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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…

Last summer, our pilot house and master stateroom HVAC units stopped working. Since we’d just got out of the yard in Stornoway Scotland, it was just about 100% certain that the two failures were correlated, and caused by air in the system. We bled the pump and there was air. But when we tested the…

The coastal town of Floro, roughly midway between Sognefjord and the headland Stad, was founded in 1860. Today Floro is the administrative center for the area and supports diverse industries with branches of several national and international companies, including Westcon, EWOS and CHC. Westcon is a major shipyard company, with facilities along the Norwegian coast,…

The town of Forde lies at the head of 19-nm long Fordefjorden, the next major fjord system north of Buefjorden. Forde is the commercial, industrial, and government center for the region, with good shopping opportunities for us to buy a little more winter gear. We spent four nights exploring the fjord and approaches, including a…