We sail further north to Bergen. There, Toine picks up his parcel with the engine maintenance parts he ordered in Sweden, which arrived nicely on time. We also do a lot of shopping in preparation for the arrival of Eline and Jonas. We moor at the quay in a troubled spot on the south side of the harbour near the fish market, with lots of people sitting there on benches eating, and seagulls flying around (and defecating on our boat 😡😂). After spending the night, we sail on to a bay quite a way outside Bergen, where Eline and Jonas return their campervan the next morning. This turns out to be a great anchorage for the night that is not described in any cruising guide.

 

Yesss ... there they are 🥰. Toine picks them up with the dinghy. How nice it is to see and hug each other again (after 10 weeks) 😊. It immediately feels very normal to have them on board and for Eline it really feels like home to her 😘. We sail a short distance to another anchor bay. There is a lot of wind but around the corner by the little island we are quite deep (25m) and sufficiently protected. We chat, take a short walk on the islet and eat incredibly tasty fresh salmon (from the fish market in Bergen) cooked on a plank on the Kamado Joe 😋.

Do we move on to another anchor bay or go straight to Bergen two days before Constitutional Day? That is the most important holiday of the year for Norwegians on the 17th of May. We opt for the latter because it is still quite windy for the anchor bay. This is a smart choice because we secure about the last spot for our size boat on the right side of the harbour (near the beautifully coloured wooden houses) as the fourth boat in a row. Five somewhat smaller motorboats end up mooring next to us 🤣. We are the only non-Norwegian boat there ☺️.

 

On Friday, it is still fairly quiet in town. Eline, Jonas and I take a nice walk to a summit with beautiful views of Bergen. Toine goes on a scooter to a water sports shop to buy a spare screw for the dinghy trailer motor. At 'borrel' time, we sit outside and the other boats around us start to get busy. Ron and Ruth drop by (a NL couple our age who met Eline and Jonas at the end of their campervan trip and had a pleasant evening with them). We have an impromptu dinner together and it's very cosy 🤗😊.

On Constitutional Day, we immerse ourselves in the Norwegian festival. ☺️. ‘Gratuleren med dagen Norge’🇳🇴🎉. It starts at 7am with loud gun salutes. A little later, we see many people walking around in beautiful traditional dress; certainly more than half, and from very young to old. Many teenagers and twenty-somethings too. Really quite extraordinary. The rest are neatly dressed; men (and boys too) in suits with ties and women in dresses. Jeans are out of the question. We dress as neatly as possible in the red-white-and-blue colours and head onto the quay for the parade that passes by from 10.30am to 12 noon. Many groups march in it, from the military, brass bands, schools, universities to music and sports clubs. Very patriotic, with lots of Norwegian flags and a lot of pride. Very neat and ‘well-behaved’, which would not be possible in the Netherlands 🤔.

 

After the parade, most people go for lunch and the rest of the day many walk around the city. The whole city centre is car-free and everyone is walking on the streets. What a friendly atmosphere 👌👍. We have lunch on the boat and on the boats around us, drinks are already flowing profusely 🥂🍾. Quite a few people walk across our boat (from the five motorboats next to us, but also many visitors to those boats.) We let go of walking along the front of the boat (common among sailors), because with those neat clothes, neat shoes and some booze on, it is safer to walk along behind. Anyway, they are all very nice and often chat with us. Not always relaxing for us (especially not for Toine 🥲), but fortunately we don't sustain any damage ☺️. We get delicious food from the Thai and eat it on the boat. In the evening, we watch the Eurovision Song Contest (with whatsapp contact with family Inge and Marinthe) 🇳🇱😃. In between, Toine occasionally walks out to ‘help’ a drunken Norwegian stumbling across our boat. One comes across the boat with a bottle of wine in his hand who cannot step over our railing to the neighbouring boat. He asks Toine completely drunk ‘can you hold my wine?’. Then he wants to step between the railing. ‘No, over it’ shouts Toine. It all goes just fine 😳.

At 11.30pm, there are brief fireworks in town but it is not a big deal. All visitors to the boats next to us have left a little earlier. After 0.00, no one walks across our boat 🤗. And how nice that Austria won the song festival 😃👌, is our favourite too!

 

The next morning, the boats around us are slowly waking up. We know that our neighbouring boat on the inside wants to leave at 10am. That suits us fine. It takes a while before we can sail out because one of the motorboats on our outside is deserted. Our neighbour on the outside is bold and unties all his lines with 3 more motorboats attached to him?!?!? We and the other motorboat are able to get between them just fine, but how those four boats attached to each other get back to shore we don't know, because when we sail out, the four of them are still floating side by side a bit far from the shore.

We had planned to sail about 80nm north to Florø with Eline and Jonas. But there are a few days of stormy north winds in the coming week, and there are few sheltered spots to be found in the north slightly deeper into the fjord. Also, getting back to Bergen by public transport for Eline and Jonas from the north is a hassle if it can't be done from Florø. Oh well, as sailors we are flexible and adapt easily if the weather calls for it. So we decide (while thinking things over) to sail a bit back to the south where we do have the shelter of the fjords and the possibility to drop them off close to Bergen airport. South of Bergen is a beautiful sailing area, so we are looking forward to that. Coming weekend, the wind turns south and then we will be fine to make good progress with longer trips north after Eline and Jonas leave, is the expectation 😃.  

 

This is a very good choice. We spend the night in a total of four different places. The first night in the quiet anchor bay where we moored exactly a week ago. A nice place to recover from all the hustle and bustle of Bergen. Eline and Jonas even go swimming (in 12 degrees cold water), toughies 💪👍.

The next day, we sail 10 nm to a sheltered bay (Kolbeinshamn). We can sail wonderfully. The bay itself is a bit deserted and also, unfortunately, there are no good hiking trails from the harbour (which was in the guide 😂), so we just take a walk on an asphalt road in beautiful surroundings. In the evening, we do games outside in the sun until late 😎😊. We also shift the boat twice (because of the wind in the cockpit) and the four of us are already very adept at it 👌👍.

 

We go a little further into the fjord and once again have 10 nm of wonderful sailing. In this harbour too (Våge on Tysnes) we are alone, the first evening still well sheltered behind a breakwater on the lower shore. Eline and Jonas do a trail run, Toine does some work on the boat and I do the laundry and shopping.

When we wake up the next morning, the wind has picked up and we are already rocking (and tugging at the lines) quite a bit due to waves coming through the breakwater anyway 🤔. We decide to do our planned walk first and see how things stand when we return. A tremendously nice taxi driver takes us to the start of the walk. He is a Hungarian imigrant and enthusiastically talks about how he learned Norwegian well. He even sends us an email with information on children's books that help with Norwegian learning. He also comments that we are extremely lucky with the weather. It is never dry and sunny here for so long in a row, ‘it always rains here’ 🤗👌.

 

The walk is tough (for us oldies), 11 km in 4 hours with 620m difference in altitude. For Toine all the more tough as his injury has unfortunately not gone away yet 🥲. Just rest a bit more in the coming weeks. At the summit, we have a very nice view of the surroundings. But there is a strong wind (7-8 bft), which makes it quite cold. So we quickly descend again.
Once back at the boat, the wind has certainly not died down yet. A small storm front arrives and we decide to leave immediately. Which is just as well, because immediately after we leave, a squall comes over us with wind force 8-9. We bounce over the waves in the bay and buckets of water come over the boat. But it soon calms down and when we are completely still on the other side in the quiet harbour (of Osøyro), we are quite happy to have left. After showering all four of us, we walk into the town for a nice pizza 😋.

 

The last day we will stay in Osøyro. From here, Eline and Jonas can take the bus to the airport. In Bergen's city harbour, with the strong north wind, it is now very unsettled, we hear from our Swiss neighbour. The four of us wash the outside of the boat and grease the rubbers of all side windows well with Vaseline. We noticed that with so much water over us yesterday, two windows leaked a bit. A useful job! The last evening we make use of the Kamadoe Joe with delicious ‘Canadian beef’. However, I did accidentally take a bit too much meat out of the freezer, so we'll eat this the next day as well.

And now they are gone again ☺️. We just waved them goodbye. What a good time we had together 🥰❤️. They are going back to work and study commitments.

A new chapter is starting for us. We will continue north at a faster pace with the first milestone rounding the notorious cape ‘Statt’ (expected this weekend) and the overall milestone being in Tromsø in five weeks. Some 750nm, so still a long way to go in the coming weeks!