Voyage Around the World No. 2

June 11, 2010

Dr. Gus Wilson is an office client at our BusinesSuites Harborplace location in Baltimore, Maryland. Gus is on an annual sail voyage taking him and his wife, Helen, around the world. When their journey is complete we expect to have him back at the office as a client again. Below is the second excerpt from his voyage journal. There are several more to come.

We were ready to sail to Norway after June 12, but a furious gale with impressive gusts, even within our sheltered marina, kept us in port. With a good forecast for June 20 we prepared to set out. Our plan was to be ready to depart as soon as the winds began to shift and diminish the next day. We accepted an invitation that last evening to come aboard a Scottish boat for an impromptu dinner featuring canned haggis (luckily full from our earlier dinner, we declined the main course). A German couple we met there kindly gave us a list of their favorite harbors and anchorages in Norway-that helped us a lot to orient ourselves, and their choices were delightful.

The next day, we sailed northeastwards, with Tananger, Norway (close to Stavanger) our target. Now close to 59 degrees N, the night sky was even brighter. The prolonged dawn began in the east before twilight ended in the pods accompanied us. The North Sea oil and gas production rigs are spaced much, much further apart than off the Louisiana-Texas coastline and posed no problem. After two nights offshore, we approached the Norwegian trench, scoured by water flowing out of the Baltic Sea, and sighted a single male orca at its western edge. Our first hazy landfall in Norway showed the low-lying rocky coast, but also glimpses of snow and glaciers in the high-lands further inland.

Our original plan had been to stop only briefly in non-EU Norway, (to restart the 18 months Wings is allowed to stay in the EU without paying value-added-tax), and then sail to Sweden and through the Göta Canal into the Baltic. But shortly after we reached Tananger ( an easily entered, sheltered harbor) we both fell in love with Norway. The spectacular scenery in the distance was too inviting, so we bought more charts to allow us to head north instead, and made our way along the islands of Norway’s west coast, and far inland within some spectacular fjords. Among the islands especially, there are so many placed one could stop to anchor or tie up in a harbor, that some days we did not choose where we would stop until late afternoon.

The Norwegian west coast was uncrowded, and we never had to compete for space. Harbor fees in the villages were cheap, ranging from $16.00 with electricity to totally free. We saw very few American-flagged boats, and only one other (owned by a Russian) that had sailed across the Atlantic. The six or so others we saw had all either been shipped over, or purchased in Sweden.

Norwegians wherever we stopped extended a warm welcome to us. Through our Winlink position postings via Helen’s Ham license and our radio, Jan and Eli found us in Tanager. They were planning to leave Norway soon to circumnavigate via Cape Horn in their 58 ft. wooden sloop, Jenny, exquisitely built by themselves from a bare hull, using modern techniques. They invited us to sail to their waterside home near Bergen, and tie alongside Jenny-which we later did. (They have now reached Argentina.) Later, in Egersund, Per & Gunhilde, Ocean Cruising Club members, saw our OCC emblem as we docked, and came over to take us on a 250 km, four hour tour through their area of Norway, followed by a visit to their island home. There were others who were also kind to us, and we were touched by all their graciousness.

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