Iceland

Well, I made it to Iceland where a cup of coffee (unlimited refills mind you) and two croissants cost 830 crowns. I am looking out over a landscape that exudes newness - lots of rock, bare hills recently formed and little vegetation. I have been here before and walked the landscape. You step on lava flows only recently cooled and hardened. The vegetation is sparse - sedges, grasses and low shrubs. It is a fascinating vista.  As we flew in towards Keflavik getting ready to land I could see the surface of the water - swell but no white caps. There was a boat on the water, lots of lights on in the early dawn. It was probably a fishing boat. I thought of Sørlandet and how it will be to approach land, gently moving in the swells. It won't be long now.

Sailing videos

If you are interested you can check out the youtube video of me sailing my catamaran.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9gD3PSaHR0

or sailing my Nordica "Karen Marie".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Git8hZMuk3I

Affinity for the Ocean

As far back as I remember, I have always had an affinity for the oceans. Maybe it comes from my Viking blood. My first recollection is when I was 6 and my family moved from Denmark to the States. We sailed on the Norwegian ocean liner “Stavangarfjord”. I can still remember standing on deck and only seeing the horizon in all directions. The vastness was magical. I remember a big storm, which delayed us getting to New York by three days – most people were seasick including me. The waves were so big they towered around us. A Norwegian on board told my brother and I that to cure seasickness we should ask the cook for a piece of bacon. We should tie a sting to the bacon and swallow it and then pull it back up. We didn’t try it and we continued to be seasick. In total I have crossed the Atlantic three times by ocean liner, twice on “Stavangarfjord” and once on the Polish “Batory” when I was 13.

I also remember my dad taking my brother and I on a fishing trip on the strait between Denmark and Sweden in a typical Danish small fishing vessel with the pilots house at the stern. Gram, a friend of his owned this boat. I was probably no more than 8 or 9 but I remember the sense of being on this boat. I don’t remember fishing at all but there was something magical just being on this boat and feeling it move in its element.

When I was 10 my parents together with three other couples bought a six metre wooden boat. The bow had a deck and at the stern there was a cabin almost as wide as the boat. In the centre the boat was open with a covered motor well. There was a windshield which protected you when you were at the wheel. The boat had been used by the Germans during the war as a patrol vessel and the machine gun mount was still fastened to the bow deck. The boat, which somehow acquired the name "Peter" was in a harbour on Bornholm. My dad and a couple of the other owners went over and sailed "Peter" to a small harbour in the town of Espegærde. They made the 200 km trip. The next day the Harbour Master called and said someone better come down right away. The boat had sunk over night and was lying at the bottom of the harbour.
We spent the whole summer fixing the boat, removing the machine gun mount, fitting new canvas over the cabin and bow deck, replacing the stern which was quite rotten and much more. Over the next few summers we would spend a week on board sailing up the coast of Sweden or exploring the Danish coast.

When we immigrated to Canada in 1964 my brother and I started canoing. In 1968 we bought a cedar strip and canvas canoe. I still have it.

 I now live in Nova Scotia. A few years ago I built a wooden rowboat. I launched it in my neighbours pond. I regularly sail it on the Minas Basin.

Then I built a catamaran which I have sailed on Mahone Bay and stayed on it over night in various beautiful coves.

                 

Then I bought a sail boat and named it after my mother "Karen Marie". I sailed it also in Mahone Bay this summer - amazing.

Shortly I will board "Sørlandet", one of three Norwegian tall ships. I will be teaching three biology courses as we sail from Norway with stops in France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Senegal, Cape Verde and Trinidad and Tobago where I get off at the end of December.

This blog will be about this journey!