Away looks slightly out of place amongst the motor boats, office blocks and city dwellers. We had our fill of bright lights and city sounds and were happy to loosen the lines and slip out of Bergen weaving between commuter ferries and tourist trips promising waterfalls, fjords and trolls to I-love-Norway beanied tourists.
The islands around Bergen gradually become more sparsely populated.
Our anchorage required a left turn from a narrow channel into a narrower channel leading to narrower squeeze into the anchorage. The anchorage could not have contrasted more with the noise of Bergen.
The next day our route was mostly decided by the height of the bridges between islands. We saw current of over 3 knots at some narrow points, fortunately heading the same way we were. When the channels opened up, we meandered along with a lazy headsail.
We have a weakness for restaurants with a harbour and this one is famous for its fish soup… what more could we ask for? They had opened a couple of days before at the start of April. It seems the season is starting, but its still very quiet.
The landscape changed as we turned into Sognefjord. The sides of the fjord grew steeper and snow capped.
After a brief search for an anchorage (what were we thinking…this is a fjord), we headed across the fjord for shelter in Leirvik. There are two depths in the fjord unfathomable and more unfathomable. In some places the depths are charted at over a kilometer deep which reduces the crab pot hazard. It also makes anchoring possibilities more scarce, and in deed anchoring is known locally as ‘tying up’.
Leaving the tranquility of Leirvik we were quickly met by 25+ knot headwinds. The wind in the fjord is governed mostly by trolls who sit at the head of the fjord and try to blow sailors away. When they blow it can be over 30 knots, but between breaths it often stops altogether. The wind only comes in one direction, down the fjord. Even when the fjord changes direction 90 degrees, so does the wind. This makes fjord sailing simple, its either upwind, or downwind, with none of those confusing in-between points of sail.
Our perseverance against the wind was rewarded by an evening in beautiful Hoyanger.
The next day the trolls were at it again, but we were determined to reach Flam at the head of the Fjord.
Finally the trolls gave in or got bored, the wind abated and we motored the last section in to Flam.
We tried to stop at Undredal for their world famous goats cheese, but aborted when we saw the modest size of the dock and headed for Flam. Flam looked like a quiet town at the end of the fjord, but the cruise ship moorings suggested a different story.
