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!