NORWAY

Since we now owned a great ocean-going yacht and had only spent the first summer "acclimatizing" in narrow circles "around the local church tower" and to the North Frisian Islands, we were tempted to step on the gas in 2012 and plan a longer trip.  The Swedish western archipelago has long been one of our particularly beloved destinations, and so we decided to travel there via the North Sea, the Skagerrak and the Norwegian south coast. Our course led us from Heligoland non-stop to Mandal, then leisurely through the archipelago to Sandefjord. There we stopped sailing after a week for a day in Oslo by train and for a crew change, Then we went across the Oslofjord to Strömstad, through the Swedish archipelago to Vinga, then via Anholt and the Great Belt back to Kiel. Finally we took the classic route via the Kiel Canal with a stop-over in Cuxhaven back home to river Weser.

The blow to the north over the Skagerrak did what one expected from it - we were smashed with probably NW 8 and a high seastate That was predicted, however a little bit later, we had expected to reach Cape Lindesnes beforehand - but we were wrong, the low moved in quicker, and so we had very interesting new experiences with the high seas and so on. By the way, the weather was formidable, blue skies, sun, fine white clouds, deep blue-green water with white crests, except for the fact that a truckload of it was dumped onto our deck from a height of 3m about every 15 minutes. And since we still had a small problem with a ventilation scoop on the bow and not all sea breams were tight, some of the water found its way into the saloon and bilge. When we arrived in Mandal we were pretty exhausted and treated ourselves to a night in the hotel until the ship was clear again. And from then on it became wonderful, because the Norwegian southern archipelago is lovely, the effort of getting there is worth it, and in the Swedish archipelago it continued seamlessly - with great weather all the time. On the way home in the Great Belt the wind was quite strong again, but without the swell we enjoyed on the Skagerrak the trip it was like a child's birthday.

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The trip to Oslo was also worth it and we would do it the same way again, because the distance from the entrance of the fjord to Oslo is quite long, and if vacation time is limited, it is a nice alternative to take the detour to the to visit the city by land - because the city of Oslo is definitely worth this detour...