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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…

After exploring its two branches, Sandeidfjorden and Yrkjefjorden, we completed our five-day tour of cross-shaped Vindafjorden in a beautiful anchorage at Kvaloy. On a warm and sunny day, we toured to the head by tender, then spent a lazy evening enjoying the surroundings from the cockpit. Below are trip highlights from July 24th, 2020. Click…

Nedre Vats in Vatsjforden has a couple of great attractions for us: an excellent view hike up 1742ft (531m) Granuten and the AF Environmental Base decommissioning and recycling facility. The massive semi-submersible crane vessel Sleipnir that we passed en route to Stavanger had removed the 8,929-ton (8,100-metric ton) Jotun-B platform jacket from the North Sea…

Our “move the boat every day” plan faltered when we reached beautiful Ilsvag at the head of Sandeidfjorden. We ended up spending three days in this scenic, sheltered anchorage and made our second Norwegian hike of 2020, to the summit of 1830 ft (557 m) Oktarenuten. From there we could see down into our anchorage…

Himakana is known as “Little Trolltunga” due to its similarities with the famous Norwegian rock formation that juts out horizontally 3,600 ft (1,100 m) above sea level. The hike to Himakana is much more accessible at only about 2 hours roundtrip though, compared to 10-12 hours for Trolltunga. From our initial anchorage at Vestre Bokn,…

It’s an unusual day when you get up in the morning to start a short coastal cruise, and end up making a 2.5-day crossing of the North Sea to an entirely different country. Given the current world situation, Norway was number one on our list of desired destinations, with its excellent hiking and abundance of…