12 th August and we’re off!

It’s a beautiful morning although there’s currently no wind and we’re motoring. We’re off the Southern tip of Norway and getting a signal at the moment so I’ll see if I can get this off.

We had a peaceful night at anchor with Peppers Padron then Carbonara for dinner. In the morning we were under way for 0600 and soon making our way out of the passage into the Skagerrak. There was about a 1.5 metre sea / swell on the nose and a narrow passage between rocks to negotiate with a headwind of about a force 5 and getting clear of the passage with the bow burying fairly often was not as quick as it might have been but presently we were in clear water and set a two reefed sail plan and set off on the Starboard tack which we maintained ‘til about lunch time.

Manus seemed fine on deck but went down below to go to the loo and found the motion when down below a bit much and succumbed to mal de mere, talking on the big white telephone for some time before I told him to come back up into the fresh air where he looked awful but after a bit dozed off and, upon coming to, found he was feeling less like death. We’d tacked by now and were heading to clear the top of Denmark which we passed mid afternoon. There was plenty of traffic initially including a big submarine being escorted by a guard vessel and I’m not sure if the guard vessel was keeping other boats out of the way or letting the sub know she was being tracked. There were several other Naval ships about too, one circling us or half circling us once, I’m out of date with recognition so couldn’t say if they were Scandi or Russki but my feeling was that they were Russki.

Manus seemed to recover quite quickly from his bout of sea sickness and I made some pasta and red pesto sauce for lunch. The first jar of the pesto I’d opened looked like it might be fit for Hamilton’s only so I ditched that and opened a ‘this year’s’ one. It’ surprisingly difficult to make sandwiches in dodgy weather with so many ingredients needing to be balanced onto bits of bread so I find a simple pasta dish a good quick meal when it’s rough. The sea had been uncomfortable in the morning but by the afternoon the wind and sea had eased and we were beating under full sail to a less uncomfortable motion. In the evening, just as I was about to serve a seafood risotto the wind had picked up again and we ended up taking in a second reef in the main again having earlier put in the first with a roll in the genoa too.

Neither of us felt like sundowners so we had tea and from 2100 went into 3 hour watches with Manus taking the first. We sailed all night, tacking twice and ending up on full sail again with a beautiful moon to keep us company and some meteorites to wonder at, ending up close to the Norwegian shore. This as I had thought that the wind should have backed to the SE by the time we’d need to tack again but it didn’t, it died and we’re now motoring and hoping for the wind to pick up from any direction, preferably not the West.