Make your life richer!

How often are you thinking about something you want to do? If it is helping the old lady over the street, pay for a cup of coffee for a homeless guy, or talk to some interesting people. You don`t know them but something is trigging you, you don`t want to let them go before you say hello. Are you thinking; ah… I don`t have time, or is it because you are e bit shy? Why? One thing is for sure. When you leave this earth you will regreat most about the things you haven`t done, not the things you have done. Maybe a meeting can give you new friends?

This summer I have been working at the touristinformation, like the 9 last summers. (except one) I meet a lot of people throught the season. Some of them is shy and only inside the office looking for brochures, and you can feel they are not interested to speak with you. On the other side you have people who never leave the office because they have so much to tell about, also things that is not interesting for other people. Okay, let them speak if you have time!

In May a couple visited my office. We realized very fast that we were both sailors. They had the boat Syvsover, and on social media they are Sailing Syvsover. The skipper, Thorsten, came from Germany, but lives in Norway and Laila was Norwegian. They were on their way up to Lofoten and since I come from an area on the way up there I had many tips for them. We kept the contact through Facebook and Instagram and I saw in late july they were on their way south again. On a thursday they sent me a message, asking if we wanted to have dinner together with them. I felt I won the lottery! It is not often someone invite us for dinner! Because of Covid-19 our social life is like zero.. I didn`t use many minutes to answer : thank you very much! The day they arrived we had our boat in Florø`s guestharbour, so we were ready when they sailed in.

We tried to book dinner at «Hjørnevikbua» but unfortunately we were too late, it was already fully booked. We went to «Tapas Bar Burges», in the neighbour building, and they had a table for us. Thorsten and Astor had burgers, while Laila and me (the two Laila`s) shared tapas. It was really good food, and I will recommend this restaurant a lot!

And the company was great, we had a lot to talk about, of course! We really appreciate this dinner and have to say a big thank you to Thorsten and Laila! Hope to meet you again somewhere! After dinner we had some beer at Vesle Kinn, just below the restaurant. They have their own brewery Kinn Bryggeri, pls try them if you have the opportunity!

Pls take a look at Sailing Syvsover, their Web-page or at youtube!

Some weeks later Astor came home from work and had to tell me about a couple with a boat in the guest harbour. He was onboard in their boat, helped them with their ais. This was a Norwegian couple with the boat Dixie Lily. They were not sailing, Dixie Lily is a homemade motorboat. They have been twice in the Mediterranean , and at the second time, they wrote a book. And this book they gave Astor as a present. I thought that it would be amazing to have a chat with them, as we also have the same plan, to go to the Med. And maybe it would be like a «pay it forward» ? Should I just meet up at the boat, or what should I do?? It was busy days at work and even if the guest harbour is just 5 minutes away I didn`t had time to go there. Hmmm…. I had the book… and their name…

I found Cecilie at facebook and sent her an invite for dinner. And they said thanks! Astor picked them up after work while I was preparing dinner. Well… preparing… I stopped at the cafe at the camping next to us and bought the Norwegian speciality «raspeball».

This is a speciality in the west coast of Norway so Cecilie and Thomas was not familiar to it. But they liked it and we had a long chat in our house. Later we drove them back to the boat and we took a look inside, into a total different boat from ours.

After this I started an education on web to became a journalist. I am always looking for something to write about. But it is still difficult to ask people for an interview, specially in the beginning. One day Astor could tell me it was a french boat in the guest harbour, an youtube channel!! Exciting!! They had some problem and came to Astor`s office to get help. They were not talking to Astor, but as collegues they are talking to each other. So Astor came home and told me what to write about, this french family!

So I was thinking, how to come in contact with theese guys?? That week/weekend I was so busy, we were prepering a J70 competition in our yacht club and I couldn`t see how I could manage to be a host for a family as well… But I realized that I could invite them to this competition. Then I could have a short break talking to them. If they still stayed in Florø…. Since they have a Youtube-channel, it was not difficult to find them, and I sent them a text message on messenger and asked them what plans they had for the next days. Saturday = no wind, Sunday = too much wind… = staying in Florø for the weekend. So they were happy to meet us Saturday.

I picked them up in the harbour and we drove to the yacht club. As I said, it was no wind and there was no sailing. I was sorry they couldn`t see any sailing that day. But we had really good cakes and coffee!!  I realized I didn`t had time to interview them, but I wanted to write a bit about them here in the blog. They had been sailing for 11 years, and they have a beautiful daughter, Eden, she is 9 years old. They hadn`t tried to sail until they found «La Desirade», so for a while everthing was new. The last winter they came through Shetland to Bergen, and sailed to the area around Ålesund. They stayed in Valldal for the summer working for a while. And now they are on their way south. They have a plan to find a nice place to stay for the winter, and maybe get a job to survive.

Sunday they decided to stay in Florø because of the wind, so I invite them for dinner after we finished the competition. We picked them up again and we served shrimps in the Norwegian way.

It was really fun, and we learned a lot from each other. I had two years of french at school, almost 35 years ago, but I remember some words. And they tried to learn some Norwegian. After dinner we drove them to the town, to the viewpoint in Storeåsen, hoping for å nice spot at sunset.

Unfortunatly there were some fog in the horizont so it was not perfect, but it was okay. We drove back to their boat and they invited us onboard.

Astor tried to help Micka with some AIS problems. We stayed for a while until we had to go back home, it had been a really busy weekend, so we were tired.  

Micka, Linda and Eden will continue travelling La Desirade so I will recommend you to follow them on Youtube!

So what did this meeting give me? A lot!! It is not scary to contact other people. And it is also a good feeling doing something nice for other people. Maybe you will have a friend for life? We will still follow theese people and maybe we will meet somewhere someday…

So, if you are thinking about contacting someone, or do something for someone else – just do it!