Mandal
After leaving the music (wanted and not) of Lillisand, we motored to Mandal, a really nice town and marina at about as far south in Norway as you can get. We considered stopping in the bigger city of Kristiansand, but we weren’t sure of the bow-in with stern buoy technique used there. In Mandal we side-tied to the wall. Although right on the street, it wasn’t loud. We really liked the town – and had the pleasure of meeting up with Jørn and Hanne yet again. The streets of Mandal were so full of character – and we had the best pizza we’ve had yet in Europe. We indulged in huge servings of ice cream from the popular store right next to where Hokukea was docked.
Weather was playing into timing decisions. We got to Mandal, knowing we’d have to wait out some weather before we could move on toward Egersund. And we knew that when we got to Egersung, we were going to have to wait out some weather before moving on to Stavanger. We wanted/needed to be in the Stavanger area to be able to meet our friends Torrey and Sara from Idaho, who were going to crew with us for the passage from Stavanger to Kirkwall, in Orkney, Scotland.
Egersund
The trip from Mandal to Egersund was to be our longest to date, nearly 70 miles, with some rough waters. Fortunately the winds weren’t too bad, and we even got some motor-sailing time in. Alexander, at the Egersund Harbor was great (altho small), and helped us tie-up in the rain after a long passage. Egersund is tucked way inside a U-shaped inlet, so it was very protected. We stayed two nights waiting for our weather window to head north to Tananger (S. side of Stavanger).
Adam keeping watch under the protection of the hardtop.
Tananger
We had lots of rain and a rocky & rolly sail for most of the 5 hours to Tananger. We were really happy when we were finally tied up in the harbor. Tananger was a private medium-sized harbor. It was a good location for meeting up with Torrey and Sara because it was about a 10-minute ride from the Stavanger airport.
Stavanger and Lysefjord
With Sara and Torrey aboard in Tananger, we studied our cruising guides and located a couple of pretty little anchorages near Lysefjord, our first venture into a Norwegian fjord! We anchored in tiny little Ådnøyvågen, just 3 miles from the entrance to Lysefjord. It was sunny and pretty out when we arrived in the anchorage. We were motoring around to check the depths and distances to decide where to drop the anchor, when a gentleman who had been sitting ashore and watching us jumped into his dinghy and rowed out to us. We were afraid he’d tell us we couldn’t anchor in the little bay, but instead he said, “You look concerned. If you drop your anchor right here, you’ll be happy all night!” So that’s where we dropped anchor!!! We came back to this pretty little anchorage after our day in the fjord.
Lysefjord was magnificent! It is home to the famous Pulpit Rock that is a well-touristed overlook. We motored in there under brilliant blue skies without any other boats in the vicinity. We only saw a couple of small tour boats later in the day as we were exiting the fjord. The fjord was 20 miles in length, and we went most of that distance before turning around.
On the way out of the fjord we went up to a large waterfall. Torrey hopped in the dinghy, rowed out from the boat, and took photos of Hokukea in this magnificent location. What a day!!!
We spent a few fun days in Stavanger, Norway, a really neat little city that was our launching point for crossing the North Sea. It’s a nifty little town with great stores and a fascinating oil museum! The museum describes Norway’s development of their oil industry in the North Sea, including how they built the platforms, how they found the oil and drilled for it, and how they retrieved the oil. The museum also addressed the environmental issues associated with oil production and use. The guest harbor in Stavanger was right next to the oil museum.
Picturesque Stavanger