Ålesund is considered one of the most beautiful cities in Norway. After a devastating 1904 fire destroyed much of downtown, the city was rebuilt in an art nouveau style with many of the buildings overlooking a canal that runs through downtown. From Åndalsnes we travelled 55 miles south to Ålesund, stopping for a few nights…
Tag Archives | Nordhavn
Fuel Quality Differences
When considering fuel quality, we’ve always thought first about water, rust, and other impurities in the fuel. Knowing we intended to travel the world and expecting poor quality fuel in the many less-developed countries we would visit, we left Seattle with 48 primary filters on board. What we have learned is that fuel quality is…
Trollveggen
Trollveggen (“The Troll Wall”) is the highest vertical mountain wall in Europe. The face is 3,600 ft (1,100 metres) from base to summit and scaling it is one of the ultimate mountaineering challenges. With several other difficult climbing peaks in the area, nearby Åndalsnes is considered the mountaineering capital of Norway. Their modern visitor center…
Trollstigen
The dramatic Trollstigen route near Åndalsnes winds up a steep 1:12 gradient through 11 hairpin turns so tight that vehicles longer than 43 ft (13.1m) are prohibited. En route, a narrow bridge carries the road over and beside the spectacular 1,050 ft (320 m) Stigfossen falls. In 2012, Trollstigen was officially opened as a National…
Andalsnes
Andalsnes is close to some of Norway’s most spectacular and unique scenery, including 5900ft (1800m) Trollgiven, the highest vertical mountain wall in Europe and the dramatic Trollsigten route, a narrow roadway that climbs at a gradient of 1:12 through 11 hairpin turns with a viewing platform above. And an hour or two’s hike from town…
South from Trondheim
After five weeks in Trondheim, we departed for Norwegian destinations farther south. We really enjoyed our stay, and it was an excellent place to leave the boat while we returned to Seattle for work. From Trondheim we travelled 140 miles south and anchored for a few days in Vagsetervagen while a storm system passed through….
ENVOY IS CRUISING AGAIN
We departed Lefkas Marina on Friday morning and anchored in a bay off mainland Greece about 15 miles south. Weather is fine with temp in low 30s, little humidity and sea water a beautiful 28d. This was pretty fast progress seeing as we didn’t arrive he…
Trondheim Projects
We completed a number of boat projects in Trondhiem, including replacing a steering pump and the nav computer. Most were waiting on gear sourced on our return trip to Seattle—we spent much of the ten days after the trip installing and stowing parts. Below are highlights from July 14th through August 14th in Trondheim, Norway….
RETURN TO LEFKAS, GREECE
Our advertising of Envoy on this Blog has resulted in an offer to purchase from long time readers of the Blog. In fact not only have this Australian couple been following our Blog since its inception, but followed Envoy’s Atlantic Crossing by the previous owners in 2004. The potential buyer’s offer is naturally subject to their inspection and survey which will take place here in Lefkas late October. So Envoy is “under offer” and we won’t be considering any further offers unless this sale doesn’t proceed.
We’ve arrived in Lefkada after a good trip from Auckland spending one night in Dubai and one in Athens on the way. Emirates are a great airline and the nearly 17 hour flight passed quite quickly aided by a solid 8 hours sleep. We like Emirates 30kg luggage allowance, their lenient attitude towards cabin bags and the generous space between economy seat rows. Having a spare seat between us on both flights certainly helped too. Our hotel in Dubai was good and it’s a convenient place to break the trip.
We arived to find Envoy as expected on the hardstand under the care of our contractor – Sailand with everything looking good and more progress getting her ready for cruising than we expected.
Sailand completed a refurbishment of the Lugger’s exhaust system which included replacing some exhaust sections, building a new stainless steel muffler and replacing all heat insulation.
They had also completed Envoy’s anti fouling and attended to a small list of winter jobs:
-Re-sealing two acylic ventilation hatches into their aluminium frames because the sealant had failed
-Servicing the sea water circulating pumps on the generator and wing engine (we get this done annually)
-Checking the wing engine’s shaft seal, prop and prop shaft
-Checking the main prop shaft’s alignment, internal rubber sleeve and clamps, removing the stuffing box’s sealings for inspection and finding them in good condition, greasing and replacing them
-Changing the main gearbox oil and cleaning its oil strainer
-Replacing a leaking galley sink mixer/faucet with a new one
-Replacing the large Nautica RHIB’s start battery
Another contractor has also polished Envoy’s bootstripe and white topsides gelcoat areas while yet another has repaired a slow air leak in one of the pontoons of our smaller Valiant RHIB.
Today was quite a sight when a huge crane came alongside Envoy to lift our larger RHIB down onto a trailer for annual servicing of its 25HP Yamaha outboard. Also today I took four inflatable life jackets in for two-yearly servicing together with one fire extinguisher which has its gauge needle in the red when it should be in the green.
There’s a few more jobs being done on Tuesday such as filter replacements and then on Wednesday we expect to launch Envoy and do a short sea trial with Sailand’s engineer aboard. Then we hope to leave the marina by the weekend. Sorry no pictures in this posting.
Brunswick, GA – Revisited
Nordhavn 57-26 Istaboa
