The Norse Maidens criss-crossed our bows, their blonde hair streaming in
the wind as they strained to their oars under the command of their leader.
Did we hear the cry "Come to us after dark... after dark ...after dark"
waft across the evening air? Maybe, but at this latitude the sun would not be setting properly until mid-July, so we
tucked Voltair up close to the harbour wall and settled for gins and tonics
all round instead.
It a tough life on board Voltair as we race north to the summer cruising
grounds. The crew is woken up at 07:30 hours by Mozart's 40th Symphony being
played over the vessels intercom system. Then John switches it off and we
all get up sometime between nine and ten. Breakfast is a spartan meal of
Muesli, orange juice, coffee, bacon, tomatoes, toast and marmalade and
maybe an egg or two. Then the maintenance crew assemble a preliminary task
list for the day. Lunch is normally taken underway. The catering team
prepare a basic smorgasbord of no more than pickled herring, cold roast
beef, cold pork, sliced cucumber, salami, sausage, chutneys and pickles, a
choice of breads with a variety of fruit to follow. On alternate days a
light beer may be offered. Then the revised list of maintenance tasks is
issued; this includes all the items found not to be functioning when the
original list was attempted and therefore has no more than an accidental
agreement with the original draft. Occasionally it is necessary to suspend
staff upside down in the bilges in order to get things done. This may seem
cruel, but a striking degree of success is achieved in this way. Hinges are
hung, pumps primed and toe-rails touched up. By 21:17 hrs precisely, the
sailing crew manage to find their destination and the entire group can sit
down to the minimal gruel provided. Last night for instance we had to put
up with gougons of fresh caught cod, deep fried in batter, followed by
local roast beef, carrots, sugar snaps, cauliflower, broccoli and roast
potatoes. There is never a desert, but occasionally the cheese board is
revisited and chocolates may be proffered. By around 1:30 am the stewards
have prepared the cabins for the night and the crew are permitted to retire
after a stern admonition from the officer of the watch that this time they
really must report for duty at 07:30. And that, apart from the odd round of
coffee and lemon drizzle cake, or tea and biscuits is all that is offered
to us to keep body and soul together.
Despite these blatant discomforts, we have been making progress northwards.
The days have been sunny and the winds mainly northerly. Navigation is
occasionally challenging. Only the other day, the sailing crew identified a
large house ahead of them on their course, when they thought that they were
proceeding up a wide deep fjord, where even in Norway you do not usually
expect to see large houses. Careful examination showed that it was indeed a
large house proceeding at three knots up a large and deep fjord. It seemed
to be fully equipped with garage, hot-tub, and mooring pontoons for the
small family runabout to make fast to. Now Voltair under full power can
manage to overtake even very large houses, so we were able to get some good
photos. The mystery remains. Was this a super luxury model of a northerly
mobile fish-farmer's home, or had we stumbled on the answer to the
perennial question so often asked in Norway - "How did they built that
there?"
On Wednesday night we anchored (at 21:17 of course) in a remote triangular
bay beneath a the mountain of a red island (Roddoy) and just off a sandy
beach (Sandvika). Awakening before the rest of the crew, John slipped into
his diving gear and went to have a look at the bottom. There he was
challenged by a large but foolish crab, who returned to the surface
clinging to John's grab bag. His second mistake (the crab's, not John's)
was to believe that he was safe if he curled up small in the bottom of
Voltair's bucket. But the bucket found its way to the top of the new
cooker, and there he became cooked crab - and very tasty he was too with
lemon juice and brown bread and butter.
On Friday we crossed into the Arctic. As it was a balmy day - shorts and
tea-shirt weather - Vaughan persuaded us to anchor on a small sandy shelf
just south of Vikingen, the outcrop on which an arctic circle monument has
been erected. So:-