Julie was keeping the journal day-to-day, so it's told from her perspective. Pictures from this part of the trip can be found in the gallery.
We were supposed to leave at 8am, but when Julie got up to use the bathroom at 7:15am, she heard, "Heads up, we're leaving ASAP" so she rousted Ken out of bed. We ended up leaving at 7:45. Julie was driving the boat at the beginning, and she left the dock OK but had a lot of trouble after that. She didn't understand that there were rocks to avoid, and with fairly high winds had trouble keeping on course while others were hoisting the sails. The waves were distracting, plus all the people moving aorund and yelling while getting set up. In retrospect, I should have looked at the chart before taking over, and steered by the compass instead of looking ahead and seeing everything else going on. John had me put he boat on autopilot because I wasn't keeping it steady. However, I felt slightly better when the autopilot stayed on for the next 2 hours.
Seas around Statt peninsula were decent but not as bad as the North Sea passage. More motorsailing today. At least the weather was really beautiful. We saw our first substantial glaciers.
We arrived in Ålesund, Ken cleaned the cockpit, and then we went for a walk before dinner. When we got back, the boat had an admirer who we chatted with for a few minutes. We had a group dinner at the XL Diner, which was excellent. We had smoked whale carpaccio, fish soup, and 3 kinds of bacalao (salted cod), a local specialty. Italian (with pesto-flavored mashed potatoes) was our favorite.
After dinner, we went for a walk with Michael, then stopped at a grocery store for some gluten free bars and ice cream. Our neighbors from Måløy followed us here and parked next to us ... small world!
We woke up about 8am, had granola for breakfast, then Ken and I went for a walk. Many of the others walked up the big hill to see the views, but we went only partway. John took the weatherfax across town to see if it could be replaced, so we got a late start. Before leaving Ålesund, we did a photo shoot. We put up the main and drove around the harbor while Amanda took pictures from the shore. We attracted a lot of attention — lots of people were taking photos of us.
Then we left for our next passage. We motored the entire time, putting the sails up occasionally. We did classes on sail design and electrical systems downstairs, and by the end of the lessons I was a bit queasy. It was nice to have dinner up top.
When Rick and I were on watch at 4pm, we saw a fighter plane buzz us. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time for a photo.
After dinner, I went to bed. I was pretty tired even though it was early. I slept most of the time until 1:30am when the alarm went off for my watch.
Our overnight shift was uneventful. Since we were motoring, we left the autopilot on and traded off lookout every half hour. We saw the Hurtigruten ferry and a container ship. It was sunrise conditions at 2am, and sunrise was at 3:30am and it was painfully bright. Then I went back to sleep until 7:45am before breakfast. However, it's 8:12am as I write this with breakfast not started ...
Breakfast was at 9am, and at least Ken got to sleep in, then class. My 12-2pm watch was uneventful — we got to sail for quite a bit of it. We were offshore, so navigation was easy, and the seas were mild. Quick shut-eye before 4pm watch with Ken. We made a dinner stop in Rorvik about 6:30pm, had curry and naan for dinner, then Ken and I took showers before we left about 9pm. We saw the Hurtigruten ferry arrive right before left, then back to bed before my 2am watch.
It was fairly light at 2am when I got up for my watch with Amanda. We did a combination of sailing (beam to broad reach) and motor-sailing in 7-17 knots, very pleasant. Then back to sleep.
Pancakes for breakfast. Tasty but Ken could have eaten more. In the morning, we had a class on sail trim, a knot competition, and learned about splicing. I was a little afraid of the knot competition, but it went fine. Amanda identified a purpose for a knot, someone shouted out what kind of knot it was, and then we all had to tie and untie it in succession. I was worried I would be the one to mess it up, but I did ok. Ken struggled a bit with one. There was one I didn't remember (sheet bend), but luckily I was last and after watching everyone else very closely, I did it with no problem. We got best time on the sheet bend and therefore won chocolate. Splicing was interesting. It felt a little like braiding hair, but a lot more preceise. I didn't get it quite right but oh well.
We went to Lovund, the puffin island. Beautiful weather — I wore a T-shirt under my foulies! I drove the boat into the harbor. We went to the new harbor which we knew wasn't deep. We only had 0.8 feet under the keel when we aborted and went to the original harbor. I was really glad I didn't run us aground. After lunch, we took a nap for about 2 hours, then went for a stroll. Luckily I took a picture of the area map, because we got lost later! We got back to the dock and helped take the boat to the diesel area and fill the tanks. We put in about 525 liters of diesel — wow! We left the dock when Michael was gone, and he was perturbed to find us gone when he got back. Stir fry for dinner, then a walk to the puffin area. We took a wrong turn & asked some locals for directions and used the map on the camera. It was a beautiful overlook, and you could see a lot of puffins flying about. Unfortunately, the camera battery died as we arrived at the puffin area. It was a fairly steep walk up the hill but well worth it. Julie did yoga on the aft deck after getting back.