6,000.

Rocks and rings


The Norwegian coast is a very rocky place, which can be disconcerting when you first look at the sea charts produced for leisure boating and see nothing but crosses. However, the scale is 1:50,000, they are usually well marked or visible and there is some fun to be had with them:

To get from Ny Hellesunt into the stunningly scenic Olavsund, for example, one has to pass through a five-metre gap in a eight-metre high rock wall with a power cable above at 12 m.

Through the looking glass:
Records of Royal visits to the anchorage:

Mooring to rock faces is quite common, often with rings kindly set into the stone. Our first experience of this was in a secluded anchorage off Skogsoy. After we had tied everything up, Jim poked the boat hook down the side and found that there was only a one-inch gap between a rocky ledge jutting out below the waterline and our hull. Once again, the fender board came in very handy, in conjunction with all the fenders on board.

The weather has been very good: pleasantly warm with plenty of sunshine and only the odd shower. Today, however, was a washout, our first full day of rain. We had some warning of this, in the form of a prominent ring around the sun yesterday afternoon and were careful to select a secure stopping place where we wouldn’t mind holing up for a couple of days. We spent the day resting and feasting as we had discovered a bed of large and succulent mussels the previous evening (and still have a pot full of winkles left for tomorrow – hopefully this will be joined by some large crustacean as we baited our lobster pot with the scraps from the mussel feast).

-Update: The first effort with the crab pot was rewarded with a large haul of starfish and one wee crab, who was returned to the sea to grow up a bit. The second effort was slightly better: 2 wee crabs. Today we happened to arrived in Farsund at the same moment as a crab boat and purchased a couple of whoppers at the very reasonable rate of a quid a piece. Delicious!

Outside and inside

One of the nice things about the Norwegian coast is that it has a protective fringe of islands and rocky outcrops (the skjaergard) so that one can either sail outside in the fast lane or amble along sheltered passages between thousands of islands on the inside. We sailed outside after rounding Lindesnes, zooming along at 7-8 knots with the wind right behind us. The plan was to reach the farthest point east of the voyage (just near Kristiansand) and hop back leisurely in 15 miles a day or so passages on the inside.

On the inside passage, at Ny Hellesunt

Freshly harvested winkles, winkled out with some stainless steel wire

Juicy mussels collected at Skogsoy


A peaceful evening on board

Onwards to Lindesnes






We departed the morning after the festival and stopped at an amazingly cute place, Korshamn, with picture-perfect colourful cottages and gardens right by the sound leading to Lindesnes light house. We went for a walk up the hill, gorging on blueberries along the way, when we spotted an even cuter place on the next island: Seloyhamn. We decided we had to go there – a secluded harbour lagoon fringed with well-kept wooden cottages and some ruins on the hills. We later found that it had been a popular stopover for kings waiting for fair weather to round Lindesnes; not less than 11 had visited, including the current one.

We made fast to a private jetty after checking with the neighbours that it was all right. The neighbour turned out to be the daughter of the last permanent resident of the island, who lived there until 1996. Formerly a community of some 80 souls, it couldn’t survive the modern age and now all are holiday homes. We were out for a ramble around the island when it started to rain rather heavily and we returned to the vessel. The kindly man from next door said to us: ‘I think it will not rain very much.’ Looking back on this remark provided a comical note as were marvelled at the intensity of the ensuing thunderstorm from the snug haven of our cabin.

Pirates of Farsund






Our arrival in Farsund, possibly the most welcoming harbour in the northern hemisphere, coincided with the annual town fete, a re-enactment from the days of the Napoleonic wars when a privateer ship was captured by the British and then recaptured by the town’s privateers 10 days later. Apart from us, this early nineteenth-century brig, the Adele, was the only British-flagged vessel in the port – and, by the end of the evening, she was flying the Norwegian flag. It was a fun night, very amateurish, but all the local folk obviously enjoyed dressing up as pirates, firing cannons and (wooden) sword-fighting. The festival ended with a fine fireworks display, which we took in from our cockpit over beers with four Norwegian friends met the previous day.

One of them, Inge, had just stopped to have a chat on his way by, and the way these things go (even in a country where the alcohol is as expensive as here) we ended up drinking copious amounts of beer and whisky on his boat and getting local knowledge about the best places to cruise. I left the lads to have ‘one more drink’ at 0300 and at 0700 Jim stumbled onto the deck, talking about what a beautiful morning it was. And it was truly a beautiful morning. Apparently, Inge and Jim had decided to go for an early-morning swim off the boat and were standing on deck stark naked poised to jump when they were put off by the vast numbers of gooey jelly fish floating around. At this point, Inge’s boat neighbour poked his head out of the hatch and was somewhat surprised at the sight!