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From Atlanterhavsvegen, we traveled 117 miles north towards Trondheim in five short runs. Conditions were surprisingly calm each day, and we enjoyed beautiful light reflections during our morning runs in the dark and evening happy hour in the cockpit, and also some spectacular sunsets. Below are highlights from December 15th to 19th, 2020. Click any…

Atlanterhavsvegen (Atlantic Ocean Road) is one of Norway’s 18 National Tourist Routes that the construction industry in 2005 named “Norwegian Construction of the Century”. The road runs 5 miles (8 km) along the outer edge of the Atlantic Ocean across an archipelago of islands and seven bridges. Popular for filming auto commercials, the route has…

If you enjoy holiday lights, Norway is a wonderful place to be in the winter. Most Norwegian towns have a lit holiday display in the hills above the community, and their houses are ablaze with holiday lights. And with the shorter days of winter, the lights are on longer. We’ve spent many a happy hour…

The Heroy municipality’s name derives from an old Norse term meaning “archipelago of islands.” The 1,700 islands and islets that make up Heroy are an absolute joy to explore, both in the tender and on foot along the archipelago’s many view hikes. Norway seems to have an endless number of exceptional boating locales, each one…

The lighthouse in Norway’s Flavaer Islands was built in 1870 to guide mariners into Heroyfjorden. The islands themselves lie on the edge of Heroyfjorden and are somewhat exposed, but make a great anchorage in calm conditions. Continuing north from Syltejforden, we stopped for a night in the Flavaer Islands and made an extensive tour of…

Norway’s headland Stad is so notorious for dangerous conditions that an escort service is provided for small boats and funds have been approved to build the world’s first full-scale ship tunnel through the base of the peninsula from Moldefjorden to Kjodspollen, pictured above. The tunnel will be just under a mile long, 120ft (37m) high…

The days continued to get shorter as we traveled further north in our Norwegian winter cruise—the sunset pictured above was taken at 3:15pm. We weren’t sure how we’d do with the super-short days of the Norwegian winter, but so far we haven’t minded. We run the boat in the morning during the darkness and then…

After visiting Hovden, we spent two nights in Gulen, a small fjord just north of Floro with three branches: Sorgulen, Midtgulen and Nordgulen (south, middle and north respectively). We toured the area extensively by tender, enjoying the spectacular scenery, and we had the excitement of breaking ice for a mile or so on the way…

The one constant on Dirona is our trip plans change frequently. We’ve been in Europe four years now, COVID is driving up the complexity of cruising here, and there are places we want to visit back on the North American east coast. So we’ve decided to head back to the US this summer as weather…

The Kvanhovden lighthouse on the exposed west coast of Hovden opened in 1895. Much of the old path there has survived, hugging the rugged shore as it winds around the rocks, with the standard Norwegian lighthouse metal pipe guardrails still in place. Today the lighthouse is automated and the original path now is part of…