No, we are not going on a skiing holiday!

Norway end of May: start of the sailing saison for some...

Looking from high above in the sky, the Norwegian landscape was stunning: the  mountains were covered with a thick layer of snow. The glacier north of Bergen looked like a soft downy blanket. Our neighbour in the plane told us that the summer skiing  season had just begun.

The fjords below were deep blue and dark, stretching far inland. Our immediate question was how cold was it down there?

To our surprise, there was glorious evening sunshine and warmth in the air, when we stepped out from the plane, some 20ºC! Warmer than it had ever been the previous year, even in July.

Easy Rider in Ulsteinvik Marina

We arrived in Ulsteinvik in Norway last Friday (27^th May) after 4 hours delay, supposedly due to maintenance issues coupled with the French strikes, according to Norwegian Air. It didn’t bother us too much for our mindset was on ‘holiday and adventure mode’. Easy Rider was waiting at the other end.

Getting ready for our long journey back to the UK prompted us to check the boat thoroughly (as we do every year of course…!) and make sure that everything works alright. In addition, in anticipation of  different crew members joining us at different stages of our cruise, we have checked and tested all our life jackets and safety gear and fitted two life jackets with an AIS and integrated DSC transmitter for whoever works on the foredeck or has a night watch.

We will also refresh and drill our MOB procedures underway.

measuring up the dome

The best part of the preparations was for me (Madeleine) the moment when we started taking down our Inmarsat M. I have never liked it, for it looked so 

A happy skipper...

disproportionate and heavy on a 40’ boat. I know: twenty years ago it was a ‘state of the art’ satellite communication equipment and it was on the boat when we bought her. Stephan loved the fact that we could get a weather fax. from the Met Office anywhere in the world and call anyone as well not having to use the radio. But the fact that a call was £1.30 a minute meant that we never really used it regularly except for testing its functionality every year! And now it has become obsolete according to Inmarsat. They have even decommissioned the satellites. What happens when satellites are decommissioned, we wondered. Do they stay up ‘there’ and become space debris?