THE NORTHSEA AND THE FAROE ISLANDS!

A quiet crossing and steep green mountains.

Monday 03/08.

We left Litle Bergen early in the evening and sailed northwards. By the island of Fedje we turned West into the sunset, open sea and the Faroe Islands a place far down below the horizon. During the night we saw the first oilrigs, and around ten the next night we left Norway and sailed in to British waters.

On board we have different navigational-aids, like:

a radar, anemometer(wind), 2 log/depthgauges, loads of charts, no less than 8 GPS' and an AIS. The last one especially is a useful and handy instrument for the informasjonhungry (read: curious) sailor. AIS or Automatic Identification System is a small box all skips must have and some boats also have, this send out information such as: name, type of vessel, the vessels tonnage, callsign, speed, course and position. It is a useful security tool witch tell us of the vessels around us, at the same time it gives ships around us informasjon of our presence.

By a coincidence I found MS Leinefisk, a fishingboat, on the AIS. Among the crew onboard, there was a young man(15 years old) on his first job as a fisherman, I know this because John Kaare Hjertoe Flusund is my nephew. I hailed Leinefisk on the VHF, and talked for a while with a supprised nephew. He did probably not expected Uncle Trond to call on the VHF, halfway between the Northsea and the Atlantic. The fact is that we could not see Leinefisk, as they were about 25-30 nm north of us. We could only see them on the AIS, but non the less it was nice.

I altso had a chat with the skipper, he said that it was poor fishing. But they would of course never talk on the radio of good catches, the better they fish, the worse the reports is over the ether. Oh'well, we sailed on towards another sunset.

Wednesday 5 Aug.

Second day out we're having our first pumpproblem, the bilgepump had failed and that is very serious on a boat. We fixed it, but pumps in need of repair would be more or less routine on this trip, but more of that later.

We had a smooth start, but that would not last. Not that we had that much weather, a stiff breese I think. Al was bedridden through his watch, and Bev had not tied up his leecloth. The result was that he fell out of his bunk and hurt his shoulder, when he hit the bulkhead on the starboard side. But Bev is tougher than me, one single time I heard him complain about a sore shoulder, and that was almost two weeks later. I however would moan, groan and complain till I were better.

We got fog in the afternoon, with approximately 250 meters visibility, and when we in the evening got closer to Nolsøy island we found our tidetables. With the violent tidalcurrents around the Islands, you need to know when and where it is safe to lead a vessel. There are areas where, if you are there at the wrong time, you will be in mortal danger. It has happend that people have been thrown overboard of the violent movements the tidal currents can have on a boat. But we came in at the right time and could head directly in to Torshavn. We arrived around 10 at night and rafted up on the side of a schooner, named Nordlysid.

More on this schooner will have to wait another time.