Rule #1 of sailing: the wind doesn't listen to the skipper's passage plan. Therefore, on our first day we sailed up Shetland (bigger than it looks!) and tucked in to the lovely anchorage behind Balta Island on Unst.
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| Aiming for the Northern entrance to Balta. Lumpy. |
Then came the hop across the oggin. 240 nm in 21 hours on 3 hour watches.
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| Steve having a fly cuppa |
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| The whole team up top pretending to be warm enough. From the left are Pete, Susan, Orla and Steve. |
A messy swell meant half the crew were feeling seasick for parts of the crossing, so it turned into a tiring couple of days for skipper Steve.
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| Luxury! I have a double berth, which I share with spare charts, spinnaker sheets and some WD40 (for lubrication). |
At one point on a night watch I was tracking through 6 oil rigs and a handful of rig support vessels. All easy to see, well spaced out and mostly not moving but it still makes the watch more interesting.
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| Hard to capture in the dark on a bouncing boat, but oil rigs looming out of the darkness at midnight have a hellish "engine of doom" vibe about them. |
And then we were there! We spotted the Norwegian coastline through smurry rain at 1400 on Saturday, tracked Northwards up it and were alongside in Ålesund by 0300 on Sunday (5am local time).
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| Welcome to Ålesund. Tee hee hee... That says "fart"! |
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| Hooked on right in the centre of town. All quiet apart from the ubiquitous shouting youths. |
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