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After a day of heavy winds and rain following our visit to Skjoldafjorden, we had wonderfully calm conditions to explore Forresfjorden. During our tender tour, we finally got close enough for a good picture after several eagle sightings in Norway from a distance. Below are highlights from August 5th and 6th. Click any image for…

The Skjoldastraumen is a shallow waterway with swift currents, suitable only for small craft. To allow larger boats to reach the Skjoldafjorden beyond, a lock was built between 1904-1908. For many decades steam ships regularly passed through the locks, carrying people and goods between Skjoldafjorden and the larger centers of Stavanger and Haugesund. Today mostly…

Six of the islets in the Sjernaroyane group are interconnected with bridges, with a marked cycle path between them, Sjernaroyrunden, that makes for a wonderful day trip. From the anchorage at Kotavagen, we made a short nine-mile run to Sjernaroyane and anchored for a couple of nights near the community docks at Nodholmen. On our…

The hike up 1,230ft (375m) Randasen was among the easiest we did on our return trip to Norway. The tender ride to shore was only a few hundred yards, the trailhead was an easy half-hour walk away and the roundtrip hike from there was only three hours. But the view was as good as any…

After two days of wind, heavy rain and overcast skies in Erfjord, we were rewarded on our third morning with clear and calm weather for a tender tour of spectacular Josenfjorden. What the 17-mile (27km) fjord lacks in length it makes up for in dramatic scenery, with 2,300 ft (700m) cliffs full of waterfalls. After…

We keep a detailed ship’s log that records where we have been, what we have done, system state, and things we fix. Unlike commercial ship’s logs, that normally are hand-maintained and can’t be modified, ours is a bit primitive in that it’s just a Word document. We focus on it being easy to maintain rather…

A small weather system was passing through, with gusts to 45 knots, as we were underway for Erjforden. We found a beautiful and peaceful anchorage at Hattavagen, and ended up spending three nights anchored in the sheltered basin. While there, we explored the area by tender, hiked up 510m Bandasen, and completed a few boat…

The village of Sand lies in a beautiful setting where the Saudafjorden and the Hylsfjorden meet to form the Sandsfjorden. From our anchorage at Nevoyvagen, we’d already explored to the head of Saudafjorden, including hiking up 3,054ft (931m) Hovlandsnuten from the town of Sauda at the head, and had made a brief pass by tender…

  This installment of our maintenance series picks up from our previous video, where we replaced the defective cylinder head in our Northern Lights 12kW generator with a brand new one just shipped in from the US. In this video, we complete the job by adjusting the valves, replacing the coolant and bleeding the fuel…

Saudafjorden extends 10.5 miles (17km) between the towns of Sand and Sauda through several-thousand-foot mountains with many waterfalls. At the head, the popular Saga Trail extends from Sauda to 3,054ft (931m) Hovlandsnuten. Stone steps newly laid by Nepalese Sherpas lead to the summit, with panoramic views to Saudafjorden and the surrounding mountains. After a 22-mile…