It seems they never end! After arriving in norway the longer passage and tougher conditions have taken there toll on the boat and crew. The day after we arrived felt like we were recovering from trauma, fergus and i woke up after long watches on deck reporting every time we closed our eyes we could only see rolling waves and walking on dry land was nauseous. Our stomachs or body cores for all of us where very tired after riding all those waves, laying about and doing nothing was the welcomed order of the day. I had fun taking the helms chartplotter to bits and putting it back together 4 times after closing it up forgetting screws, it did confirm the LED light we had retro fitted was blown so we could not see the screen when we landed the day before, i was very greatful to have my paper charts and a plan of approach pre figured out on paper to rely on as there were rocks everywhere! We also discovered we had broken a below deck mast bracket thingy! And the foresail leach had lost some stiches on account of some un trimmed flogging in the night. All this news was not reassuring to the admiralty (jenny and freyja), but a welcome distraction to laying about tired out to fergus and i. It is a bit boring to have to spend time fixing things but its good to know we are resourceful enough to do it ourselves. Over the next few days these jobs will have to get done.
When we arrived it was a little disappointing to find out our yellow quarantine flag and our repeat attempts to clear with customs did not happen because mostly it was sunday and the locals told us this part of the coast they had less concern and our yellow flag was mocked and as we had nothing to declare there was no worries! My hart broke when on the pontoon the sign said we had to us a smart phone app to pay for our birth, confirmed on the phone to a surprised and absent harbour attendent. My hart was rekindle when a friendly face appeared all be it with a card reader to interrogate us take our birth fee and freely have fun and share local info, oh and have a good laugh at our dutifuly hoisted quarantine flag. We left with a commitment confirmed by our local host that the birth paying online smart phone app was an affront to sea faring culture and rude! And void never to use it! (We used it at the next place as freyja worked it out otherwise we would not have access to the showers! (But it feels sad that we meet no one local to show us the way)).
<< Home