Weekend trip - Helgeroa, Langesund, Porsgrunn

I've had a fantastic weekend - though, feeling a bit bad that the children apparently didn't enjoy it equally much. I'll try to keep this post short (hah!), if I get time I'll follow up with details in separate posts.

It got a bit bumpy start on Friday, taking the train from Oslo to Larvik. We got stuck in a tunnel due to a power outage at our track, totally we got almost two hours delayed and ... it was an experience. It could have been very much worse. My wife and kids had some other events they were attending to in Oslo, I understand that they enjoyed it, so good for them.

Finally I got to the boat again. It was a perfect evening for bathing - but I was a bit too exhausted - and I also had intentions to clean the boat properly, so no time for that. Well, I didn't get much cleaning done, I went to bed quite shortly after arrival.

Next day I was cleaning the cockpit. For breakfast and lunch I continued my efforts on reducing the old food storages on board - a German tin with Russian soup "Soljanka" for breakfast, and this one for lunch - as you may guess, this beer was bought in Kiel in Germany previous summer.

I was intending to clean the cabin as well, but my wife called me and urged me to go to Langesund and enjoy the festival there. I'm not much of a festival person, but my sister-in-law was coming all the way from St.Petersburg to perform on the festival. I didn't even know she was an artist - well, I have seen her singing and playing the guitar, but I had no clue she was doing performances. So it was time to heave up the anchor and set sails.

After a bit of sailing I got to Langesund - literally "long straight" - it was not only long, it was also relatively narrow and very crowded. I got surprised when I saw that the big ferry was heading on our direction! One small honk, according to the standards at sea it should mean "I'm going starboard", but I believe what they really meant was "hello there all you small boats! Here comes a big ferry! Give space!" - and I did need that warning, as I was not at all prepared that the ferry would come in my direction! I chose to stay at the port side of the straight and to furl in some sail to reduce my speed.

When I arrived, there was some kind of pirate show for the children going on, with cannons shooting and children being ferried across the straight by an old wooden sail boat. This fishing boat was probably the pirates.

It didn't take long time from I moored up the boat and until I ran into my sister-in-law on the street and her husband - then the rest of the band she was playing with. My sister was spending some time in her youth at the Shtandart Frigate replica, that's where she met her husband. So apparently they have a Shtandart music band, and they're a part of it. They are amateurs - but it doesn't really matter, it was a small shanty festival. Now, shanties aren't really the stapler of the Shtandart band, and they even said that there are no Russian shanties - but still I guess the organizers felt a band consisting of crew members from a real sailing ship was just a perfect fit for a such a maritime-themed music festival.

We had a late lunch together, then they had their next gig (two out of three that day), on a pub/restaurant. My sister-in-law is the one in the middle on the guitar, her husband has a mandolin, he's a bit hidden in the right corner. I took lots and lots of photos and some videos using my sisters camera, I had expected to get a copy of that before they left, but I forgot to press the issue and/or there were no time.

Here is a Polish band playing.

During the evening, quite many sailing boats came, but they only stayed for a short while, most of them left the same evening. I also got a boat on my outside.

Here the Shtandart band is playing again, at another location.

Dinner was up next, and they decided to eat on board my ship - and they also wanted to go for a sightseeing trip. I think they weren't very good at planning, because first they came with lots of hot portions of food (on paper plates), and then they left to change clothes - perhaps the hotel was far away, it took probably a full hour before they were back again. "Can't we heat the food in the microwave oven?" ... sorry, I don't have a microwave onboard ...

My family also came. After a while we could set sails again.

Risøysundet - I had no clue if it was deep enough (it was), and it was quite narrow. I think it was a good choice to go there, giving our Russian guests some sightseeing through narrow Norwegian straights!

We anchored up towards land. It was a bit of a failure, I dropped the rear anchor too early, so we didn't get the bow towards land. That meant the only way to get to land would be either by swimming or with the dhingies, I think there were more people that would have wanted to go to land - like our children. Not much photos taken as I was also bathing! Actually, first time this year that I do bathing without the wet suit. The sea was warm and comfortable! Here is the picture from our departure.

We have returned. My sister-in-law was actually studying painting. But now it's late night, the dark spots on the deck is humidity!

Next morning I managed to get the children out of the boat so they could watch the last performance of the Shtandart band ... but they were all just wanting to sit in the boat watching films, except for that they were nagging that they wanted to go home. Eventually the Russians were driven back to the Oslo airport, my wife and the children also drove to Oslo, and I went back to Helgeroa to leave the boat by anchor.

Train services were cancelled due to track maintenance works, so I decided to procrastinate my home journey until Monday morning. I still had some hours of evening, so first I went bathing. Next thing, I ought to clean the boat - but instead I chose the irresponsible thing, I went to Porsgrunn and back again with the dhingy - for no other reason that I wanted to! I've never been in those areas before.

Here is a weird-looking big ship moored up towards land on an otherwise desolated place.

High bridges by Stadthelle

Quite some ships and harbours to be seen on the way

Up the river there were lower bridges that could open

Usually when there are signs at places like this it says "mooring forbidden" or "private". This time it said "not allowed to stay here for more than 24 hours". That's nice, I already like Porsgrunn, should probably try to get back here with the sail boat at some point - but first I need to learn about the bridge openings.

I found a small side channel, it was quite exotic.

Due to some problems with my shoes and blisters, I didn't go in land at all, just sitting in the dhingy - except for one break on some island to ease the bladder pressure. It probably wasn't smart sitting that much in the dhingy, I get problems with my back from sitting.

A tugboat being towed backwards by a ship. I suppose that the rationale is that the tug boat should be able to control the stern of the ship, should anything happen.

Monday morning was a disaster - but I had at least one good excuse - there was some emergency at work during the night, so just when I had falled properly asleep I got woken up by a phone call. Spent two hours working before I could get back to bed. In the morning I was supposed to get up very early so I could catch a bus so I could take the train back to Oslo. First I was fightning with them snooze-button and got up only at 8. Then I forgot the laptop charger back in the ship. I spent really long time getting start on the engine for the dhingy. It was quite windy and I spent quite much time moring up the dhingy. Then I thought I came "only" 30s after the bus should have passed according to the schedule - except, on weekdays the bus was going 4 minutes earlier than in the weekends, so the bus had just passed, one hour until the next. In addition I spoiled both oil and dressing on both my t-shirt and my shorts while eating breakfast. And, there were still track works on the railway, so it didn't help me much to postpone the trip home until Monday morning. Well, at least I did have quite a nice Sunday night.

All photos available in better resolution on IPFS QmNjyeL3G4JWvPe1xR6wwTyKm5agoW9LSpZ8braUBQDMQR. License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Full collection of my weekend photos on IPFS QmTUqnUeUYCPs3EDDABsjZh6fawM2qkeba7sdRTX9svHrK. License: CC BY-SA 4.0