I do not want to bore you with another day of gale and heavy seas, but the fact remains that the waves experienced on this short leg with 30 knots of western gale over a westgoing arm of the golf stream where enormous. The wind over tide built up steep, short and high waves that were fearful, according to Karolina. Especially when steering at the helm these huge walls of water rolling from astern were frightening.

Imagine yourself standing responsible for the course of this 46 foot boat, turning your head and looking up some 5 meters onto a massive wall of water. The wall will eventually overtake you and moves closer for every second. Is it a breaking wave? If it is, then one should steer to starbord och port to avoid it, but, well before it arrives, the stern has to point into the waves again, otherwise it could hit you from the sides with consequences I do not want to think of.

The massive wall of water prevents you from seeing any horizon (well, maybe you could define the horizon as being 45 degrees uphill...?). And just as you think ‘now it will hit you and bury you’, Mahina lifts its stern and surfs downhill. Suddenly, the bow points into the sea direction centre of the earth with the stern high up in the sky! Shortly after, the wave rolls underneath and carries Mahina safely forward until disappearing into the direction of their destination. Well done! We managed that wave! You turn around again, just to see the next wall of water closing up, and it all starts over again...

While Karolina was concentrating on steering, John just laid on the aft deck resting and enjoying the ride. But also Karolina has by now adopted to the seas and feels no more sea sick and quite well onboard, I understand.

“You would think that August 1st would have brought summer weather, but it didn’t and we endured winter rains with gusts to 40 kts.”

“Looking to windward into 30-40 kt wind driven hail felt like having one’s face sandblasted!”

“At one point a fierce squall piled enough hailstones along the aft deck to make snowballs.”

“North-setting current and the relatively shallow waters made headway into 15-20 kts very uncomfortable.”

“When all but two of our crew had succumbed to seasickness, we plotted a new route that took us inshore through the scenic but twisting fjords.”

“It was still hard to sleep as we danced around in the squalls.”

“It has been gratifying to see them [the crew] now free of seasickness mastering ocean steering skills in impressive seas!”

“We had large occasionally breaking following seas due to winds against a 1.5 knot current.”

“Navigation in Norway’s inside waters requires constant vigilance. There is a ton of commercial traffic at all hours; thousands of navigational markers of all types, and many of the channels are narrow with rocks and reefs. “

“We are continually surprised how few pleasure boats we see in these spectacular cruising waters.” [maybe less of a surprise...]

Capt John Neal