PESSBLAUT

Home at last

2010-08-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, lads, lasses and ladas; we're finally home and at our journeys end and goal. After 15 months and a handfull of days, we got back to Kirkenes last Thursday the 5th of August. We will round off this blog in a proper manner, once we've settled slightly and got into a somewhat normal routine. It will take a couple of weeks though. Until then: THANKS!

A taste of Norway

2010-08-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

Since we've been incredibly lazy in updating the blog since we arrived in Norway, you'll now get a tour of the country in picture-form. Enjoy!

We're currently in Honningsvåg, not far from the North Cape (which we didn't bother going around since we didn't have to, and we've both seen it before, from land and sea. Besides the party was in Honningsvåg.) We've got a little more than 100 miles left of the trip, and four days until our scheduled homecoming. Soon, very soon, it's over...

In Tromsø, last scheduled stop...

2010-07-28T04:22:00.000-07:00

Vi er i Tromsø, siste planlagte stopp før Kirkenes.

We're in Tromsø, our last scheduled stop before we're home in Kirkenes, by the russian border. We still have a little more than 350 miles left. ... about 1,5% of the total distance of the journey, and we have until the 5th of August to do it, shouldn't be a problem.

Soon the journey will be over, and we'll have to readjust to a landbound life ...

We'll try to get some pictures uploaded before we get home, so you all can see our beautiful country. Until then; ciao!

In Norway, at last

2010-07-02T03:21:00.000-07:00

We´re in Norway, yeah, but not quite home yet!

Sorry for not updating the blog whatsoever lately. Guess the sheer joy of being somewhere we can´t talk norwegian behind peoples backs without them understanding has got to us and made us forget to blog. ...Or maybe it´s finally being in a country that´s both expensive, cold and unfriendly and full of rules that makes us rejoice and forget to update? But for everything else it´s our country, and it´s a beautiful place, one of the nicest ones we´ve ever sailed! ...and people are not so bad when, when you just get to know them, or they´ve had a few drinks.

Well, allright: We´re "home" in Norway, but that doesn´t mean we´re quite home yet. As some of you might know, we´re from the north of Norway, and that´s where we´re going. Norway has a coastline more than 1000 miles long, and we´re from the very end of it. Check out a map. See where the Norwegian/Russian-border is? That´s where we´re going. We´re planning to be there by the beginning of August. Hopefully we´ll find time to blog a bit between all the visits to friends and family along the coast. ...and pictures: we´re not taking much pictures these days, god knows why since this place is so nice, but we´ll take some to post for you guys.

Enjoy your July!

Bay of Biscuit

2010-06-21T13:06:00.000-07:00

We've crossed the Bay of Biscay. It was nice. The weather was good. Just like that.
That could be all of it, but sorry peeps, I'm unable to be as concise as that, and will in the below go into petty detail, boring you out of your minds.
After the little incident of the Party-Portuguese (oh, by the way, we never used this info, but apparantly if you go to Lisbon you can go to the main street of the old town, past the church, the second door will be half open and you'll see a girl in there. Tell the girl you want to go up the elevator, if she tells you there is no elevator, go home and put on some other clothes, try again. In the elevator tell the operator that you wanna go all the way. Don't forget to say the secret codeword "Silk", and voilá: your at the most secret, coolest club in Lisbon. So the party-portuguese said anyway, if you try it, please tell us what it was like. Info courtesy of the Party-Portuguese) Okay, so after the crazy portuguese we were joined by Martin. Martin had decided to join us to work at his tan, which wasn't such a bad idea, as we would also like to tan hard for our imminent arrival home. Also we had read the book and watched the movie "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and realised that we needed a lawyer for support and guidance, Martin would be that man. So we started out from Cascais, Portugal and went up to Camariñas, Spain, a four day journey. We had some good tanning going up there, but not much wind so we did a fair bit of motoring. That was all right, first things first; vanity, then progress and diesel-economics. Camariñas is situated just before the Bay of Biscay, which is extremely convenient. The weather in The Bay can be pretty bad, so it makes sence to stop and get some rest and decent weather reports before going in. We found everything we wanted here: Beer and internet. We failed miserably reading the weather reports before going. We thought that the big high-pressure moving in would mean we'd get some excellent tanning in, but hey; it was bloody overcast the whole way. Poor Martin hardly got a speck of color in, even though he stuck strictly to his motto of "tan while you can" and sought out every opportunity to rip of most of his clothes to catch some rays whenever the cloudcover was slightly thin. On the not-so-important upside we had excellent winds and were doing more than six knots lots of the time. As we closed in on France and our destination of choice; Aber Wrach we got boarded by customs. Yup, for the first time ever on the journey we actually got boarded in open water. The guys were courteous and polite enough (all six of them, interesting how they all fit on board.) They stayed for about 90 minutes ripping the boat apart, dismantling equipment to look for hidden drugs, taking out drawers to look beneath them and generally creating havoc. At the end of their searching-spree they were content that they had been pretty much anywhere without finding anything of interest to the french police or tax-authorities. As an afterthought one of the guys asked whether we had any perfume. Opening the toilet-door to show the guy our common, half-empty bottle of aftershave I noticed the look of amazement on his face. It wasn't until later we realised that after 90 minutes of meticulous searching (they checked inside the battery-compartments of our torches and inside our wallets) they had failed to find the toilet which takes up roughly one sixth of the inside floorspace of the boat. After that we went to Aber Wrach for weather-reports and some rest time. If you ever go to Aber Wrach you'll see that it's the kind of cosy place best suited for walking with your boy-/girlfriend fully dressed in warm clothes along windy, ice-cold beaches waiting for summer to come. All year round.

Check-in/OK message from Øyvind på Tur SPOT Messenger

2010-06-15T19:56:00.001-07:00

Øyvind på Tur
Latitude:58.11277
Longitude:9.4956
GPS location Date/Time:06/16/2010 02:56:30 GMT

Click the link below to see where I am located.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=58.11277,9.4956&ll=58.11277,9.4956&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1
Message:Fra de seilende:
Egil og Øyvind seiler avgårde og har det bra!
Egil and Øyvind are sailing happily along and are OK

Raising the safety factor for millions who step into the outdoors each year, SPOT notifies friends and family or an international emergency rescue coordination center with status messages based on situation and need. Ask for Help (or SPOT Assist), Alert S.O.S., Check-In/OK and Track Progress-all with the simple push of a button.
http://www.findmespot.com

Looking for a great way to share SPOT tracks and waypoints, stories and photos? Head to http://www.spotadventures.com and see how users are creating their adventures and sharing them!

In Denmark, Norway next stop!

2010-06-13T09:49:00.000-07:00

All right, sorry for the complete lack of updates lately, will come! Anyway, we're in Denmark and about to leave in one hour. Norway next stop, only 300 miles to go! ....and then one summer and 1600 miles of beautiful norwegian coastline!

Home sooooon!

2010-06-04T04:46:00.000-07:00

Ohbecheesez! We're in France, more about that some other time, right now we're about to leave for Denmark, unless the weather decides otherwise. More importantly though, we wanna meet all our friends when we reach Oslo. We estimate we'll be there the 19th. June, perhaps a week later, who knows. Anyway we hope to see you there if you're in Oslo, or can come to the place. There's an event out on Facebook, if you're not on FB and want (the as of now; non-existent - ) details, drop us an E-mail.

Gotta run, got a 6 hour favourable current to catch a few miles up the English Channel.

Taste of the Atlantic and Meet the Portuguese

2010-05-26T03:48:00.000-07:00

Having left Gibraltar on a decent weatherwindow we gunned it up the Algarve-coast until we hit gale-force head-on winds whereupon we immediately found shelter in the marina of the small town Barbate, right before Cape Trafalgar. We checked in at the office and paid our bill, promising to bring over our forgotten, yet non-existing insurance-papers in the afternoon.
Thirty hours later we hit the Atlantic again, enjoying a series of high-pressures over most of south-west Europe, and a few days later we could finally anchor in Portugal having sailed most of the way. A relief after having had one (1) day without motoring for a month-and-a-half through the mediterranean. Our mission in Cascais, Portugal was 1: Wait for Martin to come join our jolly cruise. 2: Nothing. Acomplishing objective 2 shortly after arriving we settled down to wait a day for Martin. However the waiting was interrupted by a visit by The Jolly Portuguese Fellas. The Jolly Portuguese Fellas had taken their sailboat a half-miles way out of the marina and where motoring up and down the beach enjoying beverages previously aquired by a volunteer Portuguese Fella swimming ashore to buy a sackful of said goods at the closest bar and swimming back. Jolly Portuguese fellas normally don't carry a dinghy since the boat spends its time tied up in a marina or motoring back and forth right outside the playa.
Now The Jolly Portuguese Fellas were getting hungry and wanted to send for some marinated snails. Since the swimmability of marinated snails and other tapas are rather limited and the volunteer Fella no longer volunteered they wanted to borrow our dinghy. No worries. Thirty minutes later they returned with dinghy, beer, wine and snails, promptly tied up alongside us and commenced stuffing their shoppings down us. After running out of beer and wine we managed to cough up a bottle of our best vodka so the get-together could go on. The Pessblaut-boys sincerely enjoyed this little gathering with the Portuguese General Manager of one of the largest internet-poker companies worldwide, the unofficial "King" of the local marina, the most expensive one in Portugal, and some "special police"-guy with a look that would scare the Hulk green in broad daylight. Hold on; the Hulk IS green?! They've probably already met...
The party took a turn for mainland, and ended up with Yours Trulies being showered with drinks in the local bars (after having had the doorman clear away some people from our desired table), according to a somewhat patchy memory. Probably lots of fun. Somehow Øyvind must have felt the urge to refinance his funds towards the end of the night, since he asked some of the guys if they knew of a place a guy could "fight for cash". He was promptly directed to some obscure garage-building by the seedy part of the waterfront. Somehow either his bravery, bravado or breadwinning desires disappeared at some point and he woke up the next morning with an intact face, yet penniless. Next evening we dodged the Fellas, hoping to be able to receive Martin and remember it. We managed, and were pleased to discover his lack of tan as we have previously been unpleasantly surprised by our guests being more tanned than us. Anyway, he'll probably rectify that in the couple of weeks he'll spend with us. Wellwell, next day, the 21.st of May we took off up the coast, and that's what we're doing as of now: taking off up the coast. We'll stop somewhere before the infamous Bay of Biscay to check the weather and post this rubbish. So, catch ya'll later!

Coming, staying and leaving Gibraltar!

2010-05-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, so we´ve arrived in the Gib, right in between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, a couple of nights ago. We´ve spent the time doing intensive repairwork and have managed to get made and replace two new wires in the rig, make our lights in the mast work again (we were receiving complaints from the commercial traffic on our VHF that we cannot respond with when we were running around at night with no lights, wonder why...), changed oil, filled diesel and not succeded in repairing our VHFs. All in a two days and squeezed in between socializing with the other cruisers in the anchorage. And now, in a couple of hours we´ll be "home" in the Atlantic!!!!! Finally, it´s been almost two years since we saw it the last time!

Emergency shelter at Costa Del Sol

2010-05-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

Oksy-gebroksky: We left Tunisia with moderate wind in our faces, engine running so we could make some progress and just maybe reach Gibraltar before the next storm would hit. HAHAHA

So, we've spent one (half) night sailing without the engine running, the rest has been spent motoring in dead calmsOr beating up against the windSomeone told us that Algeria was a sweet spot to hang out, the trick was apparantly to get yourself arrested in the right place. Sidi Ferruch was such a place, and since we were going close by anyhow, we decided to give it a go. Unfortunately they just gave us plenty of polite hassle, told us the harbour was to shallow to enter and sent us packing after 20 minutes. A brief, brief visit to Algeria....

Unfortunately the polite Algerians sent us packing straight into an approaching weatherfront that had us fighting for the best part of one day. Our windmeter maxed out on 60 knots, but it's broken. However we know it shows approximately twice as much as it actually blows, so it was blowing somewhere over 30 knots for the whole day. Interesting sensation when the front passed, tried to drown us in rain and then started blowing 30 knots from the opposite direction. One hour later the (big-big-big) waves started coming from not one but all directions, and 20 minutes after that it just stopped blowing, leaving us bobbing uselessly and helplessly around in swells from aaaaaaaaaaalllll directions. Ahhh, the joy...
I just checked my nag-list, and it appears I forgot to nag about currents. Appearantly the currents are all against us. We spent 60 hours covering 100 miles out from Sidi Ferruch. 100 miles is normally an ok 24 hrs run...

All in all we've been moving agonizingly slow. Howevever we hoped to reach Gibraltar by the beginning of the next big blow. We're 100 miles away now, and according to the forecast we should be able to make it. Just. Unfortunately the in-the-face-winds started blowing hard again this morning. We quickly decided for the first time actually double back and then zoomed downwind for about ten miles and ended up here: Adra, on Costa del Sol. Now, maybe we will have time to do some crucial repairs, god knows its needed. Actually we could make a whole blogpost about everything that's broken on board. We just want to patch everything up good enough to make it home. ...preferably in one - or at least not too many - piece(s).

Middelhavet

2010-05-07T09:57:00.001-07:00

Middelhavet skal du få billig av meg ass! Middelhavet gis bort til høystbydende. Siden vi kom inn i dette middelse havet (en helt feil betegnelse spør du meg, det rangerer godt under middels sier to av to seilere spurt i en fersk undersøkelse) for over en måned siden har vi kanskje hatt tre (3!) dager der vi ikke har kjørt motor. Av de dagene det faktisk har blåst har det blåst midt i trynet, uansett hvilken kurs vi har hatt de aktuelle dagene. Ikke helt sant egentlig, én dag blåste det bakfra. Nesten rettt bakfra, ikke helt, sånn at vi kunne gå med doble forseil, neida, bare nesten rett bakfra. Vår nest verste vindretning.

I tillegg er det kaldt!

Tunisia

2010-05-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

Coming to Tunisia we had to - as usual - effect a number of urgent repairs. The most serious of which was re-replacing one of the wires of the rigging that we replaced in Malta. The new one (which in reality was a pretty old one that had been kicking around in the bottom of the boat for a while.) Didn't even last the trip over from Malta and had split in two or three places. Egil was dispatched up the mast to put the old one back. Now we're hoping everything will hold up until we reach home. ...which is getting pretty near now. Unbelievable! We have been sailing for more than a year now. The stars look familiar, we're on the right hemisphere, our clocks are set to the right timezone, the weather is cold and we've stopped provisioning "as much as possible" whenever we find something cheap. In maybe as little as a month we can be in Norway, and by the beginning of August back home by the border to Russia.
Whoa, whoa! That doesn't have anything to do with Tunisia, does it? I digress!

Finished with our repairs we got drunk, visited the most dodgy pub since Ivalo-Hotelli and Sevettin Baari combined, and despatched the TV-celebrity Erlend back to Norway as all the attention and groupies he kept drawing got too much for us, modest, quiet and shy as we are.
Then it was time for some sightseeing. Because of the weather we couldn't move anyway, so we bussed over to Tunis and Carthage/Karthago to check out the city. Egil also needed some new shoes to replace his old ones, bought in Egypt. These had disappeared mysteriously, possibly due to extreme ugliness. After having haggled the price down to less than a quarter of the starting price the salesman found it essential to call Egil "Ali Baba" as he handed him his change. Egil thought it necessary to reply by "No, YOU're Ali Baba!" Those who are in the know, know....In Carthage we checked out some really old bricks. Apparantly made by some rumanians, bad job it seems anyway, since it's all falling apart. After seeing all this and having mangled and abused the french language as much as our rusty high-school french allowed us, we returned to the boat.Back in Bizerte, oh, yes, that's were we kept the boat, we had to wait a couple of more days for the weather to be tolerable. While we were gone a storm had passed and filled the boat with gravel, sand and dust that didn't go away until yesterday when a weatherfront passed us with crazy winds in the face and water all over the boat. Now it's back to no-wind again, and it seems like we'll stop over a day in Algeria. The Med sucks for sailing.

Dyrevenn

2010-05-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

Tripping with Erlend, the Animal Friend.The pictures from Malta to Tunisia by way of an unscheduled stopover in Italy.

Impulsive visit to Italy

2010-04-21T09:14:00.000-07:00

- Hey, have you guys seen there's an island here?
- Wow, who owns it?
- "Isola de la Pantelleria", sounds Italian to me....
- Italy anyone?
- They sell beer in Italy don't they...?

And so it went, other than that we're back in Africa, in Tunisia, seems like a great place. The trip has been pretty miserable with contrary winds and no more LPG for the last couple of days (noodles definitely taste better with water) and our rigging is falling apart again. But one day into our Tunisian stay most of those issues are already resolved. Wooohooo!

Going to Malta for more hammering

2010-04-14T09:59:00.000-07:00

Leaving Crete in ruins we swapped Alex, who had to go back to work, for Egil's brother Martin who had to be back for his studies at some point. Deadlines, deadlines... In short we made it with a day or two to spare, having had all kinds of winds. On the way we finally managed to rip the old jib to shreds and show off some dolphins. Always great fun for the kids, the dolphins. In Malta we discovered two things; first of all Egil's cousin Ole were arriving with a crew from his work, not to join us, but to do what Norwegians normally do abroad. We promptly joined. Secondly and far less important, we discovered that two of the wires in our rigging had taken such a beating going to Crete that they were coming apart and had to be replaced. That done we returned to the bars, basking in our norwegianness. Now we're nursing a four-day hangover, waiting for Erlend, the dyrevenn, so we can leave this place and go to Tunisia. (Unless we change our minds enroute and go somewhere else.)

Pessblaut gets hammered in various ways

2010-04-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

Loads of cruisers go through the Suez Canal. Not many people bother to mention much about it in their blogs. For a reason. Loads of desert, a few military outposts and some big boats. Impressive work by those who dug that ditch almost 150 years ago, takes two days to pass, 'nuff said. For us the Canal brought some change in crew; not only did we have on board the essential pilot who showed us which way to pass through the canal (doh...), we had also expeditioned over to Cario to pick up Alex. A couple of days spent in Cairo, the guys together for the first time in a couple of years.
Leaving Suez and Egypt behind (damn we'll miss all the people trying to rip you off and the concept of bakshees) we had a couple of deadlines to catch. First of all Egils family were waiting in Crete, secondly Alex had to be back at work at some point. This idea of "getting back to work" requires certain fascilities, such as airports. These are normally found on land, complicating our schedule ever so slightly. So entering the Mediterranean and celebrating with water mixed about 60/40 into a drink called "Vodka", served in a convenient shot-glass, we discovered that in the Med most winds are generated by-, and therefore blowing directly from Crete. Alex got himself a rude awakening as to what blue ocean cruising can be all about, hammering up against the wind blowing a constant 15 to 20 knots from right where you wanna go, but being a good sport he later claimed to have had fun. (Reportedly apart from the first couple of days spent in utter misery and seasickness.)
We also discovered that despite the fact that The Mediterranean = Syden, it is freezing cold! We have actually been forced to use clothes. Quite a bit of clothes really. Things have just got colder since the Maldives, but this is outrageous. Øyvind have actually been force to use pants for the first time in 15 months, and has had to abandon his idea of making it home all the way in shorts. To cut the story short, we made it to Crete three days before the Larsen-family's easter holiday where up, but not before Crete had generated a final full gale to be served in our faces on the final approach. Using about every trick in our little book we just made it into harbour, not the marina we intended to go into, but a wharf smack in the middle of town. There Egil's family met up with a crew carrying their best "what? weather? storm? where?"-look.

The Red Sea Welcomes New Visitors!

2010-03-11T09:59:00.000-08:00

It was too good to last! We just left Pt. Ghalib two hours ago. We cleared into Egypt there and spent two nights of precious, uninterrupted sleep on a non-moving platform. ...as well as internet, cold beer and restaurants. All good despite being your worst touristy nightmare. BUT as we left we were actually able to sail away. Going with our 51 year old light-wind genoa and mainsail, doing 4,5 knåtts. THAT was too good to last! We just turned on the engine again.

Again is the keyword here. Not because we've been turning on the engine a lot lately. No-no-no-no-no-no! We pretty much turned it on in Eritrea and switched it off here in Egypt. To those of you whose geography is not too strong: There's a pret-ty big country in between there called "Sudan".

All right, that might not be totalally true, but almost. There's anyway no point of letting the truth get in the way of a good story. Here's what happened lately:
First of all we left Yemen embarking on that final 24 hour passage that would take us to safety past pirate-waters and into the Red Sea. We said goodbye to Rad, an awesome 80-something Indian professor-type who stayed there at the time in his self-built revolutionary katamaran, spoke fluent Swedish and had a perfect understanding of Norwegian after having lived in Sweden for three years FIFTY YEARS AGO!!!! Thanks for all the great meals and the drinks Rad!

About 24 hours after leaving Aden and Yemen behind we entered through Bab-El-Mandeb, the Gates of Lament, Tåreporten, whatever you wanna call it. This is literally the gate to the Red Sea, a little gate where Africa and Asia almost meet, narrowing the gap down to just a few miles across. This place is infamous for producing crazy southerly winds at this time of year. If it blows

20 knots elsewhere it normally blows 40 in the Bab. We were therefore expecting 45. It didn't come. We cruised through and caught our first glimpse of Africa in relatively calm seas and agreeable winds. "Awesome" we thought to ourselves. Two hours later we were still thinking "awesome" but in a totally different way.

The wind picked up after we went through Bab El Mandeb, and was soon going up to 40 knots, and the waves where "awesome", just in a not-overly-positive way. We soon took a massive broach when one wave from behind picked the boat up and sent her on a speed-trip only to have number two and possibly number three increase that speed until we were surfing down the face of wave numero tres. Unfortunately the windvane was steering at the time so Egil were not able to correct the broach soon enough. I was below decks making dinner, definitely not contributing positively to the effort. As the water started flowing faster and faster past the open galley-window - and as the boat leaned over; coming closer and closer, I was convinced we would be knocked down and dip the mast into the seas. Egil was thinking the same in the cockpit. Luckily it didn't happen. We were both sure we would anyway come upright again, the question would be how many hundreds of liters of seawater would have time to enter through the open window and the companionway. We never found out. The guy who sold us Liberty said she didn't surf. We can now tell him that in the Red Sea she does! Awesome!

Next stop were Eritrea.
We cleared in in Massawa, great place, but expensive to stay.
We didn't want to spend 15USD pr day staying there, and getting visas to travel overland proved a lengthy and tiresome exercise, so the planned trip to Asmara and inland Eritrea didn't happen.
After Massawa we cruised over to some small islands to fish, swim and freedive. Still with Thira. In the evening we cruised over to a small village and had a look at some old Italian gun-emplacements that materialized there. That little history-lesson over we joined the villagers on the beach, they provided some firewood and we grilled our fish and we all shared a meal, eating with our hands, communicating through the only two guys in the village who spoke a little English. Later they showed us around in the village, and late in the evening we set sail again. Go north young man!
And this is about where all the "fun" began.
Red Sea factbox: Going up or down the Red Sea you WILL have the wind and current in your back half the way. Depending on the year and which way you're going this might be in the beginning or the end of the trip. The observant reader might already have gathered from the above that going north in the beginning of March you have the wind and current with you in the beginning. ...then you start motoring.

OK, in short we have motorsailed hard on the wind ever since. ....Whenever the contrary winds have not been too rough to go at all. Then we have been anchored in one of the many "marsa"s - small sheltered bays, or behind a reef somewhere out there. The waves in the Red Sea picks up fast and have tremendous boat-stopping qualities about them. This in combination with contrary currents made it impossible for us to go with sails only. We would still be in Eritrea. We have already with the engine spent plenty of time doing around 3-3,5 knots. As if that is not sad enough that would be on a tack about 60 degrees off the desired course, so that we would actually just make 1,5-2 knots towards our target.

But we made it anyway, and even had the chance to stop and freedive and hook up with Cedric and Mike on Thira a couple of times. Sadly the only Sudanese soil we ever tread on was underwater, but hey, that counts doesn't it?

When we finally made it to Pt. Ghalib we met not only Thira, but three other boats that we met on the Maldives. Some of them have met in the Pacific already - some as far back as South America - and kept bumping into each other ever since. Good times, good drinks.
Allright, now we're making our way up towards the Suez Canal. We have a weather window of a couple of days now where there is little or no wind, sometimes even with a southerly component, so we're making use of it. ...to motor in relative comfort.... But; sailing out from Pt. Ghalib, with the wind almost straight from the side? Of course it couldn't last!

PS: Egil may now, after visiting Africa, and having had his crazy two-guys-one-moped-let's-start-in-LA-and-end-up-in-Buenos-Aires-trip (mopeddagboken.blogspot.com), be congratulated with visiting all six continents. And that in the space of a year-and-a-half!
PPS: We're having a discussion whether or not Antarctica is a continent to be included. Of course I mean that it is and that there is therefore no reason to congratulate him on anything whatsoever!

An illustrated (if nothing else) Travelogue to Aden

2010-03-11T09:52:00.000-08:00

Seeing the place, chewing khat, smoking shisha.
We shall return! (Ins' Allah!)

"Safe"

2010-02-15T01:33:00.001-08:00

We're "safe"! We're done with pirate-zone and are now in Yemen! The middle-east is still cool! ...And on a serious note: Yemen is not that bad, friendly place, really!

Up through Pirate Alley Salalah to Aden, Yemen

2010-02-15T01:03:00.000-08:00

Six days of sailing. Not much happening. Some cool nocturnal dolphins in waters loaded with phosporescence. One pirate scare, lot of chatting in code on the radio.

That was it really. First two days held little or no wind and we ran the engine continuosly. The crew on "Thira", Cedric and Mike, had agreed to come along for mutual support. We had agreed to maintain a minimum speed of four knots, which saw us running the engine for 48 hours straight. By the second day we were approached by some larger local boats with speedboats in tow. Three to every mothership. This is something we've never seen before, and being were we were we were naturallay a bit edgy. Normally we have pretty good intel about what to expect as of local peculiarities fishing-wise, and the only people we had heard about operating with motherships and speedboats in these waters were the pirates. Unfortunately not those from that "Vivid" production we all know.
When the alleged pirates even looked to be coming straight for us there was nothing for us to do than try and run at an angle that would optimize our sailing performance. Pretty hopeless really, but it might buy us some time. One of the boats came twice up to about 1000 metres behind us before it stopped dead in the water. Both times we expected to see them man the speedboats, but nothing happened.

The whole ordeal was over in about four hours, during which we were frequently in contact with Thira (who were a couple of miles away, also running from some other boats). All we could do was keeping them updated with our position, speed and heading. All in a pre-arranged code in case people should be listening. We even tryed calling the coastguard on the VHF. We had seen them just a few hours before it all broke loose, but no response, from anyone really.

In hindsight they were probably just fishermen acting in ways that we haven't seen before, and didn't expect, but they got our pulses racing for a little while. Fun exercise.

On the entertainment-front the dolphins have given us a few nightly performances. The water here is loaded with phosphorescence. Sometimes they will come from the back, heading straight for the boat. When they come four or five abreast they look like a hand of glowing fingers reaching out for us. As soon as they reach the boat they will take turns playing in our bow-wave. There you can stand in the bow, watching the body of the fish like a black shape in impressive detail against the glowing green backdrop of the turbulent water around it.

Roadtrip Oman

2010-02-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

Two days of camels, desert, deep valleys, local cafe's, military checkpoints and some other random words to make up a catchy subtitle.

Initiative test: Machining and installing custom-made parts

2010-02-14T23:17:00.000-08:00

There are two ways of approaching the act of moving about the globe in a 50 year old (51 this year actually) vessel:

The natural pessimist approach: All the equipment on board is 50 years old (51 this year) and should be changed ASAP as it is probably going to break any time soon.

The natural optimist approach: Everything on board has lasted for 50 years (51 this year) and is not likely to choose this year to break. That would totally suck.
Being naturally broke we are forced to choose the natural optimist approach. The theory has worked pretty good so far, but on our way to the Maldives from Thailand (were we'd just finished fixing everything that was not working) Egil spotted a tiny crack in our 50 year old (51 this year actually), bronze backstay deck-fitting. In other words; the metal thingy on deck that holds the only wire that keep the mast from toppling forwards when we have the wind from our back. The crack wasn't big, and has probably been there for some time, but you don't get second chances when these things decide to break, so immediate action was called upon. After planning, drawing and making backup-plans to have the part machined in Norway and shipped (not as easy and straightforward as it may sound!) we were able to have it machined in Salalah, Oman. And after fighting with an angle grinder against fibreglass in enclosed spaces for a while too long; mounted! Of course things were not as easy as to just rip off the old (50 years old, in fact; 51 this year!) fitting and bolt on the new one; that would simply be too easy.

Maldives, Holiday in paradise

2010-02-05T21:47:00.000-08:00

We stayed on the Maldives for six days, and making the most of that time. The rush to get home before the ocean freezes over has started. We have planned for the machining of the new backstay deck-fitting that we need to get made after Egil discovered a crack in the old one.

We have sent off Kjell on a 12-stage journey to get back home to Kirkenes. ...and we have enjoyed ourselves going on a trip with the other yachties in the harbour. We were the second boat to arrive, and by the time we left there were almost 20.

We have also sampled the various watersports available, such as surfing (as well as alternative uses of a surfboard) and freediving and spearfishing. Good times, the pictures speak for themselves.
Next up is Oman's second biggest city Salalah, and then a rush over to Aden in Yemen. Hopefully both legs will be completed without encountering people with wooden legs, eyepatches and hooks for hands, otherwise known as pirates. The odds are on our side anyway. Last season two of the 120+ sailyachts to go through there had any problems, guess we can live with that.

Passage Diaries, Thailand - Maldives Pt.3

2010-02-05T21:13:00.000-08:00

Day Fourteen, Tuesday 12 January 2009

The last three days have been nice, bluebird days with light, but not all too light winds. ...Apart from right now, in the evening, when we have been drifting in no winds for two or three hours. We're still in the current that pushes us in almost the right direction though. We thought we had lost it for a while, but now it's back. We have about 170 miles (a little more than 300 km) left until we are at the Maldives, and we're growing a little restless.

Yesterday we had finally worked up the motivation to look into the problem of our navigation lights that stopped working about a week ago. Sure enough, after about six hours of work we had established that the leak that finished off our ships library also corroded the wires to the lights. A little playing around with some tape and tools and; whips(!); we yet again had a light in the top of our mast. Halelujah! The job that had been progressing at a leisurely pace took a frantic turn towards the end, when some bad weather, with heavy winds and rain seemed about to hit us. Us at this stage included a boat with odds and ends ALL over the place. Having such a small boat sort of guarantees that if you wanna do something, anything, you're bound to move a lot of stuff to other parts of the boat, and yesterday we were working in three our four different places simultaneously. After our panicky finishing off and cleaning up, the weather passed behind us, without hitting anyhow. Well, well, it got the job finished.

Day 15, Wednesday, January 13th, noon; 126 miles left to Uligamu, Maldives

Most of yesterday afternoon and the evening in its entirety was spent drifting slowly, slowly towards our target. At midnight we resigned to motoring and have been since. ...Apart from a short spell this morning when there was a hint of sailwind, just enough to take a break from the engine-noise and set sail. Didn't last longer than a short hour though... So more motoring it was. We motored on for a few hours until we had a bit of wind again. This time it held out, and we could glide silently along at about 2,5 knots.

The big event the last 24 hours happened around ten in the evening. I was on watch and Egil and Kjell were Asleep (yes, with capital A). I was listening to an audiobook and watching the stars, waiting for shooting star number five of the evening when I thought I heard someone gasp for breath. Not very concerned I kept up the pace of what I was doing without missing a beat. After all it could have been something with my earphones, or it could have been someone gasping for breath. My dad was after all sleeping two metres away from my position.

Then, ten seconds later, and this time surely coming from outside the boat: PFFFFFF! - UUUUUUUH! After cringeing, taking cover in the bottom of the cockpit and frantically tearing off my headset, I risked peaking over the cockpit coaming. I heard the noise again, sounding like someone who's in the habit of sucking down 50-60 a day and has held their breath for a particularly lengthy visit to an english public toilet. After doing some rational thinking about the probability of being attacked by chainsmoking axe-murderers in the middle of the Indian Ocean I chanced a glance over the side of the boat. It took about a minute before I saw them when they surfaced again. There were two of them. Perfecly dinner-sized brownish whales of about four or five metres gliding slowly next to the boat. Whenever I shone the light on them they would dive and resurface on the other side of the boat.

We watched them until they took off for somewhere else after about 30 minutes. Finally we've had our first official whale-sighting. We've had another one, but Egil refuses to acknowledge it since he never saw it. Between you and me though, it wasn't much. Just a big, dark back several hundred metres out, visible for about 1/3 second. This on the other hand, was a close and definite encounter we could both enjoy.

Day 16, Thursday January 14th

Tomorrow morning we will arrive! For sure, unless the wind dies down AND the motor explodes and we're too far out to swim. Guess the odds say we'll arrive then... We're 50 miles off, and we're doing 4-5 knots in comfortable 7-8 knots of wind and agreeable seas, rested as they are after not having been moved by the wind for a few days. Four knots of speed means four miles pr. hour. In other words we can be there already in 10-12 hours, around midnight that is.

We're now at the stage of the passage where we are preparing our arrival a little. We're taking the anchorchain up from where it's been stored below, and putting it back in the chainlocker. The anchor goes the same way.

We're making plans for our time in the Maldives. Egil discovered a crack in the plate that is the attachment for the backstay of the mast. The crack might have been there a long time, but we can't risk anything. If the backstay breaks in a blow from the back we will, without doubt, lose the mast. We need to have a machine-shop make us a new piece, and we need to spend some time taking measurements and firing off emails east and west.

Yesterday evening and night was a good one! The wind stayed between 3-5 knots, and we kept on gliding. The evening was rounded off by a good number of cardgames and a few glasses of wine. In our lack of a fridge we have finally discovered that we don't have to force down lukewarm beer, you can do the same with wine instead. It took us 7-8 months to figure out that one...

When I got up at midnight for my watch there was not a cloud, and no moon. In other words a perfect view of the stars. I had six or seven shooting stars, one of them one of those really good ones that leave a shining trail behind it. After two hours or so, just as I was getting a bit sleepy, the dolphins came to cheer me up. They played in the dark in our bow-wave for about 15 minutes, then they were gone. ...only to return as we were changing watches. Me and Egil stood silently in the bow watching the shining lines of phosphorescence crisscrossing in front of the boat and listening to their breathing. It was way too dark to see the actual animals, but the lightshow they were making were more than good enough a substitute. I left Egil alone with the dolphins and said goodnight, going down to spend four extremely comfortable hours sleeping. I've grown used to erratic sleeping-patterns by now, and four-plus-four hours is plenty. Normally I'm fully rested after four-plus-two, weird, I used to be such a sleeper...

Day 1, 15 January, Friday 04.15

Anchored outside Uligamu, Maldives! Not seeing land for a couple of weeks makes your concept of claustrophobia a bit screwed. I almost decided against going in here in the dark because the entrance was a bit narrow. ...It's about a mile across. It felt like we were walking a tightrope though, with up to 15 knots of wind and a bit of current to help keep us on our toes.

I wonder what this place looks like in daylight?

Passage diaries, Thailand-Maldives Pt. 2

2010-02-05T09:48:00.001-08:00

Day 6, Jan 4, 2010

The lack of an entry yesterday has its explanation in something as ordinary as the weather. Yesterday there was an awful lot of it. For an awful lot of the day.

To put it another way; it is now almost 6:30 in the afternoon and the sun should set around now. However we haven't seen the sun for the last two days. What we have seen is gale-force winds from north-east (incidentally north-east is almost exactly where we want to go..) and torrential rain.

Yesterday was spent reefing and changing into smaller sails, as well as being soaking wet and slightly miserable.

We had winds of around 30 knots with an average of 20-25 knots for most of yesterday, last night and this morning. Today has been slightly better, and the weather might, just might be improving. So far our expectations of the "truly delightful passage" that the pilotbooks have promised us have been thoroughly shattered and ran through the grinder. Sleep has been a luxurious commodity for some of us. I moved my mattress on to the floor last night. That is the place in the boat where it moves the least as it is almost in the dead centre of the boat and as low as you can get. In addition to that I can just squeeze my shoulders between the toilet-door and the drawers on the other side, so I don't flop around as a flying-fish on deck an early morning.

I slept as a baby in other words.

My nightwatch however was wet and extremely miserable. My iPod was in a waterproof bag and because of this I couldn't properly operate the controls. The best I could do was to put it on "random" and then the damn contraption saw it fit to play Eurythmics, Bee Gees and Sissel Kyrkjebø for five hours straight as I was holding on for dear life, considering whether there was any point holding on for something as miserable that.

To top it off, my earplugs were full of water and incapable of reproduce any form of bass. Anyone who has listened to a vicious iPod refusing to play anything but Sissel Kyrkjebø without bass for five hours will understand the urge for for a quiet, padded room with nice people in white coats.
A-hannyway, that's almost over now. The weather seems to be clearing. It has (almost) not rained today, and the wind has hardly touched the 25 knot-mark, and I can yet again operate my iPod and the earplugs are dry.

Day 8, January 6, 2010

Ok, this is obviously turning into a bi-daily entry thing, I'm sure you don't mind. Yesterday was nothing spectacular, same ocean, different day. Weather pretty much the same as the day before. The day was spent reading, chatting and eating. We even had the time at the end of the day to throw in a game of cards. That was yesterday.

Today on the other hand, brings change. Not a helluva lotta change, but change anyhow. During night the wind died down quite a bit and it has been like that for the day as well. It is less than 10 knots now, typically around 5 knots. That's just about the minimum of wind we need to keep going. We can still sail in 3-4 knots, but that require flat water. Luckily the waves died down together with the wind, so we are still making good speed in a lot more comfort than the last days. We still haven't done less than 100 miles towards the target per 24 hrs. since the first day.
Today we upgraded our fishing-gear with some stuff that my mom brought with her to Thailand. Thank you mom! Hopefully now we'll catch plenty of fish. The retired lure we were using were something we made ourselves after Joseph showed us how on the island of Anuta. (See the "Anuta" blogpost under "Solomon Islands"). Other than that I have made bread and we have collectively put off trying to find out why our masthead light suddenly didn't work when we tried turning it on last night. The joy of having a boat, something always breaks down... Too bad it didn't happen before we left Thailand were we had a "fix-almost-everything-that-don't-work session". Not Everything of course. We wanted to be able to leave before easter...

Speaking of thing that don't work. I listened to our radio this morning. "Listened" is a keyword here because that's all our radio is good for. We can only receive, not send.

Anyway, I listened to the "Indian Ocean-Net" where all or most of the yachts in the IO gossip about weather and fishing and sunburns and all those things that we yachties are extremely interested in. The point of pointing out that was that I heard from the other boats that none of the boats around us has got much wind either. Some of them were motoring, so I guess we're not that bad off anyway!

Day 9, Jan. 7, 2010

Last night I went to bed. Nothing spectacular, I know. I go to bed every night, some nights even twice if I have to get up at midnight to do my watch, as tonight. I'm actually on watch right now. Not that I'm watching much, apart from the horizon every ten minutes or so. The boat is handling itself and I can spend my time writing or whatever. BUT: Yesterday I went to bed at midnight, and I knew I had the rest of the night off. I was looking forward to a full night of good sleep. I haven't slept very good at all since leaving Thailand. In part because we have mostly been beating towards the wind, and when we do that the bunks up in the forecastle with me and Egil in them are being shaken around quite well.

I often get up in the morning (or in the middle of the night, according to the schedule) feeling like I've taken a turn in the spinner, and maybe even the tumbledryer. The difference being that I don't at all smell like the fresh washing you normally pick out of these appliances. Also when we're beating there's a bit of water getting thrown up over the bow, which means we need to keep the forward hatch closed, which means no ventilation in the sleeping quarters, which contributes to the general discomfort.

However last night seemed like a night for perfect sleeping. The weather was nice all day and into the night. Gently rolling waves, wind just strong enough to keep the sails up, all hatches wide open. UNTIL I BLOODY WENT TO BED GODDAMN IT! I had just fallen asleep with a contented smile on my lips when the wind picked up to 15-20 knots from the front, the bow started doing the rumba and, just in case I was under narcosis and hadn't woken up yet, Murphy threw in (literally) a good bucket of seawater through the hatch and onto my disconsolately sobbing person in the bunk.

So after a night of stubborn sleep I got up this morning not exactly feeling like a million bucks, but maybe like five cents. Anyway five cents are slightly better than two cents and three mugs of coffee had my eyes opened to the point I could actually take in the world around me which today consisted of a big, blue ocean, ten metres of boat and a clear blue sky. From trying to relieve myself on the northern side of the boat I could also establish that the wind was blowing about 12 knots from about that direction. Marvellous morning.

Today was spent doing the normal stuff which can be summed up with one word that rhymes with "failing". The spice that faith decided to garnish our day with came in the form of seawater. Funny how that seems to come in abundance in these neck of the woods. This particular batch of salted H2O were brought to our attention when we got wet feet by treading around the cabin bunk which also doubles as our library; there are two lockers under the mattress where we keep a couple of hundred books. A further investigation led us into our library lockers that had now turned into our pulp-storage.

A leak somewhere had collected itself under the cabin bunk and started attacking our reading material. About half of our books were a total loss, the other half was divided into "dry", "almost dry, can be saved" and "hopeless, but let's try and save them anyway".

In short; the boat now smells like a cellulosis-factory and we have books in various stages of sogginess in half a dozen places. The half of our collection that was a total loss went overboard. Normally we bring ALL our rubbish ashore, but dealing with 60 kg of sodden books on board a small boat just called for desperate measures. Sorry nature.

The leak itself was the centre of a lot of attention. Rather, the location of the leak was. A number of theories was launched, investigated and rejected. After a couple of hours we were able to trace it to a disused seacock that is located so high up on the topsides that it only allows water to enter when we're well heeled. ...As we have been for the last week. Furthermore a clogged vent stopped the water from taking its intended route into the sump where it could easily have been pumped out, and instead allowed it to make paper-mache out of our collection of war-, crime- and classic, russian litterature. Remind me to strike Murphy of my christmas-card list.
Despite all, searching for-, and eventually finding and dealing with that leak was an exititing treasure-hunt. Also it proves that even though having a boat is a lot of unforeseen problems to be dealt with, they often come in a form that it is possible to gain the satisfaction of diagnosing and dealing with yourself. ...I still wish my NZ Whitewater Guide and Mt. Cook Climbing Guide weren't dripping wet though.

Day 11, 09 January 2010

I had the morning watch today. Dad woke me up at 0400 and I dutifully got up and out and resumed my duties. ...which basically consists of sitting around watching the sky and scanning the horizon now and then. As I was doing my business I recognized an old friend; The Big Dipper (Karlsvogna). I haven't seen it since I was back home the last time, more than a year ago, yet there it was, upside-down, but apart from that just as I remembered it. I located the Northstar from it, and there I was suddenly, with the Northstar to starboard and the Southern Cross to port. ....and then after a while the sunrise behind the stern as it always is. The sunrise always behind us and the sunset in front of our bow.

Last night was in its entirety spent employing an advanced sailing technique called "drifting". This nifty little technique is normally pulled out of our big bag of tricks when there's absolutely no wind. It works by taking down all sails and relying on a kind current to take you towards your goal. In this case we moved at around 3 knots in almost the right direction, not bad at all.
However after I had taken a svim around the boat, cut my toenails and done whatever I could think of to pass the time, I woke up the others by starting the engine. We motored through most of the day. Even that wasn't too bad. Almost welcome hearing the engine again. At lunchtime we motored straight through the biggest pod of dolphins ever. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, jumping all around us, moving over to investigate the boat and play in front of the bow.

I never get tired of watching them, and today the ocean was dead flat because of the lack of wind and you could look down at them as through the wall of an aquarium. They posed for a few photos, and then were gone after an hour or so. Later a few stragglers paid us some visits, but we never saw the rest of the gang.

Then right after we started sailing again we met some other people for the first time in 11 days. We passed an Sri Lankan fishing boat quite close (oh yeah; we passed Sri Lanka somewhere beyond our northern horizon today...). They were laying their nets and we had just put up twin headsails, so none of us were very manouverable and unfortunately we couldn't take advantage of their offer to swap drinks for fish. We shouted across to each other where we were from, where we were going etc, then we were gone again...

Passage diaries, Thailand-Maldives Pt. 1

2010-02-05T08:56:00.000-08:00

Day 1, 30th. Dec.

We've been sailing for almost six hours now and we have already made 30 miles towards the waypoint just south of the Nicobar Islands. That is the first first of three waypoints along our 1245 miles route. The other two are just south of Sri Lanka and the next one at Uligamu in the Maldives: the finishline.

The sun is shining through a layer of thin clouds, so it's not too hot. The waves are not too big and coming from the back, the wind is a comfortable 10-12 knots and also coming from behind = comfortable sailing in close to maximum speed the entire day. Yes, we have been playing perfect day by Lou Reed.

We were going to start sailing last night after fixing various things and picking up everything we forgot last time we were in Phuket, but all three of us were tired from last night's passage from Krabi. We had sailed back to Krabi to clear out and to pick up some flour and Norwegian foodstuffs that Egil's mom had sent with some extremely kind holidaymakers from back home. So, bottom line, we have sailed from Phuket back to Krabi, then back to Phuket. In Phuket we were going to meet Øyvind's friend Pål, who unfortunately didn't make it because it was snowing a little in Oslo and the planes didn't fly. So no Pål, but we did pick up Kjell's forgotten Visacard, Øyvind's forgotten netbanking password-generator and get some parts remachined after we had found out that they didn't fit because our measurements were off by 0,5 milimeter!

OK, so after doing all this we were supposed to leave in the evening, but since there were no wind and we were tired we decided to wait until the morning, and voila; got up at six this morning raised the anchor in a fair breeze and set off. Smiles all over!

As you all know we've had to invest in some new foresails (you do know, don't you? Because you DO read our blog don't you? All of it!?!) With the new sails on board we now have a double set of jibs and double set of genoas (yes, that is sailspeak and if you don't understand it it doesn't really matter, it's for the sailingeeks only). This means that we can now fly double genoas where we previously had to fly jib and genny. So that's what we been doing since leaving Phuket 5,5 hours ago; enjoying the sight of double genoas filled with wind.

Day 2, Dec. 31st. New Year's Eve

Yesterday's bliss lasted until the afternoon, when the wind died and our speed went down to about two knots and the sails started slatting. The day was spent trying to focus on our respective books and some adjustments of sailtrim.

I was just about to lose my sanity over the constant noise and lack of progress when, after about 24 hours it started blowing somewhat decent this afternoon. Now we're cruising at about 5 knots again. However as of 10 minutes ago the waves are getting bigger and we are rolling more, causing the sails to slat again. ...the joys of sailing.

Today being the last day of 2009 we have had a fairly decent dinner. The exact menu I'll keep to myself in order not to appear too miserable, but it did taste OK. ...at least not bad enough for the others to risk my fury by complaining. At least the cake I made for dessert was good! Other than mediocre dinners and good cakes we plan to mark the coming of the new year at the watch change in one hour and 15 minutes. We plan to send up a rice-paper hot-air balloon at midnight thai-time. Even though our longitude dictates us to be one hour later we will be on thai-time for a good two or three more timezones to keep things simple.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Day three, 01.01.10, 25 NM south of the Nicobar Islands

First of all; the balloon-launching was - after a lot of work and organizing (after all you don't wanna set your brand new sails, or even better; the boat you're living on) on fire - a success on the second attempt. The first ballon crashed into the waves, but the second one skimmed the ocean like a second world-war fighter-plane for about fifty metres before it gathered height and went up in to the great yonder. Our little baby! After that it was wishes of happy new year all around and everyone not on watch went to bed.

Today, the first day of the new year and the new decade has indeed been a good one. First of all we have had good winds from North-East and following seas. Speed-records all around. Twin headsails all day, double jibs from the afternoon on because the wind picked up a little.

Then it has been a good day because the youngsters and captains of the ship have had a good ab-workout on the foredeck. Todays exercises have been The Shrimp,

The Wheel

and Hanging Sidetwists.

To all who have not tried them: They burn!

Not only because we're in terrible shape at the moment, but also simply because they are damn good exercises! Try it. For additional workout of stabilizing core-muscles; do exercises on a small vessel running before twin headsails in moderate seas.

Next out on the New Years day programme was "The Return of The Dolphins". A water-ballett show for a pod of 10-15 small whales. I would personally have preferred a cabaret, but hey, you can't be too picky. The show was particularly welcome as we haven't seen dolphins since way back in the stoneage, like in eastern Indonesia or something. We have been talking about were they've gone off to and when they would be back.

Then it was time for dinner. Egil had the rice and veggies ready and was just about to dump in a can of tuna when we actually caught a fish. Incidentally about 15 seconds after Egil had claimed I would "sooner catch a bird than a fish" on my line, and Kjell, my dearest father, had nodded his approval. Me: 10 points, the others: 0.

The fish was a big bastard. No, let me rephrase; it was a big green bastard! Looked like something from Mars, but tasted delicious!It was the biggest one we ever caught, and to put this into perspective for you: We have caught three fish since New Zealand. One on my birthday, another random one and a sucking-fish that I speargunned when we were becalmed and it thought we were a whale it could attach itself to. Sucker indeed.

Eventually, to top of a great start of a new year we had a wash on the foredeck. Now we're all clean and smell nice. Nice!

Ok, now I'll listen to a audiobook and watch the boat a little. The date has turned into the second as I've been writing. I've pulled the graveyard shift tonight. Smell ya later!

Day 4, Jan. 2, 2010

The progress continues! We're still doing 6 knots or thereabouts. We have done 410 miles in a straight line the last 3,5 days. We're really happy with this, it is more than we had expected, even though we had been expecting good conditions. We are probably experiencing a bit of current pushing us in the right direction as well. ...unless the couple of hours we spent diving and cleaning the hull just before leaving Thailand has affected our speed in ways that we could only have imagined in our most manic moments.

Today we have finally abandoned the twin headsails, and have been running with the mainsail and jib. We have gone as far south as we need in order to pass clear of Sri Lanka, and now we're headed due east. Other than that we ran into a thunderstorm today. A couple of lightnings about 1000 metres away, plenty of rain (I had the chance to wash today also!) and about 30 knots of wind saw us reefing down the main to the second reef and changing into a smaller headsail. Nothing dramatic really, it was all over in 45 minutes, but it was good to run through the motions again. It has been a while since we have done any real sailing.

Maldives!!

2010-01-16T01:30:00.000-08:00

We've reached the Maldives and are very much still alive!

Major updates including lots of pictures with not a lot of clothes to come shortly!!

Check-in/OK message from Øyvind på Tur SPOT Messenger

2010-01-13T11:45:00.001-08:00

Øyvind på Tur
Latitude:6.76674
Longitude:74.4781
GPS location Date/Time:01/13/2010 19:45:29 GMT

Click the link below to see where I am located.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=6.76674,74.4781&ll=6.76674,74.4781&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1
Message:Fra de seilende:
Egil og Øyvind seiler avgårde og har det bra!
Egil and Øyvind are sailing happily along and are OK

Looking for a great way to share SPOT tracks and waypoints, stories and photos? Head to http://www.spotadventures.com and see how users are creating their adventures and sharing them!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

2009-12-25T20:57:00.000-08:00

AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

See you all on the Maldives

Everything new!

2009-12-25T20:37:00.001-08:00

We are preparing ourselves for part two of our adventure: Giant Indian Ocean, pirated Red Sea passage, motoring the Suez Channel, the all too long Mediterranean,the fierce Bay of Biscay and eventually the brutal Norwegian coast. For this, two brand new Hong Kong made sails (jib and light wind genoa), a new well used dinghy with a 3,5 outboard (the old one was stolen in Krabi) and a perfectly overhauled main-engine have been added to the update list. We are ready for everything.

Multi-tool Kjell (Øyvinds father) will join us for the passage across the Indian Ocean, and has been an essential part of our preparations here in our Phuket marina.

We are also filled up with food again. We just saw the last of our New Zealand stock-up go away some weeks ago. Hopefully this will last us another seven months.

Muay Thai

2009-12-09T02:42:00.000-08:00

Break!

I am so tired I line up with my knees in the ground, my upper body leaning on my gloved fists. I take the first push-up.
ONE
Shit! I can't do my push-ups on my knees like a little girl. I straighten out my legs. I hate my pride.
TWO
I could have been surfing in Phuket now. WHY did I go back here?
THREE, FOUR, FIVE
I notice a small brown stain on the canvas under me. A dried-out drop of blood. A punch that landed a bit too hard on a nose during sparring probably.
SIX, SEVEN
I am starting to catch my breath again now. This is not normal. I am doing push-ups during the "break" and I am actually resting from the round of pad-work I have just done.
EIGHT
....Or I could be climbing in Krabi.
NINE, TEN!
I get up after sitting on my knees breathing for a few seconds. OK, can't sit around here too long, the break is just one minute, I've done push-ups for about 20 seconds, and I have some more five-minute rounds of kicking and punching the pads that Wang is holding. I need to get some water. I stumble over to the corner where my cup is. I pick it up clumsily with my big boxing-gloves on. I want to swallow it all in one gulp, but I force myself do take small sips. Just half a cup, any more and I'll be fighting the urge to puke for the next five minutes. I want to drink five cups! I compromise by pouring the rest of the ice-cold water over my head.

BREAK OVER! FIVE MINUTES, LAU LAU LAU!

Ten kicks right foot, ten kicks left. Jab, punch, elbow-elbow, knee. Knee not good enough, again!
I'm on my second visit to the thaiboxing-gym in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. It's been exactly two years since my last visit here. I didn't really expect it, but it was really like coming home. The neighbourhood has not changed much. I recognize the tailor on the corner as I give him a shirt to repair, as I did the last time I was here. A couple of new buildings, the barber has shifted a block and some french expats has opened a really nice coffeshop that is visited by one or two tourists pr. day.

I was here for six weeks the last time, and I left in something very close to the best physical shape of my life. When I arrive for my scheduled two weeks I am probably close to my worst, and already the second day I can hardly walk down the stairs in the morning. The 2x2,5 hours of constantly working on my toes the day before has made me realise how I probably will feel every day in about 60 years, when I am 89! (Yes, I'll live to see 89. The average Norwegian life-expectancy is rising, and I am born lucky, OK?) After three days my my stupid body finally understands that there is no point complaining and the aches start to subside. Good thing, as I was contemplating beginning to roll down the stairs in the mornings as it is probably less painful.
I've been looking forward to coming here. Get a rest from boats, sails and oceans. Meeting up with some of the people I met here the last time. I am also thinking of coming back here in a year to stay for longer. Three, maybe four months. Have time to get some fights, and to really get back in shape. After a week here with two trainings per day I'm sure I will come back.

After five days and ten trainings I join Stephen along with most of the people from the gym to the boxing stadium. Stephen is half German, half Liberian, he works as an actor and has never trained Muay Thai before. He has trained at the gym for three and a half weeks now and he is having his first fight tonight. A few hours later he is slightly disappointed. He has won. Knock-out by knee after two minutes, a bit too quick he thinks.

Deep Water Soloing Langkawi

2009-11-29T02:26:00.000-08:00

Deep Water Soloing (DWS): The art of climbing without the protection of a rope over water deep enough to (hopefully) safely facilitate your falling/jumping into it at any point of the climb.

Julian finally showed his jetlagged face, and we could move on from Langkawi towards Thailand. ..but first: some climbing. ...And even before that: getting out to the boat. This proved interesting as the onshore wind was quite strong. So strong that we had no chance of launching the dinghy, especially without getting all of Julians luggage wet. To complicate matters a wee bit the boat were not exactly in a protected anchorage. She was pitching violently in the swell and since our anchorchain is a bit worn (to the point of leaving about 100 grams of flaking rust on deck pr. 30 metres chain/pr. anchoring) we decided we needed to move the boat anyway. And with no chance of launching the dinghy it was decided that I should swim the 4-500 metres out through the waves. Luckily Julian had brought a diving mask as well as a pair of fins with him. That eased the trip, but it was still a bit on the interesting side.

Well off from Langkawi a few hours later than planned we went straight for this spot we'd found on our way to Langkawi. It is a sort of lagoon made up of limestone island with an endless number of possible bouldering routes. We stayed a few days climbing until the whining about sore hands (and in my and Egils case: sore muscles) became unbearable. A lot of the rock is pretty sharp, forcing the climber to sacrifice a fair amount of skin to do the route. Seven months on a sailboat have left Egil and me with nothing but a faint memory of any kind of physical qualities we were once in posession of, such as stamina or strength, so we headed on, gently massaging sore muscles.

We headed for the Langkawi capital of Kuah in a nice 14-16 knot blow, and reached it the same evening, right after nightfall. Mission: buy booze and cigarettes, take on diesel and water, drop off Øyvind, clear out of Malaysia. This was acomplished in full the day after arriving. I hopped off the sailboat to hop on to the ferry over to Thailand. The plan to go to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand to revisit the Thaiboxing (muay thai) gym I spent six weeks training with two years ago, to train a bit for a change and get my ass kicked around by small thais.

Egil and Julians plan was to sail on to Thailand, stop on some of the islands along the way, do some more climbing and generally pass the time as comfortably and good as they see fit. How that is going I have no idea at the time of writing, but I doubt they're having any trouble fulfilling any of those objectives.

A rush through the islands of Pankor, Pinang, Payar and Langkawi (yes, we're still talking Western Malaysia here!)

2009-11-29T02:22:00.000-08:00

Pankor Island. Not much to report about Pankor really. We tried to buy some engine oil from the local fishing-boat suppliers, but they could only sell us the oil in 200 litre drums, and since having a five year supply of 15W-40 oil lashed to the foredeck would be somewhat cumbersome we decided to buy oil elsewhere.

Also we met up again with the french guys. We had a great barbeque-evening where we ate some self-caught sea-food and played guitar and drank a few beers. By the end of our stay in Pankor we had managed to lure the french into joining us for a couple of days. This was triple awesome, as we were then able to enjoy Mickael's guitar-playing, Mathilde's cooking and Nico and Mickael's advice on how to properly sail a boat. After seven months of continous sailing we were finally able to get ourselves some instruction...

After a few days of luxurious cruising with a huge crew allowing us to overdose on sleep and we made it Pinang/Georgetown where Nico and Mathilde took off on their own. Mickael stayed on and we reinforced the crew with Maxi from Argentina who contributed with a complete lack of sailing experience, a great deal of enthusiasm and heaps of bad jokes for our pool of dodgy humour. Then we took off to The Great Tax-Free Island of Langkawi, by way of The National Park Island of Payar, where we did a bit of freediving and Maxi got his first proper sailing lesson which abrubtly ended when the wind decided to terminate the ordeal by capsizing the sailing dinghy. This resulted in some hurt pride and some help from one of the diving companies in the area, great fun!

Langkawi. Tax-Free heaven. Stocked up on booze and cigarettes which we intend to bribe our way through Africa with. Other than that, we played cards in restaurants while waiting for the inevitable daily rainshowers to finish, played more guitar, drank some more and (in the case of Maxi and Øyvind) watched some Thaiboxing fights, this great asian blend of culture, sport and ultra-violence. Great show! We generally passed the time living life slowly, blending in with the crowds of backpackers roaming the place. That and waiting for the arrival of Julian, Egils companion on epic moped-trips through Europe, and more recently; from LA to Buenos Aires, Argentina. It's all covered in minuscule yet highly entertaining detail and inventive english on Mopeddagboken.blogspot.com

Malacca to Pankor, via Kuala Lumpur

2009-11-27T23:14:00.000-08:00

So! We left Malacca after a little excursion overland to Kuala Lumpur. KL was another big city. When we first arrived in Singapore we were quite dazed by the sheer size and citiness of it all. Ever since we left New Zealand the tallest building we'd seen was about three storeyes, but we quickly adapted, and after a while grew tired of riding the subway just for the fun of it. So the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur didn't hold too much interest for us, apart from a good party and a session of indoor climbing that left our unfit bodies useless for anything physical for a good few days. The Petronas Towers were awesome though!

Right before catching the bus to KL we heard that "the french" were also going that way; Nico, Mathilde and Mickael are travelling together, and it so happens to be that two of them make their living as sailing teachers. Hmmm....

Anyway, we parasitically attached ourselves to them for the bus-ride and then we booked a room in same hostel as them. Before leaving KL we had made an appointment to meet them again further north, at Pankor Island.

We then bussed back to Malacca and set sail for Pankor, the trip to which was uneventful, save for Øyvind's five hour cataclysmic night-watch. Egil went to bed just as it started dripping a bit, then Øyvind spent five hours in a rain pouring as much as pouring rain can ever be expected to pour. The visibility was down to about 20 metres, and when the rain finally lifted (incidentally at about exactly the same time as Egil came back on watch!) We found ourselves surrounded by about 15, until now undetected, local fishing-boats.

Malacca

2009-11-22T20:05:00.000-08:00

Malacca sum-up: After one powerfull index finger, a slum animal, some excellent cheap food and the sight of some MTV pimp-up-ride influence there was not much to see in this ancient Malaysian town.

This one's for Claude!

2009-10-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

...or: how we reached Malacca and Egil's new look

We've reached the ancient and super-historic trading city of Malacca. Awesome little place. Plenty of Malaysian, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, English, Arabian and Chinese history here.

Most other people sailing up the Malacca strait do it in dayhops and anchor at night because of all the traffic and fishing boats. However we didn't think it looked much worse than what we've already seen in Indonesia, so we pushed on through the night and thereby cut the passage by 24 hours or so. The only problem was a lack of wind most of the way, but hey: diesel is cheap as chips here and we have expanded our fuel-capacity by 80 liters, adding 2x40l jerrycans. Now we can motor for about ten days straight. We might need it up the red sea!

Marina Life aka.super-cheap Malaysia!

2009-10-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

Left our illegal Singapore anchorage five days ago, and have ever since been enjoying the marina life, just across the bridge from Singapore. Only interrupted by one birthday party, our lives have circled around taking 4-5 showers a day, stocking up food and diesel (without having to paddle it out to the boat), washiwashi (everything) and doing the land-crab-dance.
This is our first time in a marina since New Zealand, and I honestly think we both deserved it, and needed it. All that comfort.

Tomorrow we head out. Back into the real life again. Melaka, Kuala Lumpur, Langkawi and eventually Thailand is up.

Back To Singapore!

2009-10-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

We are heading back to celebrate Gro's (Volda classmate) 28th birthday.

Happy Birthday Gro!

Singapoh!

2009-10-11T03:50:00.000-07:00

Holy moly guys! Since you're reading this we must have made it to Singapore! At the moment we're anchored some thirty miles outside now and plan to do the last leg tomorrow morning in daylight. We've had fairly good wind going here, mostly from behind, yet a little too little for speeding. ...apart from the two small storms we had, but they were brief, a couple of hours and they were over. We've anchored three places along the way, but didn't land anywere due to various reasons. Apart from that we've crossed equator, come unbelievably close to ramming a local fishing boat and harpooned a fish that were swimming under our boat when we were becalmed. It refused to take our bait, so we had to jump in and spear it, anyway it made it to the pot.
We're hoping to stay in Singapore jut a few days before heading off to Thailand by means of the Malacca strait and Malaysia. See the sights, see if we can find some parts for the boat and then head off. Sweet as!

Chicks!

2009-10-11T03:29:00.000-07:00

Finally, the Pessblaut-guys are able to use their status as adventurous and travelling, young sailors to pick up some birds.

They were too small to eat, OK??

Kryssord

2009-10-11T03:27:00.000-07:00

Etter fire-fem måneder med lesing av bøker som primæraktivitet, ved siden av litt seiling selvfølgelig, bestemmer jeg meg for å prøve meg på kryssord-vedlegget til Norsk Ukeblad nr. 49, 2008 (takk Mamma!). Det går imponerende dårlig. Etter tre minutter finner jeg allikevel mitt første ord.

“Dagdriver” på fire bokstaver: “Boms”.

EQUATOR!!!

2009-10-11T02:52:00.000-07:00

The 8th of October we left the southern hemisphere with no imminent plans of returning. We are getting closer to home now 8.000 miles done, 10.000 to go. From now on we are on our home hemisphere. It does actually have a homy feel to it. We celebrated on the foredeck by donning our best shorts and breaking out the bottle of aquavit, which crossed the equator for the third time. We chatted with the stereo blasting and the boat coasting along at a leisurely three knots. We did attract a certain curiosity from some local fishermen apparantly unaccustomed to sailors dressed in their sunday best, waving around bottles of traditional Norwegian liquor.

Close Call

2009-10-11T02:40:00.000-07:00

It's about 0530 and we're cruising along the South China Sea at a good 4,5 knots on our way to Singapore. It's early dawn and I've been on watch for an hour and a half, and so far I haven't seen any signs of other traffic whatsoever. A bit out of the ordinary as the maximum depth of the are is 30 metres and you can encounter fishing boats anywhere as well as larger commercial craft headed for Singapore.

I've just turned off the lantern, a bit early as it is still twilight, but there's noone around anyway. I'm listening to my Ipod and looking aft, slumped against the cockpit coaming. They say that you, worst case scenario, have 20 minutes from you spot a ship in the horizon until it runs you down - if it hits you in the vast ocean. Some of the solo-sailors sleep in 20-minute intervals so they can scan the horizon. Others sleep 2 hours, trusting in others peoples ability to steer clear, or just the plain improbability of crashing into another craft. I don't know when I checked forward the last time. Maybe 10 minutes ago, maybe 30.

My Ipod runs out of battery and I head inside to put it on charge. As I'm fidgeting with the charging-cable just inside the companionway I steal a glance out of our lookout globe. I blink once. I cannot believe it. There's a sampan, a traditional fishing boat about the same size as our own, about 50 metres, dead, straight ahead! I hesitate for a nano-second, I do not process the equation that says that at current speed we'll ram the sampan in 21,8 seconds, I do however register that he doesn't seem to be moving. Sometimes these guys will cross just in front of your bow to offload the bad spirits they have accumulated lately. Not the case this time, however we are about to offload heaps of kinetic energy into his flimsy wooden frame.

I frantically jump out of the companionway, scattering Ipod and various accessories in the process. Out in the cockpit i tear off the chain that connects the windvane to the tiller and yank the tiller to starboard, after a hyper-brief internal conference in which the conclusion is that I should pass in front of the fishing boat as they often have nets or lines trailing off the back. The sampan drifts into sight as our bow turns to port and I register there's a person in the back and that the boat is anchored. I barely clear his anchor-rode as we pass four metres in front of him.
I connect the windvane again, not really believing what just happened. I have to turn around and look back at the boat to make sure it was really there. Down below Egil is still asleep.

Somehow my watchkeeping vigilance has picked up considerably the last few days....

Checking in, Checking out

2009-10-11T02:34:00.001-07:00

Checking in to country (example used: Indonesia) when arriving by airplane.

-Bring passport
-Walk out of plane, approach customs booth at airport
-Pay appropriate fee, get stamp in passport, go retrieve luggage

Checking in and out of country when arriving by boat:

- Bring passport, cruising permit, cash in US$ for bribes, 11 copies of crewlist, visas procured in advance, a handful of passport-size pictures of crew, clearance-out report from previous country, boat-papers (altered in photoshop if necessary) and ANY paper regarding boat, crew and travel for the last 5 months.

-Locate customs, harbour master, immigration, quarantine and any other necessary officials, in this case navy.

-Get transportation, in this case; hire a scooter (make sure fuel tank is full)

-Start off; go to Immigration. Find the office closed, yet the employees present. Fend of attempts of bribery (“No, we're allright with the stamps already in our passports as we're not ever planning on leaving the boat.” (For Your Convenience; forget to mention your having lived in a hotel-room downtown for two weeks)) Make arrangements to come back next day when office is supposedly open.

-Go down to Customs. Find out that despite your observations regarding Immigration-office being closed, it is in fact open. What's more; find that in order to clear in you need a form which you get at Harbour Master's office. However this is closed.

-Walk over to Harbour Master's office. Find it open. Get form. Observe that in order of form to be valid it needs stamps from Immigration, Harbor Master, Navy, Quarantine and, finally; customs. Explain that you're clearing in today, but tomorrow you will clear out.

-Take form to Quarantine. Explain that you're clearing in, but will be back shortly to clear out.

-Pay fee of 20 000 Rupiah. Not too bad.

-Go to Navy office. Find it closed.

-Decide you cannot do anything more at present, go back to hotel room. Run out of petrol on the way back. Push scooter a couple of kilometres to petrol station.

-Return refreshed next day, go straight to Navy office. Find that navy-officer takes one of your precious two copies of form.

-Go to Immigration. Get notified that you don't have all the necessary forms, and by far not enough copies. Get handed the right form that you supposedly only can get at Harbor Masters.

-Run down to supermarket down the road. Make five copies of each form. Turn out a couple of dozen extra crew-lists just in case.

-Go back to Immigration. Watch Immigration Officer stamp each paper four times and sign once. Do maths. Forty stamps, ten signatures.

-Go back to Navy office for stamp on new form. Find Navy officer gone. Linger until bored.

-Moped over to Harbour Master, explain that, yes, you cleared in with his office yesterday and yes, today you're clearing out. Leave with necessary stamps and Harbour Master slightly puzzled.

-Head over to Quarantine. Explain that, yes, you cleared in yesterday, and, yes, today you're clearing out. Quarantine-guy wants 25 000 Rupiah. Calmly explain that the last three times you visited a Quarantine-office in his country, including his own office, yesterday, you only paid
20 000. Pay 20 000 Rupiah.

-Walk back to Navy office. Wait for Navy officer. Watch as puzzled Navy-guy clears you out two hours after he cleared you in.

-March to Customs office with both forms. Clear in and out with two-minute intervals.

-Go back to Harbour Master's office. Watch officials scrutinize your papers, and, Lo and Behold, find them in order. Wait for twenty minutes while they turn out a paper saying you are allowed to, and will leave their country tomorrow at noon.

-Go back to hotel room by way of the whole town after losing direction. Rest for six days until you can summon the energy to actually leave the country.

Clearing out of country when leaving by plane:

-Bring passport.
-Go to airport, approach customs-booth.
-Get stamp, wave goodbye, board plane.

Anchoring, Bali style

2009-10-11T02:20:00.000-07:00

Yeah, Yeah, we know: Check the tide-tables....

We are okay!

2009-10-10T05:04:00.001-07:00

No, the tsunami didn't get us. In fact we didn't hear about it until just now. We are safe and in Singapore.

Our thoughts go out to those who got hit.

You have just received a message I sent using my SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger

2009-10-08T01:50:00.001-07:00

Øyvind på Tur
Latitude:0.0283
Longitude:105.00713
GPS location Date/Time:10/08/2009 08:50:28 GMT

Click the link below to see where I am located.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=0.0283,105.00713&ll=0.0283,105.00713&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1
Message:Fra de seilende:
Egil og Øyvind seiler avgårde og har det bra!
Egil and Øyvind are sailing happily along and are OK

Looking for a great way to share SPOT tracks and waypoints, stories and photos? Head to http://www.spotadventures.com and see how users are creating their adventures and sharing them!

The joys of holidaying and needlessness of valid travel documents

2009-09-22T03:58:00.000-07:00

Sooookey! We are now ready to leave Bali soon. In fact, officially we have already left Bali some days ago. We have spent more than a week her vacationing. Actually vacationing. We have surfed and drunk beers. Taken time off the boat, staying at a cheap hotel and taken in some hard-core western holiday-culture. We met up again with Joachim who left us in Ambon. We actually met him at sea when his chartered snorkelling-boat stumbled across us as we motorsailed 5 hours out from Benoa. Joachim showed us all the cheesy bars were the swedes and norwegians hang out. But now it's all over and we'll soon head back out to sea. The plan is to make it up to Singapore, maybe stopping a few places on the way. This is of course not kosher since we've already cleared out of Indonesia and the only place to clear in is in Singapore, but what the helioscope; we haven't had proper valid papers for the last two months anyway.

The trip here was sweet. Nice weather for most of the time, calm seas, weak yet steady winds apart for two nights with heavy blows. In the morning of the last one we entered the Lombok Strait which leads to Benoa, where we are now. As dawn arrived we found ourself surrounded by a few hundred (seriously!) local sailing fishing boats with nets and lines out. This made for some interesting navigation for a few hours.

As to our change of plans: We have for different reasons decided NOT to cross over to the Maldives from Bali, now in September, but instead head up to Thailand via Malaysia and Singapore and cross the Indian Ocean as soon as it is safe again in late December. From here the journey will go as planned (maybe and hopefully), only a bit delayed. This means that we will maybe have to stress it a bit after leaving Thailand, but hopefully not toooooo much. On the other hand it also means that we have plenty of time to see Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand where we are hoping to get some climbing done in Krabi.

Some of you dear readers have been asking for more pictures. The rest of you have not been complaining about anything. To the three uncomplaining ones: Thank you for not complaining (thank you mom and dad!). To the two of you who wants more pictures: We are working on it. We have again been experiencing some troubles with our computers, looks like a virus of some kind. Also our waterproof camera seems to have shut down after I accidentally dropped it in 25 metres of water. We were able to retrieve it, and it worked for some time, but now it has given up the ghost completely. In other words; we will post more pictures, we just need to sort ourselves out first!

Change of plans!

2009-09-11T23:39:00.000-07:00

Yep, on the sidebar you can now find our new when-and-where's.
Our new plan is to cross the indian occean in late december (after the cyclone season) leaving from Thailand. So, from Indonesia we head up to Singapore and Malaysia before Thailand.
All this takes us back a little and therefore we wont have time to cruise India and Sri Lanka. We might just have a short stopover at the Maldives before going direct to the Red Sea. Speeding for Europe. We hope to be in Norway late may/Juneish.

Thats tha plan (at the moment)

The value of a few official-looking documents and the joys of hotel-life

2009-08-28T23:35:00.000-07:00

We are in Ambon, Indonesia. In fact we're about to leave Ambon. We are actually here rather legally. When we got here we marched over to the authorities with the documents we were able to get our sticky fingers on in Jayapura and cleared in using those. It ran almost without a hitch!

Now we've taken on diesel to replace what we burned going north of Irian Jaya. We've also taken on what can be noted as a pessblaut low in regards of water quality. It tastes like sea- and freswater half-and-half, but it hasn't made us sick when we tried it, so what the heck. Now we're leaving for Bali. We're - at least I am - quite sick of - experiencing other cultures and doing all that grown up stuff. I'm ready for some westernized low-culture. Beaches, beers and bikinis! I shall personally hug the first pale, beer gutted, speedo-clad german I see.

In the "so what else is new slot" of this blogspot the pessblaut-boys report that Jukka had enough of sailing in low winds, contrary winds and unfavourable currents and jumped ship here in Ambon. He has taken it upon him to be our advanced party, take point, and establish a fire-base for us in Bali. We'll hook up there after J has made a visa-run to some obscure asian country so that he can stay longer in Indo. Before he left us though, we grasped the opportunity to invade his hotel-room by the airport and did our best to acomplish an old-fashioned hotel-room drinking binge. It went a little something like this:

-Take taxi to hotel by airport, try and sneak past reception in order not to have to book more than one room
-Book one more room as sneaking-skills are rusty
-Drink, play music and argue
-Repeat above for ten hours
-Enjoy the local hotel fauna: Mice, cockroaches and lizards
-See Joachim off to airport at six in the morning
-Have hotel breakfast (one loaf of white bread, choice of two different jams, tea or coffee)
-Go to extra room which so far has not been touched
-Sleep for a few hours until check-out time
-Check out, make way back to town by local transportation

Soon Ambon and a reason for a pictureless blog

2009-08-27T01:55:00.000-07:00

We're now nearing Ambon with the engine running, sails up, an opposing current running under the keel and our fingers, toes, legs -and whatever we're able to cross- crossed that the ambonese authorities will let us stay in the country.

The trip here have have been frustrating. We were able to get away with a load of diesel from Sorong without anyone paying too much attention to our lack of valid indonesian travel-documents. Apart from that we have been battling opposing wind and currents pretty much since we left the windless area just below the equator north of the island of Irian Jaya. Poor Joachim who joined us in Jayapura didn't exactly get the trip he was hoping for: a couple of anchorages, apart from that A LOT of sailing, however in frustrating wind- and current conditions for most of the time. Everything seems to have been taking quite a lot more time than expected.

As the most observant of you guys might have noticed there has not been a lot of pictures on the blog lately. We're experiencing some problems after the harddrive on Egil's computer broke down. We were miraculously able to change the harddrive for the one still in Øyvinds laptop whose screen broke down in Fiji. However we lost a lot of software and drivers and other things with funny names that you apparantly find inside a harddrive. We are going to fix this, but we need a little time and a half-decent internet connection. Until then, please be patient, support us and keep following the blog. We'll get a lot more pictures in there eventually!

Illegal alien cruising in Indo

2009-08-27T01:52:00.001-07:00

Tuesday 18th., morning outside the northern point of Irian Jaya, Indonesia.

We're just below equator now. As anyone who knows anything about world-wide weather can tell you this area is notorious for being still and windless. We have -in our infinite wisdom- decided to take our sailboat up here. Furthermore we have not brought extra diesel. Last night the engine coughed and died and we had to fill the last of our fuel on the tank, so now we're down to the last 35 hours worth of engine time. We are hoping to find a town soon so we can get some more fuel. However our papers are patchy at best. We are offically thrown out of the country. We are however allowed to travel in Indonesian waters, but we are not allowed to anchor anywhere, so we haven't done that. We have certainly not anchored two or three places before we reached this point. We have most definitely not stayed for a couple of days at a beautiful beach on Yapen Island. Picking our own coconuts and lime and mixing it with gin for our sundown card-game on the beach.

Joachim joined us in Jayapura, and we haven't grown sick of him and used him for shark-bait yet. In fact it's really sweet to be able to split the night-watches in three instead of two. Also we get some new stories thrown in to our gossip-pool and we get to recycle the stories that the two of us has swapped so many times we're not sure who of us told it in the first place. Jokke has also definitely NOT used his military jungle skills to take us on a little jungle expedition since we haven't anchored anywhere.

Our plan now is to make it to the town of Ambon and try to clear in there. Rumour has it that they're supposed to be more cooperative there. We're crossing fingers.
Peace out.

TROUBLE!!

2009-08-04T04:36:00.000-07:00

SHITdamnfuckingshitfuckdamn!!

We just cleared in to Indonesia, the only place we actually have worked getting our papers sorted before we went. Simply because we have heard it can be a bit of a sweat with all the paperwork and because it's a crucial country to be in the clear.

Yup, cleared in and Linked up with Joachim from back home who is supposed to join us for a few weeks. Everything seems supersmooth and we are enjoying a decent dinner and shooting the breeze and catching up when the customsguys comes over to tell us there's problems...

Apparantly we're missing a crucial paper and we have to leave Indo within 24 hours. If that sounds somewhat allright i suggest you check your map. This sucks not only because we've paid some bloody agent shitloads of denares to fixall the paperwork, but also because it might mean we might spend the next three weeks at sea, we'll have to throw all our planning to maasen and that we might not make our deadline across the indian ocean.

Right now we're looking into the option of heading directly to Malaysia, but most of all we're hoping to fix this situation and keep on going as planned. We're scheduled for another meeting with customs tomorrow, but we've also been told that we'll have to leave the country by 2 pm.

Yups, that's it, the show must go on somehow, but we have no idea how, and we don't know whether we'll be able to update you much. hang in there!

Madang to Vanimo, passage in PNG

2009-08-04T04:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, let's start with the end.

It's the morning of the last day of July and my diver's watch tells me that the sun should have risen about one hour ago. It's a grey, rainy and miserable day, just as the whole night has been. We're approaching Vanimo, the last stop of Papua New Guinea before we are supposed to dart over to Indonesia and Jayapura. Egil is asleep below, he's pulled the midnight-to-four watch, whereas I've done the evening-midnight and am now doing the four-to-morning watch.

I'm wearing shorts - as I have been for the last eight months - and an oilskin jacket. I'm standing in the bow clutching a coffe-mug in one hand and the bent-and-mangled boathook in the other, while the windwane is steering the boat. There are quite a few major rivers running into the sea around here and they seem to be dispersing driftwood of impressive size that lie in belts that can stretch for miles into the sea. We hit a log yesterday, but luckily without any other damage than a few branches stuck in our fishing line. Now we're running through another one of these belts of up-to-no-good driftwood. So, I'm standing in the bow, having a coffee, keeping a lookout and being ready to fend off any evil-doing semi-submerged logs, it's seven-thirty in the morning and I think to myself, quite philosophically: "We're approaching a town which potentially has an internet-connection, what can we write in the blog? What's happened since Madang?" The answer comes to me as a revelation after another sip of coffee as another four-metre piece of driftwood misses us by two metres: "Not an awful lot."
Yep, that's it folks, so little we didn't even take any pictures. The pictures in this post are mostly old, but previously unpublished. We had a lot of fickle winds, and since we're expecting quite a lot of that for the next month or two, we've decided to start motoring when there's no wind. (As opposed to the "drifting and waiting" policy we've exercised so far). So a lot of motoring this leg, and of course we had some problems again, but they seem to be fixed (again). We expect it's a leakage in one of the dieselfilters. However we are also keeping the options open for it being a problem with the cooling, the exhaust, the pistons, the air-intake or any other part of the engine since we have no clue what we're doing.

The only thing to break up the monotony on this leg was a short stop for half a day and one night on Laing Island, a tiny thing that used to have a Belgian research station on it, now there's nothing. We met some locals there, had them over for coffee and joined them at their campfire in the evening. We were also approached by some other locals who wanted to sell us marijuana by the kilo. Early next morning we headed out again and pretty soon we had ourself a nice mackerel, way to big for only the two of us, so after Øyvind had made his debut cutting fish-fillet we headed over to an outrigger canoe we were passing. The guy was obviously fishing, so we figured we'd cut his workday short by handing him a couple of kilo's of mackerel-fillet. However as we approached the guy started paddling away from us, but we were faster and in the end we caught up. The guy looked rather terrified, but after we handed him the bag of fish he was only looking suspicious. We had a rather broken conversation out there on the sea with him asking us questions in mixed pidgin and english and we answering "From Madang" "Norway" and "to Vanimo" randomly. After the "to Vanimo" part he looked satisfied and we headed off again. The last we saw of the guy was him inspecting the plastic bag with his "catch" of mangled mackerel fillet.

Honiara, Solomon Islands - Papua New Guinea, a passage of disease, engine trouble, fickle winds and a first 29th birthday.

2009-07-21T18:50:00.000-07:00

We left Honiara, Solomon Islands where we had stayed for three days without ever clearing in. We left our status of illegal aliens behind and took off knowing that we're closing in on equator and that we can no longer rely on the tradewinds to supply us with steady sailing winds. We had therefore decided that we would be a bit more generous with the engine power. No more drifting around for 24 hours waiting for wind.

The first thing that happens is that Øyvind starts to develop symptoms of a cold or a flu or somewhat. Great thing to feel tired even before you've started doing four hour interrupted sleep-cycles.

The day after the wind dies down. Again. No problem, we fire up good old Yanmar 2GM20(F). This works fine for about 30 minutes. Then it dies. This is the first time ever we've had troubles with the engine. The day was spent inspecting fuel lines and pulling filters and generally despairing over our complete and utter lack of techno-knowledge. By sundown no fault was found and we wrapped up to continue the next day. Luckily we got some wind during the day, so at least we're moving and not rolling violently which for an hour or two contributed significantly to the general frustration.

The day after the engine breakdown Øyvind is just getting out of bed and we're trying to get motivated for more mechanicking when we hear a crashing noise. In itself nothing spectacular, sometimes things work themselves loose on deck and make crashing noises. However this time it's the cable for the centerboard that has snapped, and the noise was the centerboard crashing down, still hinged to the keel, but without the cable to keep it up. We know the cable is a weak point and that it will break occasionally, however it broke the last time less than a month ago, and it's not even supposed to break annually. What's more is that the last time it broke we were able to pull into a protected bay where we could anchor within the hour. Now we're offshore. And we used our last spare cable fixing it the last time it broke.

We work out a plan. We're gonna use one of the old cables and somehow work around the problem. However to change the cables we need to dive on the boat. Øyvind accepts the task, ties a line between himself and the boat such as not to lose the latter in mid ocean. Then he jumps in trying not to think of sharks and his resemblance of bait on the end of a line.
The plan seems to work fine, except that we of course run into trouble when the cable has been pinched between the keel and the centerboard and we use a couple of hours rigging a system with an anchor to help pull it loose which works in the end. We sigh with relief when we are finally able to raise the centerboard an hour later, 5-6 hours after it broke. We can now head on. Øyvinds state is detoriating, but Egil steps up and gallantly accepts the lions share of the tougher watches.

Then it's Øyvinds birthday. Egil has had the morning shift and the birthday baby wakes to the smell of frying eggs. Later he makes a bloody cake! That guy will for sure make someone an excellent wife someday. We fill the day with more engine work. As a birthday present Øyvind is able to, by pure luck and total lack of skill, of course-, stumble across the fault. The top of one of the dieselfilters is busted and we cannot get the compression right. We're able to fix it somehow, and we have a working engine yet again! ...However we are not too certain about the quality of the mend and decide not to use the engine before we're about to anchor, such as not to strain it unecessary before we need it. Later the same day we catch our first (!) fish. We have no idea what it is, but it looks scary with pointy teeth. Perhaps a barracuda or something. We take our chances of it not being overly poisonous and eat it for birthday supper.

The plan of not using the engine fails when we encounter absolutely crap winds the last 150 miles of the trip. Luckily the thing seems to work allright, but we never push it. We do however get plenty time to take in the view of the mountains at Irian Jaya, New Guinea's main island. The first proper mountains we've seen since NZ. Finally we're able to clear in to PNG at Madang. They seem a little curious about the fact that our visas are issued in Solomon Islands since we, according to our papers, have never been there, but hey, no trouble. We're free to rock on towards Indonesia.

OK ESN:0-7402902

2009-07-16T13:14:00.001-07:00

Fra de seilende:
Egil og Øyvind seiler avgårde og har det bra!
Egil and Øyvind are sailing happily along and are OK
ESN:0-7402902
Latitude:-6.6975
Longitude:151.4997
Nearest Location:not known
Distance:not known
Time:07/16/2009 20:14:19 (GMT)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-6.6975,151.4997&ll=-6.6975,151.4997&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

Honiara, Solomon Islands

2009-07-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

Anuta - Honiara

Vi heiser seil fra Anuta, glad for å være underveis igjen, på vei mot nye eventyr. Vi har omsider kommet fram til at vi må begynne å gi en del gass. Vårt tre måneders visum for Indonesia er allerede to uker gammelt, og vi regner med å bruke minimum et par uker frem dit. I tillegg har vi en del usikkerhetsmomenter foran oss. Vi har bestemt oss for å gå nord for Papua New Guinea, og vindene der skal være veldig usikre, vi kommer til å sveipe innom stillebeltet rundt ekvator og vi kan risikere at ting går tregt. I tillegg har vi en del usikkerhet rundt "papirarbeidet" vi har foran oss. Resultatet blir at vi antagelig blir å gi gass opp mot Vanimo, siste stopp før den indonesiske siden av Papua New Guinea (PNG). Det blir kanskje ikke mange stopp før vi kommer dit, kanskje ingen. Forhåpentligvis vil et slikt "skippertak" nå føre til at vi kan ta det litt rolig gjennom Indonesia, og ikke minst, at vi kan forlate Indonesia for Sri Lanka uten å bekymre oss for å havne i en kjedelig orkan. Disse festlig værfenomene kan visst være brysomme i det Indiske Hav etter september, og vi har ikke tid til slike orkangreier, vi har dessuten hørt de kan føre til sjøsyke.

Akkurat nå er vi ca. 100 NM fra Honiara, og vi har seilt non-stop i fire dager fra Anuta. Omsider har vi godvær. Sola skinner og vi har en lett vind i ryggen mens vi går for doble forseil. Båten ruller nesten ikke, og vi slapper av med musikk og bøker. Slik er det altså nå. De foregående dagene har vi hatt godt gammeldags dritvær. Regn hver dag. Om det ikke har kommet ned som tropiske regnskurer (såkalte "squalls") har det bare regnet. Vinden har vært ustabil. Nøyaktig hvor ustabil er litt vanskelig å si, ettersom vindmåleren vår har vært litt ute å sykle etter Anuta. Mulig all rullinga for anker tok knekken på den. Resultatet av den ustabile vinden har vært at vi har gått for redusert seilføring stort sett hele veien. Det har rett og slett vært for mye styr å tilpasse seilføringa til vinden som forandrer seg hele tiden.

Nattevaktene har vært desto kjedeligere, regnet har ofte tvunget oss inn i båten, istedetfor å kunne ligge på ryggen i cockpiten og telle stjerner. Men, nå skinner sola og vi er snart i Honiara. Vi kunne godt tenke oss å gå forbi, men vi må faktisk innom for å sende avgårde en del ting på epost og for å fylle opp lagrene med malariamedisin.

Jeppsi pepsi

The Banana Diaries

2009-07-08T18:06:00.000-07:00

Day 1:
Today we left Anuta, well fed and ready to resume our diet of rice, homemade bread and canned vegetables. Luckily the anutans, in their endless kindness and hospitality, has provided us with no less than three stalks of green bananas and a cockpitful of coconuts. I'm gleaming, it must be about 400 bananas! Bananas are definitely my favourite fruit, and I always seem to run out of them, no chance of that this time!

Day 2:
Shitty weather again. I scrutinized the banana stalks today, and, lo and behold; I was able to find one banana that was almost yellow. It was just a little green, but it doesn't taste that bad with coconut. Can't wait for the rest of them to go ripe!

Day 3:
Egil pulls me out of bed at 0400 this morning. My shift. I put on my shorts, harness and inflatable lifejacket. I brave the rain and make my way up to the foredeck and the bananas. In the torchlight I can see several on one of the stalks gone ripe. Halelujah and christmas eve!! I pick half a dozen with me and enjoy them in the cockpit. Never mind the rain! I muse over the fact that we will be leaving a trail of bananapeels and cocohusks in our wake.

I've worked my coconut opening-time down to 10 minutes. Natures own soft-drink!

At lunch, eating fresh bread with banana and some banana for desert Egil says something about it being good we have the small type of banana as he always feel he struggles to finish off the big ones. I stare at him dumbfounded and reply "du må jo være domm i haue", which is adequately translated into "I have no idea what you are talking about mate. Whenever I have a banana I'm always wishing I could have one more"

I'm making dinner. Wok'ed veggies and green banana with tuna. Grilled honeybananas for dessert!

Day 4:
What can I say? I have polished off about 30 bananas today. Banana pancakes for dinner. Had three coconuts today. My body is craving for something salt, so I make myself some noodles. Feeling a bit funny.

Day 5;
We realize we're struggling to keep on top of the ripening process. We need to step up the consumption a bit. I was weeping blood as we had to throw a brown banana overboard. Made Egil promise we would not let it happen again. Feel a bit like having a coconut, but dunno if I can be bothered opening the bastard without using explosives.

Day 6:
When I get up in the morning after having slept after the 0000-0400 watch I realize Egil hasn't eaten any bananas during his watches last night. I notice when I go to fetch my compulsory morning-bananas. I give him a severe bollocking, and the mood is rather sullen for the rest of the day. A little after noon I try to make it up by getting Egil a couple of bananas, but he just looks at me a bit funny as he stuffs them into his mouth.

Day 7:
I dream about a blue woman insisting she is "Miss Chiquita" while some guy with a sombrero sings the Banana Boat Song over and over again. I wake up bathed in sweat with Egil's hand on my shoulder. He asks if I'm allright, says I've been screaming "go away, please, please!"
I get physically sick as I move to the foredeck and realize most of the bananas are ripe now. We need to eat more. I stuff down 4 bananas for breakfast while I throw the peels as far away from the boat as possible. Then I go wash my mouth.

I've been sleeping in the middle of day. When I wake up dinner is ready. I ask what it is. "Oven baked banana cakes" is the reply. A heated argument ensues, quickly reaches climax, then dies out as Egil grabs a banana from the stove-top and hold it in front of him as a knife. I'd rather it was a knife.

We're getting closer to Honiara now. During my night watch I creep up to the foredeck and rip loose two bananas while looking down into the deck. I deliberately avoid looking at the stalks. Back in the cockpit I start on the bananas. When Egil relieves me two hours later I'm still eating the second banana.

I don't go to sleep immediately. For a while I just lie on my bunk scratching the paint off the ceiling above my bunk. I hate the color. It's yellow.

Day 8:
Tonight I dreamt I was on the "Titanic". I was lowered in one of the lifeboats while people around me kept telling me how lucky I was. I sat in the lifeboat watching the rear end of the Titanic lifting high above the surface, then sinking. Everything was quiet, and in a weird way I felt happy, as if I'd escaped. Then I looked around me in the lifeboat and realize I'm alone, yet, in a way, not alone. I think it's a good thing. I look around for some oars so I can row away. I only find boxes. Square, paper boxes. The whole boat is full of them, everywhere. They are stacked five high, the stacks are higher than my head. Then I realize what they are. They are banana boxes.

I wake up panting in the cockpit. I'm just standing there looking out over the calm sea. Egil cocks an eyebrow from his rested position on the cockpitbench by the hatch. He wonders why I come running out from the cabin screaming like that.

"This is it" I think to myself. "It's you or the bananas Øyvind". When Egil goes to bed I stand for a while looking out over the sea again. I don't have a harness on this time. Then I move to the foredeck and start throwing bananas into the ocean.

Anuta / The Liberty Escort Service II

2009-07-08T17:14:00.001-07:00

We planned to stay at Anuta for a day or two, see the island, meet the people, and then take off again. We ended up staying a week. A week where we were to enjoy local customs and food, see the island, introduce the kids to slacklining and rockclimbing, develop an after-dinner-coconut-addiction, discover Egil's allergy towards the local drug, betelnut, meet the people and thoroughly enjoy ourselves.

After meeting the chiefs the first day we were ready for our first taste of the insane display of hospitality that were to be our reality for the next week. We soon realized that we would not be allowed to cook for ourselves as long as we stayed on the island. We were being fed three or four times every day. We feasted on local food; taro, yams, breadfruit, fish, chicken, turtle, seabirds. After every meal (and sometimes in between) some of the kids that were forever hanging around us would be sent away by our guide for the day to pick us some coconuts to drink. We probably averaged a daily consumption of six coconuts. Each.

The kids would watch our every move, growing a bit bolder every day, although even to the last day some of the younger ones would run and hide, screaming, at the sight of our white skin. ...And I thought I'd finally developed a tan. From the second we landed with the dinghy in the morning (after Joseph picked us up, god forbid we would have to paddle anywhere ourselves) the kids would be there to carry the dinghy away, carry our stuff, or generally just follow us around. The helpfulness were extreme. One of the more bizarre outcomes of this was that one day when I was carrying my backpack around I would constantly have one of the kids at my back lifting my backpack on extended hands, trying to take the strain of my shoulders.
Anuta is a small isolated island. About 1 km across with a small hill to one side, and beach around the rest of the island. There's about 300 inhabitants in two villages right next to one another by the sea. The hill is used for fields, and most of the flatland is cultivated jungle crisscrossed by a maze of tracks. (I still have no idea of how to get from one side of the island to the other without following the beach!). The Anutans are devout Anglican Christians, they have a church and twice a day someone will blow a conch to call to mass. There's no pressure to attend though, and not once during our stay did anyone try to make us go.

One of the things we "had" to go through before we left though, was enjoying one meal with the family of each of the crewmembers of "Lapita", the boat we escorted from Vanuatu. There were eight crew on the boat. One of these were the priest.

This is a good time for looking a bit closer at the "drug" habits of the pacific in general and Anuta in particular. From Vanuatu and eastwards the local drug is the "kava" that we have already mentioned. The kava is made from a crushed root, mixed with water and drunk. It makes your mouth go numb and your mind a little lightheaded and relaxed. Nothing more. On Anuta and the rest of the Solomons, the betelnut is the drug of choice. A bit stronger than the kava it has much of the same effect. However it doesn't last for more than 15-20 minutes. The funny thing, seen with blurry, western eyes, is however that very often alcohol is not used at all by the locals. Sola Bay in Vanuatu for instance has 8-10 Kava - bars (in a village of 500 people), but nowhere to buy alcohol. We were therefore not expecting to encounter any kind of alcohol on Anuta. Fair enough, probably good for us, we thought.

We were therefore a bit surprised when we were having lunch with the priest and his family. Sitting cross legged on the floor and eating our food with our hands the good Father Lamley suddenly pulled out a couple of plastic bottles of ready mixed whisky-coke. The Father Himself took a bottle of beer that he opened with his teeth.
A couple of days later we were back at the priests place for a thank - you feast. Unrealistically we were the ones being thanked, for escorting their boat and crew home from Vanuatu. We were again sitting on the floor of the Fathers house, this time in a big circle around the food. After the food the others started singing their traditional songs, and mysteriously, again the small, plastic bottles reappeared. Only this time it was one each for everyone gathered there. (and, yeah, two for the white guys). The anutans were singing, always the same tune, but different lyrics every time. Most of the songs about the sea. Songs about sailing, about fishing, about being caught out in a storm and being unsure whether you'll ever return, songs about standing on the beach waiting for someone who will never return.

However, after a while of singing, when most had finished their little plastic bottle Father Lamley got up and moved over to his chest by a wall. This caused some sort of excitement with our fellow party-goers. We soon discovered that this was due to Blessed Father pulling out his communal wine. A three-litre bottle of strong port wine. The party soon reached a higher state of party-ness, and the singing grew ever louder.

Some time later, after Father Lamley had been digging into his chest for the third time, the party were over for us. We had been served double servings of holy wine the whole night, due to the general understanding that we, in power of our norwegianness, should be more used to the alcohol. However we have been low-budget cruising for quite a while, and have totally lost touch with our north-norwegian drinking habits (we will catch up again when/if we get to Norway, promise!). Getting back to the boat was out of the question. We couldn't have anyone drive us out as everyone had been drinking, and swimming would probably see us missing the boat altogether and ending up in Australia - a night on the beach was called for.

The Anutans are very conscious about preserving their culture, and, probably due to their isolation, they seem to be succeeding quite well. Anuta is visited twice every year by a supply-ship and 0-2 times by yachts. They talk their own local language, and they take care of their traditions. The kids get sent to the Solomon' capital Honiara to continue their schooling around the age of 12, however they all seem to return. A part of their culture, which is not distinct for Anuta, is the betelnut-chewing. As the would-be anthropologists we are we tried to blend in in every way possible. However when Egil tried for local drug habits he discovered he reacts to betelnut by excessive sweating, dizziness and extreme loss of coordination. No chance of developing an unhealthy betelnut-habit.

After a week we had been through the initiation-seremony. We'd been dressed up in traditional clothing, painted orange (!) and paraded/given the complete tour across the whole island. It was again time for us to leave. We have quite a few unknown factors ahead of us, and we need to cross the indian ocean over to Sri Lanka by the end of september, and we are unsure of how long we need to get in position. In addition we have spent some more time than we expected getting to where we are now (flying twin headsails over calm seas in 8 knots of fair wind, about 100 miles from Honiara, in sunshine). In other words: We need to start hauling ass!

We parted with Anuta just after dark on the beach. Joseph the Elder held a good-bye speech and ALL the kids sang one of the traditional Anuta farewell - songs. We swallowed hard a couple of times, thankful for it being dark, said goodbye to everyone with the traditional greeting; the nose kiss. you go close up to the person, then you shake hands as you do a deep sniff of the other persons neck, right by their ear. The singing continued as we boarded the dinghy for Joseph the Younger to drive us out to Liberty. There we raised anchor, waved goodbye and raised sail for Honiara. Almost. Almost that easy.

As we tried to raise the anchor we discovered that the chain had snagged on some coral. We tried pulling it out manouvering in all different kinds of ways, but with no luck. In the end I had to freedive again, but in the dark, with only a small torch and just over 20 metres of water over my head I wasn't comfortable man-handling a 15 kg anchor with chain attached to it. We decided to wait it out until first light. Anuta wouldn't let us go.

Next morning we got up right after 0500. One hour later the anchor and chain was loose, and the Anuta trip had ended as it begun: with forced free-diving to 20+ msw. Only this time it wasn't a problem. The daylight took much of the fear-factor out of the diving, and the chain came off easily, and I had enough air for both aligning the pressure in my ears and returning safely to the surface.

We then waved goodbye and raised sail for Honiara.

Now is the hour
for us to say goodbye
you will go sailing
far across the sea
While you're away
can you remember us?

The Liberty Escort Service / Anuta Island

2009-07-08T16:34:00.000-07:00

We are anchored off Sola in Vanuatu. The name belies the place. First of all it rains most of the time due to the place being situated on a tiny mountainous island in the middle of sea. Secondly it doesn't at all look like the area around one of Norways main airports. Thirdly the 500 inhabitants in the village are way kinder and more hospitable than anywhere in western Norway.

Sola Bay is the last place in Vanuatu you can clear out before heading north towards the Solomon Islands, which is exactly what we're planning to do. Clear out and head north. Quick and easy.
Alas, as with most of our undertakings it takes us a bit longer than planned to clear out. We have to pay a fee which someone had forgotten to collect when we cleared in and we were just too happy not to pay. This means we have to wait for the bank to open the next day. We are happy the place has got a bank at all. As we're waiting we take up someones offer to do a tour of the kava-bars after dark. Kava is the slightly narcotic custom drink that substitutes alcohol through most of the Pacific. We enjoy the company of Francis who owns one of the local Kava-bars. He guides us through the protocol of enjoying kava the proper, down-key way that the local men (no women!) do, and when our funds run out he is more than happy to buy us a couple of more rounds. "You are guests, and should be treated as such!"

Next morning we awake at the boat, at anchor, ten points! The bank is (of course) not as straightforward as we were hoping, and again it takes more time than planned. As Egil is sorting out our economics I'm loitering around and run into Captain Ian, an Australian expat who runs a bar&restaurant&accomodation kind of thing. We chat a bit and he invites us to his place for tea.
When Egil has sorted out the money and cleared us out, we meet up and I inform him of our tea-invitation. Having cleared out we are supposed to leave the country immediately without delay, but a simple chat to the immigration-guy explaining that we'd like to enjoy a cuppa before we leave sorts that out. Who said bureaucracy needs to be difficult?

At Captain Ian's beautiful place (really the place to be should you find yourself in need of accomodation in Vanua Lava Island) we enjoy our tea and the company of the Captain, his wife and his two guests, the retired professor and his wife, the librarian. We end up spending several interesting hours talking about travels, photography, arts, sports and our respective countries. In the end Captain Ian even gives us lunch. Some of the best food we've had so far, and even free of charge!

Back at the boat decide to leave just after dark. Just as we're getting ready to get ready to start getting ready to think about getting ready to make the boat ready to leave, we are approached by the customs officer and the police guy in a motor boat. "Maybe we actually should have left after we cleared out" we have time to think before they open up by saying they need our help.
Happy that we are not about to be charged as the illegal immigrants we in fact are, we are happy to oblige once we hear what it's about. Apparantly some Solomon Islanders in a boat sailing in the Solomons have got into a storm and broken their rudder. Thus they have lost both steering and track of where they were and ended up in Mota Lava, Vanuatu, some 200 miles from where they were planning to go. Furthermore they are navigating by the traditional Polynesian way of travelling by the stars at night and the sun at day. This is a centuries old art and scaringly precise at times. However its one weakness is that it is based on dead reckoning and the navigator needs to know where he is at all times and know the area to be able to navigate. Now these 8 Solomon Islanders are a long way from home with a strong desire not to be, and with no way of finding their way home unless we are willing to guide them.

It doesn't take us long to decide to go along with the request. After all we are anyway going to the Solomons, and the grateful islanders will probably give us a few bananas to show some gratitude. The funny thing is how we, a couple of scruffy norwegians who, until a few months ago, had never sailed before, are able to help these people that grow up sailing and navigating, just because we have a GPS. We humbly accept the mission and decide to raise anchor at three in the morning in order to hook up with the guys at first light.

The next morning we find the Solomon Islanders and their craft. One of them, a handsome young guy, comes over in a dinghy. He introduces himself in excellent english as Joseph. Joseph explains that their craft is a 13 metre fibreglass catamaran; "Lapita Anuta" inspired by traditional design and donated to his island by the BBC after they made a documentary there. The BBC wanted the boat to continue in keeping the traditional navigation alive. When we bring out the laptop so that Joseph can point out his island and our destination he points at some open ocean some 180 miles east of us. When we zoom in on the map about half a dozen times we can see that yes, indeed there is an island there: Anuta. We measure it to be about one kilometre across. It is so small that the map doesn't show any real features, it just shows it as a small brown pentagram 50 miles from the nearest island (which is uninhabited, the closest inhabited island is some 70 miles away).

We didn't realize that the Solomons had any islands to the east of us at all. We were planning on going west, and going east means going against the tradewinds all the way, but what the hell, we're going with it anyway.

Joseph explains that if we are in a rush we can just lead them a bit over half-way, to Tikopia, and they'll find the way from there. Between Tikopia and the flat, 1 sq.km Anuta is 70 miles (130 km) of open ocean! Having no doubt about their ability to find their way home from there we still accept Josephs offer of taking them all the way home and visiting their little island paradise.
But before the seven guys and one girl can leave Vanuatu they must attend a farewell party at the village where they've landed. We jump on the chance to catch up on some sleep while the rest of them are ashore. After some hours they return, along with the entire village. OK, we get the idea of a farewell party now.

We decide to paddle over in our dinghy to take some photo's of the craziness. As I'm boarding the dinghy my camera slips from my pocket and into the water. I make no attempt of diving after it, it is after all waterproof and I can see the bottom and it doesn't appear to be more than five metres deep. Easy freediving. After donning a diving mask and jumping into the water I discover to my dismay that the water is super-clear. Thus the bottom is more like 25 metres below instead of 5. I never find out exactly how deep down the camera is since i'm pushing myself to hard to look at the depth-gauge the last few metres. After some heavy freediving with sinuses and eardrums screaming for mercy we're finally able to retrieve the camera which is supposed to be waterproof to 10 metres. It has worked (almost) flawlessly ever since!

After an amazing display of farewelling we're off. It is funny to actually sail together with someone for a change. "Lapita" is quite a bit faster than us and they reduce sails in order to stay behind us. Sometimes they are veering off to the horizon-line just to spend some time. At night they stay behind and to our right. It is difficult to judge how far away they are from their little deck light. Sometimes we will think they are a bit off, only to see the light colours of their hull drift eerily into sight some 20 metres away, as if appearing out of nowhere.

The third night, just before sunset, we catch sight of Anuta. Lapita immediately zooms off, and we do our best to keep up. When we're finally there we realise there's no protected anchorages, and our maps for the area are close to useless. We decide to spend the night hove to and drifting slowly away. In the morning we raise the sails again and sail back up to the Island. Shortly after our arrival We're boarded by Joseph in the dinghy. This time he's brought with him his adoptive father, Joseph, and Lazarus. They show us the best anchorage on the island. Incidentally the best anchorage on the island is our worst anchorage so far on the trip! It is over 20 metres deep (we only have 45 metres of anchor-chain), full of coral that the chain snags on, making a gnawing sound at night which constantly reminds us of the sorry, rusty state of our chain and we get swell from two separate directions making our nights feel like sleeping on a rollercoaster. ...But seriously, it IS the best anchorage on the island! No wonder this place is hardly ever visited by yachts. Too bad, for the beauty and hospitality that we experienced were way beyond anything we could expect! We found ourselves a little piece in the middle of the Pacific.

The Blue Hole, Vanuatu

2009-07-08T16:27:00.000-07:00

We'd heard talk of "The Blue Hole". It was supposed to be a bit up a river and be blue, that's all we knew, that's all we were expecting. We were by no means disappointed

Million Dollar Point, Vanuatu

2009-07-08T16:22:00.000-07:00

The Americans used Santo in Vanuatu as a forward operating base during the war. They lined up personnell and equipment for the fighting on nearby Guadalcanal in the Solomons. When they considered themselves finished with the warring in '45 they offered the Vanuatu government to buy a bunch of gear cheap since it would cost them more to ship home than leave behind. The Vanuatans didn't, assuming the yanks would probably leave it all anyway.

They did. Sort of. Not feeling in the mood for charity the americans drove, hauled, and threw it all off a point right by the city of Luganville, thus creating the M$.

OK ESN:0-7402902

2009-07-07T12:17:00.001-07:00

Fra de seilende:
Egil og Øyvind seiler avgårde og har det bra!
Egil and Øyvind are sailing happily along and are OK
ESN:0-7402902
Latitude:-9.4244
Longitude:159.9558
Nearest Location:not known
Distance:not known
Time:07/07/2009 19:17:57 (GMT)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-9.4244,159.9558&ll=-9.4244,159.9558&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

OK ESN:0-7402902

2009-06-25T00:27:00.001-07:00

Fra de seilende:
Egil og Øyvind seiler avgårde og har det bra!
Egil and Øyvind are sailing happily along and are OK
ESN:0-7402902
Latitude:-11.6075
Longitude:169.8449
Nearest Location:not known
Distance:not known
Time:06/25/2009 07:28:01 (GMT)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-11.6075,169.8449&ie=UTF8

The rise, fall, and resurrection of the inflatable sailing dinghy

2009-06-11T02:43:00.000-07:00

We don't know much about the earlier days of our bright yellow sailing wonder. We suspect it was probably 10+ years old, and that it must have been a brilliant boat when it was new. Both color- and quality-wise. It had a rig to it, so it could actually be sailed. Brilliant if you should need to learn how to sail, for instance if you intend to sail home to the other side of the planet. Consider the «rise» covered now.

As mentioned in earlier blogposts we fought bravely to keep the dinghy alive, and for some time it actually looked like we might prevail. However someone borrowed it for some time and when we found it again only the memories remained of its once superb qualities. No more «Sailing 101; learn how to sail – in an inflatable dinghy that needs re-pumping every 5-15 minutes». Now consider the fall covered.

No, hang on a second! There's something more to the fall:
After some time we were able to secure ourselves a new inflatable from the brilliant NZ net-auction site TradeMe. For 100 $NZ we were the proud new owners of a grey, «new» Avon Redstart, the «Grey Ghost». Probably about the same age as the previous one, but in better condition. There was now absolutely no need to hold on to the sad, sad remains of the Yellow Wonder. We carefully dismantled whatever might be usable, or otherwise come in handy in the foreseeable and unforeseeable future.

All usable parts gently scavenged we could now say our last goodbyes to the yellow wonder in a respectful and honourable little seremony.

As we at this point were still anchored off Whangarei, New Zealand, a lot of things were happening around the boat. We were busy getting ready for the big journey. Despite this Egil found the time to try to somehow fit the sailing rig for the Yellow Wonder onto the new Grey Ghost. I strategically omitted to inform him of the absolute futility of the project due to the new Grey Ghost being half the size of the old Yellow Wonder, a completely different construction and not equipped with any of the gadgets necessary to mount the rig. After all the more hopeless the project, the longer it would keep him off my back and thus allow me time to undisturbed do all the important stuff I was doing at the time, such as... such as... Important Stuff!
However after less than a week (impressively short time considered the projects impossibility!): lo and behold: Egil had succeeded in ressurecting the inflatable sailing dinghy! Hats off!

We have now used the sail-rig for a couple of trips, one quite an extended one. It takes an hour to rig for unexperienced people, but we're aiming to reduce that to about 20 minutes with some more training.

The most amazing thing however is Egil's complete lack of «I told you so» - attitude. I'm not sure if he is aware he has comitted a miracle unsurpassed by anything the world has seen for a couple of thousand years.

VANUATU

2009-06-07T23:27:00.000-07:00

We have arrived and checked in. Now: in

Vanuatu

The land of cannibals and bungee-jumping lunatics. No offence, that bungee activity, (which by no means has that bungee-feeling), they’ve got going here is the coolest thing. (And: honestly Im not sure about that cannibalism thing, but it kind of feels right).

In any case, we came on Saturday after some days of seasickness, rough sea, but fairly good speed and winds. Unfortunately, since this country is closed during the weekends, and when we realized there was no chance of reaching here till Friday, we had to wait till Monday for it to open up again. Enjoyed a day of a ever lasting sweating competition and a late night Batman Forever screening.

After 7 hours of desperately trying to reach customs on our VHF-communication-radio-thing this morning, Oyvind had to paddle ashore and find them (search and destroy). He took their pet-turtle as a hostage, located an ATM, paid them bastards their Vatus and finally we were passport-stamped and ready to hunt for enjoyment.

From Luganville, where we are at the moment: sweating, but feeling good, we head south east along this island of Santo and towards the Banks Islands. From here we check out, in some week’s time I reckon, and take on that little leap over to the Solomon Islands.

If not before that, we hope to see you all at the Solomons.

Exit Fiji, enter Vanuatu

2009-05-31T01:25:00.000-07:00

We're currently in Lautoka, the sugar capital of the world, incidentally also the place were we intend to clear out from Fiji first thing tomorrow. 500 Nautical miles of open ocean awaits us before we can clear in to Vanuatu. Should take us anywhere from 5 to 12 days. So until then, be nice to each other, wear sunscreen and don't accept rides from candymen! We'll try and do the same.

Ciao

Updates at sea

2009-05-30T22:52:00.001-07:00

In the future, on passages, we will update our blog every other day with messages such as the following one. If you click on the link you'll see where we are on googlemap. Pretty neat, eh?

We are able to do this even if we don't have internet access. Technology rock!

Fra de seilende:
Egil og Øyvind seiler avgårde og har det bra!
Egil and Øyvind are sailing happily along and are OK
ESN:0-7402902
Latitude:-17.6005
Longitude:177.4413
Nearest Location:not known
Distance:not known
Time:05/31/2009 05:52:48 (GMT)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-17.6005,177.4413&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

ISLAND HOPPING - DINGHY STYLE

2009-05-28T19:55:00.001-07:00

Day of the dinghy:
Today we decided to make fully use of our luxurious inflatable sailing-rigged dinghy. We had anchored up in the coral-pool surrounding the island of Beqa and wanted to go for a little excursion and do some island hopping in that, for once, pretty calm ocean. It was our first open water head-out with this Gods-gift of an inflatable and it sure proved its worth. It's the coconut-collecting machine.

FIJI

2009-05-28T19:23:00.001-07:00

Jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

Arriving Fiji was in the category of great feelings. Even though the capital; Suva didnt give us the perfect impression of this postcard-idyllic island kingdom, we have now learned to appreciate the beauty of bay to bay and island cruising. The sport of anchoring up in exotic coves surrounded by coral reefs and crystal clear water; chill out, go diving, surfing, climbing, and all that, has now proven itself worthwhile. We are enjoing things.
Please dont let me grow tired of sunsets and coconuts.

The headlamp

2009-05-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

My Petzl Tikka Plus, my first personal acquaintance with diode techonology. It was bought at «førsteutikken i Näätämö», it was even on sale, i remember the day clearly. It was an impulse purchase, but a good one nonetheless. That headlamp has seen action on four different continents. It has survived military operations (it was anyway camouflage), rock climbing, numerous camping trips, skiing and hunting. Countless books has been read in its light. I've had that headlamp for longer than I've been able to hang on to any girlfriend. It was even handy to have around the boat, cranking out hundreds of hours of light on three AAA batteries.

Now it's at 25 degrees 30.86 minutes S, 177 degrees 01.80 minutes W, about 380 nautical miles south of Fiji. If anyone is going that way and finds it, can you please bring it back? You might need diving equipment, it's about 3000 metres deep there.

It was swept off my head as I was leaning over the side and the jib sheet snapped upwards. «Too bad it wasn't on» I thought as I watched it disappear, «it would have been cool to watch the light sink».

ØYVINDS BI-ANNUAL HAIRCUT

2009-05-16T17:06:00.000-07:00

Per vote on facebook: Øyvind's bi-annual haircut.

Yet to come: "Øyvind's bi-annual haircut: The Movie"

FIJI!!

2009-05-16T16:56:00.000-07:00

The very first survival report: Suva, Fiji

All those of you who had placed your bets on our shipwrecking or giving up already on the first leg: You've lost your money! All those of you who's placed money on us failing miserably at a later stage: you're still in the game!

So we've landed on Fiji. Egil for the second time after getting stuck here on his way from LA, me for the first time. We anchored in Suva harbour in the morning the 13th feeling pretty knackered after 16 days at sea and spending the entire last night tacking back and forth in between some islands. We were trying to get to Suva against a current and wind who had joined forces in trying to convince us of the futility of such an undertaking.
We had a pretty interesting start of the journey. For the first three or four days the wind was blowing good. Excellent sailing wind. If you were going anywhere but from south to north, for instance if you have decided to take your boat from New Zealand to The South Pole. We were not. The whole thing was topped off with a gale the forth night blowing up to 35 knots.

We got out of it allright though, even though that was the worst weather we've sailed in. We were down to our smallest sails in the end. We were so happy when the morning came we celebrated by cutting my hair on the foredeck. Should anyone feel the need for a haircut done in a 30 knot blow, Egil is your guy!

The gale incidentally coincided with the retrieval of our sealegs that up until the third or fourth day had been stowed somewhere were we were unable to locate them. The only time spent below deck those days were pretty much time spent asleep. Food was mostly meals that we had cooked before leaving, anticipating the upcoming misplacement of sealegs. However by the third day the remaining pre-cooked meals were turning greener than our faces, and it was about time to toughen up and deal with life awake below deck and in front of the stove. No more problems from that point on.

After our little gale-experience the winds turned the other way: our way. Too bad they at the same time decided to take some time off. We spent a lot of time in fickle winds, keeping us busy changing sails to try and keep moving in 4-8 knots of wind. We had 5-6 days of several hours spent rolling around in the swell without being able to move. Also towards the end we had a full day, 24 hours straight, without going anywhere (diesel cost $$, wind is free you know). We were therefore pretty amazed when we at day ten out from NZ saw sails in the horizon and raised a dutch yacht (incidentally called «Libertijn») on the VHF. It turned out they had started out from the same place as us, only one and a half day before us, and we were even north of them! They complimented us on making «good speed». Big smiles!

Other than that, nothing much. We've got to use ALL our sails, from storm jib to gennaker. We've spent some time repairing our 50 year old lightwind genoa and other bits and pieces.

Egil had a pod of dolphins keeping him company for hours on one of his nightshifts. Some days out from New Zealand a small bird came out to us. Not a sea-bird, just a little fellow that had probably been blown off shore by the winds. He came to us and rested for some time under our sprayhood, but he was too scared to eat the bread we tried giving him or to stay along for the rest of the trip to Fiji.

The days have gone by leisurely. We have kept the boat moving, eaten, slept, read, enjoyed the scenery (yes, the ocean do have «scenery»!), and let the windwane do the steering for us. Other than steering in and out of Whangarei and Suva respectively, we have helmed for one hour altogether for 16 days... And then, finally; FIJI!!!

..and now we're in Suva. Not the nicest of places, but good enough after two weeks at sea. It's pretty dirty, smelly and worn down, but still charming and friendly. And we get to do our blogging and laundry, but we hope to move on from here shortly. Hopefully in a couple of days. We hope to cruise our way in one- and two day legs up to Lautoka were we are gonna clear out and head over for Vanuatu. Both Lautoka and Suva is on Viti Levu, the Fijian main island. Lautoka on the west coast and Suva in the south.

RUTINER

2009-05-16T16:48:00.000-07:00

Dagene våre består stort sett av:

1: Holde båten i gang. Skifte seil eller justere kursen. Vi har et vindror som gjør at vi slipper å styre for hånd hele veien. Vindroret styrer båten relativt etter vinden. Mao. Om vinden dreier dreier vi også og vi må derfor holde litt øye på rorkaren. I tillegg er det en del småjusteringer å gjøre med vindroret, båten må bl.a. være korrekt trimmet for at det i det hele tatt skal fungere. I tillegg kommer litt tilfeldig vedlikehold og rydding, alt etter behov og lyst.

2:Sove. Vi spiser middag sånn ca. Når det blir mørkt, altså i seks-sju tida. Etter dette går en av oss til sengs og sover til den andre vekker han ved midnatt om ikke han trenger hjelp til f.eks. Seilskifte i dårlig vær eller lignende. Midnattsvakta går frem til klokka 0400, da er det vaktskifte igjen, og førstemann legger seg igjen mens den andre går vakt frem til.... den andre våkner. Det blir lyst ca. mellom klokka seks og sju og etter det er det ikke noe problem å holde seg våken, så vi tilstreber å la den som sover få sovet ut mest mulig. Når han omsider våkner er det frokost før morravakta evt. legger seg nedpå litt for å ta igjen en time eller to med søvn, alt etter behov. Om dagen tar vi vaktordninga som det passer, men stort sett er en av oss på dekk. Altså vakt fra: middag til midnatt, midnatt til fire og fire til frokost.

3: Spise: Frokost, lunsj og middag. Når det passer.

4: Fritid. Her inngår det mye lesing og musikklytting. Vi hører også en del på lydbøker, spesielt på nattevakt. Av og til litt styrketrening i form av armhevinger eller situps. Når vi har ligget stille eller gått sakte har det hendt at vi har tatt oss litt svømmetrening rundt båten.

UNDERVEIS

2009-05-16T16:07:00.000-07:00

Dag 12 ut fra NZ

Vi har ca. 200 nautiske mil igjen til Fiji nå, et par dagsetapper under gode forhold. Vi har vært på havet i to uker. Det er nesten like lenge siden vi så land sist.

Jeg hadde trodd det skulle bli vanskelig å være så isolert, klaustrofobisk kanskje. Men det har vært uproblematisk. En firetimers nattevakt flyr avgårde mens man hører på musikk og kikker på stjernehimmelen. Ikke noe nordlys her, men melkeveien er en god erstatning og stjerneskuddene raser forbi med en slik frekvens at jeg begynner å slippe opp for ønsker. Jeg går særdeles lyse tider i møte om bare halvparten av stjerneskuddønskene mine går i oppfyllelse.

Jeg har vært på havet før, jeg kan tilogmed erindre og ikke ha sett land på noen kanter før. Forskjellene består i at jeg uten unntak har vært ombord på mye større fartøy og at jeg aldri har vært så langt ute. Jeg har heller aldri sett på havet som noe spesielt vakkert, eller som et stykke natur, men her ute, nå, er det så annerledes. Jeg ser skjønnheten i bølger og masse vann. Langt til havs kan man se været rundt deg ut fra skyene. Man kan se været som treffer en om 7-8 timer nærme seg sakte, og man føler seg i ett med naturen på måter jeg bare sjelden har opplevd langt til fjells før. Jeg har kommet meg over kvalmen og uroen fra de første dagene og nå nyter jeg bare å være underveis.

I 1969 deltok Bernard Moitessier i «Golden Globe», verdens første solo, verden-rundt regatta. Denne regattaen hadde 9 deltakere der bare én fullførte og der en annen ble schisofren og til slutt tok selvmord ved å forlate båten sin midt i Atlanterhavet. Moitessier lå an til å vinne, men etter å ha rundet Kapp Horn bestemte han seg for å fortsette videre verden rundt én gang til fordi han ?trivdes så godt?. Jeg skjønner det nå. Jeg skjønner hva som er tiltrekkende ved å være til havs. Livet her er enkelt. Slitsomt til tider, men enkelt, ekte og liketil.

Vi sjekket ut av New Zealand den 27. april. De første dagene var litt tøffe med mye vind fra feil retning og vi ble tvunget til å gå nesten rett østover. Den tredje natta kom vi ut for en stiv kuling, igjen fra feil side.

Da dette var mer «vær» enn vi noensinne har prøvd å seile i ble det litt interessant «i støytan», men vi gjorde det vi trodde var riktig og kom ut av det i riktig ende og på rett kjøl. Vi feira soloppgangen med å klippe håret mitt på fordekket.

Foruten å tilbinge de første dagene i angst og usikkerhet og med konstante justeringer for stadig økende vinder brukte vi også en del tid på å prøve å finne ut hvor vi hadde stuet sjøbeina våre. Det skulle gå tre-fire dager før de på mystisk vis dukket opp. Frem til da var spising en geskjeft som ble foretatt ut fra nødvendighet mer enn lyst, og mest mulig tid ble tilbragt på dekk. Til tross for dette ble det ofret litt til sjøgudene underveis, men etter de første dagene har ingen av oss hatt problemer.

Vi hadde før vi starta hørt at så lenge vi bare kom oss to-tre dagsetapper fra New Zealand så ville ikke været by på problemer. Dette viste seg å holde stikk på den måten at vi ikke kom ut i mere uvær. Istedet fikk vi andre utfordringer i form av vindstille og for lite vind til å komme oss noen steds. Vi følte ikke at det gikk spesielt fort med tanke på både de første dagene der vi måtte gå østover og de påfølgende vindfattige dagene. Vi var kanskje ikke heller istand pga. manglende erfaring å utnytte forholdene til det maksimale og tenkte med oss selv at «man kan ikke regne med racerfart som førstereisgutter heller». Stor var dermed overraskelsen da vi ti dager ut fra New Zealand for første gang fikk se annet liv enn flygende fisk og ditto fugler; vi så plutselig et par seil i horisonten litt bak oss. Vi kalte dem opp på radioen, vel vitende om at disse nok tilhørte den gruppen av båter som skulle forlate NZ en uke etter oss. Da vi etter et par minutter avsluttet med «Liberty out» og la fra oss radioen kunne vi måpende konstatere at ikke bare kjente disse menneskene båten vår fra Whangarei, de hadde også startet fra samme punkt som oss. Ett og et halvt døgn før oss. Til alt overmål mente de vi hadde «made good speed». Vi takket for det usannsynlige komplimentet.

Tre dager senere var det definitivt slutt på fremdriften. På et døgn karet vi oss 17 nautiske mil nærmere Fiji. Utelukkende på grunn av drift. Hele dagen blåste det for lite til at det var vits å så mye som prøve å seile. Jeg lå utpå kveldinga på toppen av kahytt taket og leste en bok mens sola forberedte seg på å ta kveld. Mens Carl Hamilton tok av med Middle East Airlines til Beirut var jeg såpass oppslukt av handlingen at jeg nesten hørte flyet ta av. Da flyduren fortsatte til tross for at Hamilton for lengst hadde sjekket inn på hotellet i midtøsten begynte jeg å ane uråd og tok meg bryet med å kikke rundt meg. Et par sekunder seinere ropte jeg ned til Egil som puslet rundt i båten under meg at han «får sette over kaffen, vi får besøk!». En større seilbåt kom puslende for motor rett mot oss der vi lå å rullet frem og tilbake i dønningene. De tok en runde rundt oss, lurte på om alt gikk bra og hvor vi skulle, deretter fortsatte de, lenge før kaffen hadde blitt ferdig. Stillehavet begynner å bli folksomt.

La meg her skyte inn et fakta om seilbåter: Når en seilbåt har vind i seilene ?lener? den seg på en måte over på seilene. Dette medfører at båten blir liggende på skeiva, som vi sier nord for plarsirkelen. Dette er litt uvant men man blir da vant med det. En bieffekt er at båten ligger stabilt til en side og ikke ruller nevneverdig i bølgene og dønningene.

La meg så skyte inn et fakta om havet: Ute på det åpne havet er det bestandig dønninger.

Den observante leser vil fra det ovenstående kunne dedusere seg fram til at når det ikke er vind vil seilbåten på ingen måte forholde seg stabilt liggende på skeiva. Snarere vil tilværelsen ombord i den stilleliggende seilbåt kunne oppfattes som mistenkelig lik en permanent busstur på taket av en dobbeldekker buss på vei opp og ned Trollstigen i 90 km/t. Slik tilbrakte vi altså hele gårsdagen da vi fikk besøk.

I går natt var forøvrig den første natta jeg ikke trengte å kle på meg mer enn T-skjorte da jeg gikk på vakt. Vi kommer nærmere nå! Fleecejakka blir snart putta i en plastpose og stuet lengst bort i det mest utilgjengelige skapet.

Lets name this post; Finally!!

2009-04-24T16:14:00.000-07:00

We are leaving. The forecast has spoken and the low pressure that has kept us one week too long in Whangarei is now heading off. Same goes for us.
250 kg of food, 90 kg diesel, 1,5 kg worth of tools, 130 litres of water and 150 kg semi-intelligent man is all piled up, stacked away and more than ready to leave.

FIJI; HERE WE COME!
(We hope)

Leaving New Zealand

2009-04-24T01:55:00.000-07:00

We are about to leave New Zealand pretty soon. The weather looks like it will clear up enough for us to leave on Sunday.

Finally I'm leaving this country where I've spent the last year of my life. If all goes according to plan I will not be returning for some time; who knows, maybe never. It is not without regret that I leave. I've made a lot of good friends here, and I've met a bunch of interesting people. I've come to enjoy the culture here; nowhere else in the world (except Finland) have I seen people too drunk to start their own vehicles, only to be helped in the procedure by their good friends. I've improved my English greatly while living here; I've learned to include "cool", "sweet" "cheers" and "aye" in even the shortest of sentences. I've enjoyed some great scenery and some not-so-great fish and chips.

All in all I'm glad for the time I've spent here, and it is a bit sad to leave. I'm grateful for all the experiences I've had here. All those drunk nights at the Jeff's Joy campground and the runs down the Rangitaiki River. I'd like to thank The Auckland Uni Canoe Club (AUCC) for that, and for all the other
places we paddled and drank together. I will not forget the close calls on the river or walking out from Jeff's Joy run in pitch black through logging fields for 6 hours because we didn't make it down the river because night fell.

Ed, Owen and Ash: thanks for the trip up Mt. Cook, it was awesome and probably the best view I've ever had. We should meet to climb some other mountains some day! Also thanks to the rest of the people at AURAC!

All the people I've spent time with at Uni; thanks for being entertaining, young and good looking!

ANSA Auckland: We will meet again "home" in Norway, thanks for all the great parties and trips together.

Thanks to Vanessa for being my flatmate my first half year here, and for cooking me great food all that time!

I'll miss all the nights spent in the back of my campervan, but alas; he's gone now, you can probably pay him last respects at Pick-A-Part. Oh, just got sidetracked, well, anyway, thanks to all the people mentioned, and to those I've met along the way, but forgotten to mention!

Cheers!

Skipet

2009-04-12T01:21:00.000-07:00

SKIPET

Liberty heter båten vår. Hun er en gammel glassfiber-dame som fyller 50 år i år. Hun er tegnet av Wirth Munroe og bygd I USA I 1959 av Crystaliner. Modellnavnet er Arco 33. Hun er 33 fot, eller 10 meter, lang, største bredde er 3 meter og hun stikker 1,5 meter dypt med senkekjølen oppe, 2,5 meter med kjølen nede. Hun er langkjølt og kutter-rigget, dvs. at vi har mulighet til å ha to forseil oppe samtidig.

Skroget er lagd i massivt glassfiber (ikke noe moderne sandwich-konstruksjon her i gården!) og er 28 mm tykt. Vi har ikke rullefokke-system på forstaget, som er veldig vanlig på moderne båter. Dette betyr at vi må fram på fordekket for å bytte seil, uansett vær. MEN det betyr også at det er én teknisk ting mindre som kan bryte sammen og bli ødelagt på båten.

Seilgarderoben består av, i tillegg til et splitter nytt storseil; genoa (original fra 1959!), jib, yankee, stormfokke og kryssfokke. Vi har også en gennaker som vi forhåpentligvis lærer oss å bruke en dag.

Annet utstyr seile-nerdene kan ha interesse av er 2 CQR anker (25 og 35 pund), et stokkanker, 45 meter ankerkjetting, elektrisk ankerspill, SSB radio, VHF, Yanmar 2 sylindret 18 HK motor (ny i '96), to-blads propell, Monitor vindror, Avon 6manns livflåte, Avon gummijolle, nødpeilesender. Vi har med oss 40 liter ferskvann i en fast tank foran i båten, 115 liter til i 5 plastdunker i aktre lasterom. To av sistnevnte kan kobles på ferskvannssystemet slik at vi vi har på det meste tilgang til 90 liter ferskvann «i krana». Vi har også 40 liter diesel på tank pluss 70 liter til på kanner. Dette er nok diesel til at vi kan gå for motor i ca. 5 dager i strekk.

Liberty har to køyer i forpiggen som kan lages om til en stor V-køye om det er behov. I kabinen kan vi brette ut sofaen til en til stor dobbelseng. Når vi går vakter til havs bruker vi helst stikkøya i kabinene. Matlaginga foregår på en gretten gasskomfyr med to bluss på toppen.

Liberty er en førstegenerasjons glassfiberbåt, og er utrolig solid bygget. Mye av det originale dekksutstyret i bronse er fremdeles der det ble montert for 50 år siden. Senkekjølen er også lagd av bronse. 200 kg. Av det.

Vi har absolutt tiltro til båten vår, og skulle vi bli nødt til å avbryte turen vår på noe tidspunkt er det neppe sannsynlig at det er BÅTENS feil.

THE SHIP

2009-04-12T00:36:00.000-07:00

Liberty is our boat. She is an old fibreglass lady who turns 50 this year. Built in the US of A in 1959 she is an Crystaliner production designed by Wirth Munroe, model name Arco 33. She is 33 feet (or 10 metres if you prefer) length over all, beam (width) 3 metres, she draws 1,5 metres with the centerboard up, 2,5 with it down. Furthermore she is long keeled and rigged as a cutter.

The hull is produced in solid fibreglass and is 28 mm thick (!), built as a tank! She is not equipped with a rolling furler, which means we will have to go up on the foredeck to change foresails. However it also means one less thing that can break down. Foresails include genoa (the original one from 1959!), jib, yankee, storm sail and staysail. We also have a gennaker that we hopefully will learn to use someday.

Other equipment the sailing geeks might be interested in includes 2 CQR anchors (25+35 lbs), a fisherman anchor, 45 metres all-chain rode and electric windlass, SSB radio, VHF, Yanmar 2 cylinder, 18 HP engine (new '96), two-blade propeller, Monitor windwane, Avon liferaft, Avon inflatable dinghy, EPIRB. We carry 40 litres of water in a forward tank, 115 more in 5 plastic containers in aft storage, these can be connected to the boat's watersystem so we have, at most, 90 litres of water accesisble «on tap». We also carry 40 litres of diesel plus an additional 70 litres on jerrycans.

Liberty has a big v-berth up front that can be made into two single berths, whatever suits. The cabin settee can be folded out as another big double bed. However at sea when doing watches we tend to use the quarterberth. We also have a grumpy two burner gas-stove with oven that works most of the time.

Being an old lady (Liberty is produced in the infancy of the fireglass boatbuilding techniques) she is incredibly sturdy; lots of the original hardware like cleats and winches are still on in it's all it's original bronze beauty. (The centerboard is made out of 200 kg solid bronze!). She has had an interesting life of which we only know bits; she has spent years cruising the great lakes in the states, the Bahamas, she has been through the Panama Canal and has spent around a dozen years cruising the Pacific Islands.

We have absolute trust in our ship, and should our little trip fail at any stage it is not likely to be caused by the ship letting US down.

COLD

2009-04-09T20:19:00.000-07:00

I get out from under my duvet and spare blankets. I put on my T-shirt and shorts. I continue with my woollen beanie, my hoodie and woollen socks. Still cold I pull the hood up over my head. I then fire up the gas stove to make us some breakfast. Egil is still asleep. I stand for a second enjoying the heat from the little blue flame. Morning mist is floating on the river outside the porthole. Winter is coming to New Zealand. Time to leave now.

STOLEN GOODS

2009-04-07T22:06:00.000-07:00

We've left West Park Marina four weeks ago. Since Egil's arrival we have filled our time with boat maintenance, boat modifying, general getting-to-know-the-boat and sailing the boat. Actually both of them; we have learned a lot from sailing our dinghy. Now we are anchored up in Hobson Bay right outside of Auckland. Since we have no clue as to what we're doing we're anchored with two CQR anchors and 40 metres of chain. In three metres of water. But its sweet to get out here to the free zone, that close to Auckland centrum. Just to be safe. We soon run out of gas. I take the gas bottle to a petrol station for a refill. Since I'm on foot I ask the attendants if I can leave the bottle and pick it up later as I'm going into town. Seven hours later I return to find the gas bottle gone. Apparantly some guy in a BMW pulled up and said I had sent him to pick up the bottle.

Buy a new gas bottle. We're finally taking some time off from the boat and we're going whitewater kayaking a weekend. Egil gets his chance to see some more of beautiful New Zealand. We're letting out another 10 metres of chain (just to be safe) and paddle our dinghy ashore and leave it under a small bridge. Same place we have left it every day last week. Upon our late return from a great weekend we find our precious dinghy gone!
It's a little past midnight and we are pretty tired. The weekend has been full of physical- and social activities. We have met a lot of interesting people, and especially this old salt that called himself “Captain Morgan” has left the two of us a little worse for wear. But alas, there is no way of returning to the boat, so we spend a miserable
night in the car James has generously lent us so we could get ourselves and the gear home. Off to Warehouse to buy a 99$ childrens play dinghy (Toyworld didn't have any). Our beautiful 10 years old yellow Metzeler dinghy later mysteriously reappears. Someone has tied the deflated version of it to a post on the other side of the bridge. We retrieve the sad remains of our object of great attention and countless hours of repairs for the last month. It
is now clearly FUBAR, or “possibly not repairable within the limitations of ordinary people”. Only one of the pontoons inflate somewhat, the other one has a 10 centimetre cut in it and the floor
leak fast.

WHANGAREI TUNING

2009-04-06T22:12:00.000-07:00

Spendingspree and things for free
We came here to Whangarei because a) it's a bit further north in New Zealand and therefore «on the way» for us. b) Lots of people have told us to go here because it is apparently really easy to get «everything» done here, and it's supposed to be plenty of other cruisers you can gather information from.
As we had no dinghy we were forced to check into a marina. There we were quickly dubbed «The Orange Glow» due to our bright orange safety-netting that we've been (very gratefully) sponsored by the Auckland City Council. Thank you Council!

Our slightly more fancy neighbours took well to their new young Norwegian, scruffy and inexperienced cruising colleagues. We had heard lots about the generousity of the cruising community, but what we experienced in that marina was way beyond what we expected! We were showered with freebies from the other boats. As they passed us on their way to the trashbins they always stopped by to ask if we wanted their old boomcover, hatch funnell, solar panel mounts (aka random bits of aluminium tubing), WiFi antenna, their old cockpit cushions, new (!) sailbag etc etc. We got so many more or less useful bits and pieces we couldn't believe it! I guess their generousity might have something to do with our hopelessly inexperienced and dirt-poor appearance.

We arrived with a super-long To-Do list. Included on this list were new batteries (oh my God, the prices!), new solar panel mounts, fixing half a dozen electrical issues, sorting out how and where to stow stuff, fill our diesel-tanks, fill our water-tanks, get a proper solar panel mount and doing The Engine.

This last task ended up taking us almost a week and costing us about 550 $NZ (about et par tusen norske krones). It seemed that the deeper we dug into Good Old Yanmar 2GM20(F), the more stuff we needed to fix, sort out, repair, replace or buy. However now she's running like a dream, and has apparantly accepted all her new parts and fluids.
All the while we were doing boat maintenance we got heaps of information, tips, hints, radio frequencies, software and general help from the other cruisers. They even lent us plenty of tools to do the jobs so we didn't have to struggle with our own (which are limited to three adjustable spanners, 5 screwdrivers (4 philips and one gigantic flat), a multitool, a hacksaw, a hammer and the world's biggest axe (don't ask why, we can't give you an intelligent answer.))
We also took advantage of the vicinity of a supermarket to buy and stow away an amazing amount of supplies.

However yesterday, after 10 days in the marina, our «new» dinghy finally arrived in the mail, and there was no more (at least not a whole lot more) reason for us to stay at the marina. We had a last shower for a while, dropped our moorings and floated down the river to anchor up with the other slumdog cruisers, where we belong.
We are at present discussing whether to stay here until our necessary work is done and the weather breaks, or to carry on to Opua, even further norh, to do the same thing there. We are also disussing whether to abandon our original plan of going to New Caledonia first, or set sail for a a slightly longer first leg, and go to Fiji instead.
All for now, peace out.

SAILING OFF

2009-04-06T22:11:00.000-07:00

We had stayed too long in Auckland. Losing our dinghy air pump was that drop. At least my gypsy-nomadic self started to vibrate with eager to leave for something new. A few days later we set sail for Whangarei, with a plan to stop over at Great Barrier Island. That means going north. Homewards. It sure felt good, and as we raised our foresail I even I felt confident about leaving and sailing and anchoring and all that. Luckily, after counting up our total of sailing days since I came down here, things got a little more real. 6 daytrips in and out of our Marina, two succsessfull atempts to anchor up, in well marked anchor/mooring areas and some bedtime sail litterature seemed to be all our experience. And yes, thinking of it, that boat still felt enourmus to handle, but yet so little when reaching the occean. In any case, with small, cozy butterflies stuck somewhere in our stomaches, we slowly headed upwind towards the open sea and Great Barrier Island.

It sure was a fine day, but slow winds turned into no wind. So when night fell, we could still see Auckland in the far horizon as we anchored up in a calm and beautiful bay at one of the many islands along the coast. A real slow-mo day, but that being our first night outside auckland, and with memorable pancakes for dinner things felt great.

We went of that morning with really nice winds, clear blue sky and perfect sailing conditions. Even though we were slowed down by a calm period, just as the winds turned around coming from east, we were now coming up past our destinations neighbouring island; Little Great Barrier. The sun was setting and a large pod of dolphins came up alongside our boat. It was our welcome surprise before letting of the anchor in one of many spectacular bays of this island.

That night the winds shifted again, and we got some waves in during night. This resulted in some paranoic dreaming and sleepwalking, but nothing more than usual.

So far everything had been going smooth. I was at a high and could not think of any better way to travel. At least it's getting close to driving a moped.

Earlybirds and breakfast at 6.30. Sails up at 7, heading for Whangarei. Our plan was simple; enjoy winds, basic sunbathing, testing of different sail combinations and reach Whangarei at sunset.

Again we got stuck in a no-wind period at mid day. This one lasted on for hours, and we drifted around trying out all we had of spinnakers and sail configurations, but there was no wind.

As it was getting darker we realized Whangarei was out of todays reach. We fired our good old Yanmar 18 HP and bubbled on for one of the nearby Islands. Night was coming fast and the steep sea bottom around the island made it impossible to anchor as the winds picked up again. We decided that faith had set us out facing our first night-sailing experience. The winds picked up even more and we were doing 6 knots and closing in rapidly. One surprise oiltanker, some extra large waves when entering more shallow waters, a little fumbling in the dark trying to see the red and green lights of the narrow approach to Whangarei, pluss one or two now forgotten issues more, and we were lowering anchor in a quiet little bay, just a couple of miles from our final destination, just as the clock struck midnight..

Had a peacfull night with no outbirsts of paranoia and motored in to Whangarei the next morning, all the way up this idiotically long and narrow river.

THE PRINCIPLES OF SURFACE-SUPPLIED DIVING / HULL INSPECTION

2009-04-06T22:10:00.000-07:00

You need:

- A certified surface supplied diver, preferably with navy experience
- A snorkel
- A diving mask
- Some metres of garden hose
- An airpump (complete with musculous pump machine)
- Half a roll of insulation tape (preferably 3M super 88)

Use the tape to join all the pieces together, let simmer for about 45 minutes, find a hull to inspect, turn off speeding propellers and sonars, now dive!

LAST TRIP OF THE DINGHY

2009-04-06T22:09:00.000-07:00

A week has gone by and we're about to leave Auckland when we decide to get rid of the Warehouse dinghy. We row it ashore along with the Old Yellow Wonder and a pump for the latter. We then dispose of the new one the only way we can think of: we take it back to The Warehouse and get our money back. After having said goodbye to some friends we make it back to our trusty bridge and dinghy hiding place.
Upon arriving back to our sad old Metzeler dinghy we are (not very) surprised to find that someone has bothered to steal the pump while leaving the dinghy (now chained to a post) and the drybags. Laughing in disbelief we start blowing up the one remaining pontoon using only our mouths. A little while later we have fashioned ourself a raft using our drybags, the dingy and some rope. It is leaking in half a dozen places, but it floats and should be able to take us the 6-700 metres out to our boat. We have stripped down to our shorts such as to keep the wet gear to a minimum should the thing sink.
At first things look good; the craft is manouverable and “fast”. It is even pretty dry. However soon after The Point of No Return I, being in the back realise that the freeboard is decreasing. We are soon down to about 10 cm which means that every stroke Egil does up front fills our construction up a little more. Which in turn means we are shipping a little more water with every stroke. Which in turn means we are riding a little lower in the water. Which in turn means we manouver a little worse. Which in turn means we are slower. I think to myself that there is no way we will reach “home” this way, and envision us drifting into the Hauraki Gulf. Not a very pleasant place to be drifting around at one in the morning in a leaking makeshift raft with no lights.
The raft soon becomes agonizingly slow and nigh on impossible to steer. For every three strokes we take I have to brace two strokes at the opposite side and we are moving at about 0,1 knot with the current sweeping us laterally away from our boat. We realise we need a change of tactics.
The current has swept us sideways leaving our own boat an impossible goal, especially as our muscles are on fire with the constant effort the last 30-40 minutes. We do however have a yacht on a neighbouring mooring. It is quite a flashy 50 foot racer, with heaps of electronics in the mast and a nice paintjob. Quite the opposite of our boat in other words. More important than the physical characteristics of our neighbour is his location: he is slightly closer to shore and to the side where the current has been taking us. Add to this that we know for a fact that no one is aboard, the decision to make an unscheduled visit is easy.
Some more minutes of constant effort later and we land at our neighbour's stern. Had we missed we would have drifted to sea. Good thing we didn't.
We take advantage of the roomy foredeck to rebuild our craft, and soon we're off again. The same scenario repeats itself, only this time we're so much closer to home. Ten minutes later we're slapping each other's backs in our own cockpit. We snap some pictures and go to bed. We're ready to leave Auckland.

Next morning as we raise the anchor to leave we see the owner of the neighbouring yacht board his boat. They walk around and get ready for a sail, obviously not suspecting their two scruffy nighbours of having helped themselves to a tour of their boat during the night. We wave to them and turn our backs both to unsuspecting neighbours and to Auckland.

RENDEZ VOUS

2009-04-06T22:02:00.000-07:00

Egil:
I had just finished my little pre-adventure; my moped trip from LA to Buenos Aires (see mopeddagboken.blogspot.com), and was now more than ready for that big adventure. I left Buenos Aires with my packings, and with a money-sprinkling stopover in LA, I headed towards New Zealand where Øyvind, supposedly was waiting me with our boat. I had never seen the damn thing, except from Øyvinds facebook pictures, and felt like a christmas morning child as my plane set off for a Fiji stopover.

Oyvind:
Family finally sent home after a christmas/new years visit to New Zealand I started cleaning the boat before the Arrival of the Co-Owner. Priority one; stop that leak in the floor that lately had provided us with up-to-date test samples of the quality of the local sea-water.

I had reached both my goals for the previous year; I had passed all my papers at the university and had summited on Mt. Cook as a part of a greater plan of making my year more about fun and less about studies. I was more than ready for the boat, Egil and me to leave and let the adventure begin. I had lived here in the marina for more than half a year, reading all I could about sailing and wanted to get on with it.

Egil:
“You cant leave Fiji without a return ticket from New Zealand”. I tried to check in for my last destination after a little tasteof the humid and beautiful surroundings of the airport, but it seemed I had a problem. No return ticket, no papers of boat ownership, nothing really. Had to post a electronical telegram to Øyvind in search for help, and 10 hours, 10 swearwords and 10 white slices of bread with honey later I had proven my unlikely ownership of a yacht, located in Auckland city. Øyvind had managed to arrange some papers stating nothing really, but they were papers. In any case I had my last inflight meal as I spotted yet another sail boat from my window seat. I really didnt know what the hell I was getting myself into here. The only thing I did know as I stepped onto New Zealand soil was that I owned something floating worth 50 000 of my Norwegian krones.

Øyvind:
First time at the airport: No Egil. I have misread the arrival date. Second time at the airport: Still no Egil. I didn't check my email. If I did I would have found five different emails from Egil stating five possible arrival times. Hectic digitial communication to follow.

Third time: Finally the guy has been able to coax someone into letting him into the country. He's even quite quick through customs. Funny how efficiently you travel when your combined two year's worth of luggage can be carried in two tax-free shopping bags. One is even a Lacoste. Egil is showing some class.

Egil:
Åja, den karn! A classical Norwegian salute from somone who haven't seen eachother in a long time, and who will spend the next two years together on 20 square meters. We drove down to the privileged West Park Marina and I got to see that enormous pile of fiberglass. Damn that boat is big. My new home. I stuffed my plastic bags into a locker, and there it was. I had moved in, the adventure could begin.

PESSBLAUT FROM NEW ZEALAND TO NORWAY

2009-04-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

This blog is all about Egil and Øyvind's sailing trip that will hopefully see them go from New Zealand to Kirkenes in northern Norway. The trip is planned to start sometime in April 2009 and finish around august 2010. Later rather than sooner.
The teams previous sailing experience is limited to a number of daytrips that can easily be counted on one hand. That is if the hand has seen a bit of rough use. For instance in combination with chainsaws or other finger decimating machinery.

If the crew is inexperienced The Ship is definitely not! «Liberty» is turning 50 this year and is one of the first fibreglass boats ever made. Hopefully she'll not retire herself for another couple of years.
The blog will mostly be posted in English so our non-scando friends can follow it. Yes, we are thinking of you guys. Both of you.
However there might be the odd post in Norwegian. These will most often have contents of special Norwegian interest that might be better addressed in Norwegian. Alternatively we just don't want you non-Norwegians to understand when we're gossiping about you. However, don't despair: We'll soon grow tired of it and start posting in English again, so stay with us!
Also we of course don't have internet while at sea (well, we could, but that cost money and anything that cannot be paid for in services, seashells or homemade alcohol is not included in our budget.) So posting may be irregular, though we might type stuff up while at sea to post it when we reach land and can access the World Wide Web yet again. In other words; things might be quiet for a while, only to explode in a sudden avalance of blogging.
The «Pessblaut» name is a north Norwegian term meaning being soaking wet, or, more literally; having pissed one's pants. Both not unlikely to happen to the guys during the trip. One of the things will quite likely be a problem of somewhat permanent character, rather than an accidental occurance. Which one it will be is anyone's guess. Depends on the weather I assume. Especially in light of the aforementioned sailing experience, or lack thereof.
So: Stay with us and cheer on us. Pray for us not to sink, run aground, run out of money, have a run-in with any authorities, get the runs, get sick, get tired of cruising, get saltwater allergy, get pirated, eaten by cannibals or navigate wrong and end up in Tahitit where we might take local brides and grow old, fat and sunburnt. Because all these things would stop us from entertaining you on the «Pessblaut» blog.
Peace out.