Living in the boat

So, this week we moved into the boat!!! After two weeks of thinking we did it! From “we want to use the boat more”, into “we move into the boat”… well… We have used theese two weeks to clean the house and throw things we don`t need, and pack everything. We put something up at the loft and the things we needed to the boat. While we are living in the boat, 4 students are taking over the house. They are studying other places and needed a place to stay while they are having practice in Florø for two months. They are leaving mid June, and because we have been talking about living in the boat in July I guess it will be august before we are going back to the house. But we will see, maybe it is so nice to stay in the boat that we will not go back home? I feel that I will like it. Specially after work when it is nice weather, just go sailing! Earlier we had to pack things and plan for dinner but now we already have everything we need in the boat! It`s just to hoist the sail and go! I am really looking forward to that.

Astor and me has been together since 2010 and we have use theese years to renovate the house he bought in 2009, both outside and inside. We still have things to do this year, but now we need to relaxe a bit. (sounds like a older couple..??) Astor is not a guy with many words, so yesterday when I asked him if he had been thinking about living in a boat earlier, he said yes. BUT he had never said anything about that to me! I have been thinking about living in a boat, but I thought that was not a chance in many years. Because we have the house and want to enjoy it some more years. But when we stay in the house there is always something to do, and specially Astor needs to do something all the time! I believe that in the boat we can relaxe more. I know there will be a lot to do here as well, but not as much as in the house.

We filled up the boat Sunday and I was thinking “help, where to put everything”… but after a couple of hours and some re-organisation it became better. We re-buildt the salon, took down the table and filled it with a mattress, and then a mattress topper. No we can chill in the evenings watching other couples sailing around the world on youtube 😊 It was an amazing difference!

About sailingvideos on youtube. I come over Malin and Johan in RAN sailing last autumn when they were sailing Gota canal. It was then it startet… We couldn`t stop…. We saw from episode 1 when they startet to sail around the world. Over the Atlantic, then to Hawaii, Alaska and Canada. Unfortunately she got pregnant over there (with Johan 😊 ) and they decided to go back home to Sweden. They continue sailing at home and are now around the westcoast in Sweden together with little Vera. And we still watch their videos. After some recommodations we started to watch Adventures of an old sea dog, also from episode 1. Its important for us to follow them from the beginning. Where and why they started. Actually there is one exception, Sailing Uma. We have been watching them because they are sailing in Norway right now, and we started watch them when they arrived Norway. I think that RAN is best of these three. This is because they make really good videos, and shows us a lot of nice spots and tips around and Johan is a technical genius.

Last week we started to watch Fair Isle Sailing. They are sailing in the Med and because we have a dream to  sail our boat there its nice to see how it is to sail there. They are both reporters/cameraman so they are really professional. Making really good videos! They are now coming to Venice at the end of season 2 so now we start watching season 3. We have been sailing three times in the Med, but then we have been together with other people renting a boat in Greece for a week. I will tell you more about that in a later blog.

Now it is easter and we have some days of. We worked Monday and Tuesday, then off until next Tuesday. Wednesday is also a normal workingday here in Norway, but we took the day off. We sailed out on Tuesday evening.

It was a little bit of rain but we didn`t get any wet. It was no wind at all, really quiet, until we got more outside the fjord.

Even if it is no wind Astor always hosts up the mainsail

We sailed close to Nekkøy (øy = island) and I was filming a little bit with our gopro.

It startet to blow up from north and its typically here with this downwind coming over the mountains. It`s not nice… When you relaxe and think everything is okay, and suddenly the wind blows the boat down… But all in all, it was a nice sailingtrip. It took us 1,5 hour to go from our home harbour to Æsøysundet Uthavn (harbour) in the island Skorpa. This is the same type of harbour as we visited in the last post. Here is a harbour with space for about 6 boats (it depends on the size of the boat) and there is a small house ashore everyone can use. Normally it is no electrisity here, but lucally I have been working together with Sølvi who lives here and she and her husband has a boathouse close to the harbour so we could borrow electrisity from them. Of course we payed them.  

Wednesday we woke up to sunny weather but with a lot of wind. We decided to have a walk. Only 15 people are living on this island so we didn`t see that many on our trip. We were thinking about kanoing on the lake, but it was too windy, and the sun was not there at the moment. We walked to the end of the road. They had a plan many years ago to make a road all the way to Skorpeide but that stopped.

On the way back we were looking for a place near the sea. And we found it!

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We sat for a while, enjoing the sun and eating lunch.

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When we came back to the boat we sat down in the sun, it was very nice. We made the Norwegian dish “Raspeball” for dinner and we had the dinner up in the house with the best view!

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Raspeball is made of potetoes and flour, and becide we have salt meat, sausage, carrot, kohlrabi and bacon. It is delicous, but very heavy! A local guy went by and saw us sitting there so he come inside. Astor knew the guy. He had a problem with his internet and asked Astor for help. Astor is a service engeneer and know a lot about tecnical problems. Specially with boats. He sat down for hours and the evening ran away. Astor helped him, but his simcard was broken, so he had to ask his internet supplier for more help. While Astor was helping this guy I went out to see the sunset:

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See you next week for more easter holiday!