At 1 am on a dark and rainy night, while the children were sound asleep in their bunks, Jay hoisted the jib and Messenger sailed downwind away from the dock. We sailed 190nm in 34hrs until we reached the Shetland Islands where we sought protection from a low pressure which was coming fast behind us and wouldn’t give us enough time to reach Norway since it was moving faster than Messenger could.
The first leg of this passage was rough, during the first 12 hours out at sea we all fell seasick and the first, oddly enough, was the Captain. I was sleeping down bellow when I heard the Captain barfing overboard, I knew it was all “down hill” for the rest of the crew since he hardly ever gets seasick, so it was only a matter of time for the rest of us. And there went my theory that babies don’t get seasick, poor Ártico had his first vomit which I could tell was different from just a ‘milk burp’. But as it always happens our bodies get used to the motion and by the time we reached the Shetlands we all had gotten used to it but nevertheless we were ready for a rest and a clean up, therefore the 24hr stop while the bad weather passed was great.
We tucked into a protected bay surrounded by sheep grazing in the green hills that are so typical when you think of the landscape of these areas of Great Britain. We slept, ate, read, played and tried fishing but it seams that those days of throwing a hook and getting a catch on every try will be left for when we return to the waters around Iceland.
The second leg of our passage was better, we set sail after breakfast, it was sunny, fair winds and the sea was calm. We all sat on deck and got to see more of the Shetlands as we sailed away. This second leg was fast with strong currents going with us and although it rained quite a bit Caribe spent two long watches outside with Jay, she is quite the little sailor.
Another 36hrs and 218nm latter we reached protected waters of Norway. Right around sunset we anchored in a small protected sound called Høylandsvika to spend the night. We slept in and leisurely raised the sails after breakfast and after another failed attempt at catching some fish.
The flat water sail up the fjord into Bergen was lovely. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon so there were many pleasure boats out and about. We tacked up the fjord and marveled at how close to the wind Messenger can go, so the love/hate relationship with our boat continues.
We arrived in Bergen city center around 4 o’clock in the afternoon on a busy sunny Sunday. Now Bergen is known for the amount of precipitation so just imagine the amount of people that where outdoors on this day and saw us sail onto the dock. As we tied up our dock lines a passerby came and told us “I have never seen a sailboat sail in here, you are probably the first ones”, to which Captain Jay replied “Perhaps only the first in the last 100 years.”
