We leave hospitable Bragdøya at 9. 30 in the morning. Håkon, who saved the day for me yesterday with coffee and an open fire, is standing on the quay and sends us off with a gun salute.
The weather is grey and there is not a wind stirring so we row out through the archipelago. Our speed is about 3 knots.
After three-quarters of an hour’s rowing, Preben takes over my oar on the starboard side amidships, As always he tells tall stories. And when Tonny from the hold comes past to video film the answers of all the members of the crew to the question why we are on board the SEA STALLION, we are given the tale about Preben’s actually being out on conditional release and that the voyage is to be a form of gradual easing back to normal life.
To row the SEA STALLION, however, is heavy work and hard on the hands. After a spell of about three-quarters of an hour, Preben stops rowing and puts up his right hand as though he was sitting in the middlemost row in a class at school.
“Carsten... Carsten! I’ve got a blister...!”, comes a whimper from Preben up to the skipper on the raised afterdeck.
Apart from a smile the skipper pays no attention to his thin-skinned midship’s foreman. But Preben is not content with this.
“You know Carsten.... I’ve heard that there’s something in the pastries over on ‘Cable one’ that helps a lot against blisters.
And this time the skipper reacts, as he has obviously had a bright idea. At all events he takes the radio and calls up our faithful following ship and says that he has heard that pastries are supposed to be good for blisters.
And an hour later something fantastic happens; three large trays with freshly baked pastries come thundering over in a rubber dinghy from ‘Cable One’. Forgotten are the rain and the aching hands. One cannot help liking the folk over on the ship from Struer.
Queen Sonjas’s birthday. Early in the evening we arrive at the newly constructed harbour at Båly. The harbour lies a few kilometres west of Lindesnes, which is the most southerly point in Norway.
We have come here on tow. When we had got free of the islands and were back in Skagerrak where we had such a rough passage the other day, the skipper decided to test whether it would be possible for us to be towed behind ‘Cable One’. The weather is ideal. There is not much wind and the little there is, is coming from the south-west – the direction we need to go. Should we ever have serious need of a tow-rope from our accompanying ship, the situation might actually be extremely critical. It is good seamanship to be well prepared.
As we approach Båly harbour, a small Viking ship sticks its stem out from behind the metre-high jetty but withdraws immediately as though it has been frightened by what it has seen coming towards it.
We wonder for a moment whether we should give a mighty Viking roar as we round the jetty but we remain silent. The other ship is so tiny that it would be a shame to blow it over.
When the SEA STALLION has been tied up, we fill our stomachs with the latest magic from the cooks. Afterwards I ask Jens what I should call the dish and he says it is ‘Jens’ goulasch’.
We have not only come to Båly to eat, however. We are actually here first and foremost to be present at the reopening of the Spangereid canal. The canal is 930 metres long and links the Hølle bay with Skagerrak.
Tomorrow the Norwegian queen Sonja is coming to reopen the canal. She is already in the area, for today is her 70th birthday and she has therefore invited many members of the European royal houses on a voyage from Stavanger to Oslo. The Danish and Swedish royal houses will also be in the procession with their respective royal ships.
Opel Vectra and line-dancing, Båly harbour is a rather peculiar place. On the one side of a cliff lies the old fishing village with artistically delapidated Norwegian fishing shacks. On the other side there is a newly constructed harbour that has sprouted up from the water. Half-finished buildings and half-empty shops meet one, when one climbs up onto the quay and goes exploring. Although the place is only half a village, there is lots of life.
As always one is welcomed warmly and allowed to spend the night on the first floor above a shop selling fishing-gear. Soon the empty attic room is converted into a dormitory and office for the crew of the SEA STALLION.
I went for a short walk to inspect our new destination. And in the parking area I saw another strange sight.
An Opel Vectra 2.0 TDI is parked in between rain puddles and building materials. Both front doors of the car are standing open and the stereo machine is going at full strength. My ears detect a very discofile edition of the classical folk song with the refrain : ‘Whiskey in the Jar’.
The strangest thing is, however, the 20 women in front of the car. There are a couple of young ones but most of them are middle-aged and rather broad in the beam with waists that must once have been much more slender.
Two steps to the side, one step forward, and clap!
“They’re line-dancing in the middle of a gravel parking-lot in a harbour that looks most of all like a building-site”. That’s what I am thinking to myself as I stand there quietly for a moment. But they are smiling and laughing and enjoying themselves. And here am I: in my sailing clothes and rubber boots with a Norwegian woolly cap on my head and this is a summer day in July. As I walk along, I speculate for a while as to who actually looks most comical and have to admit that it is not impossible that it is the man from the SEA STALLION.
This is where Kraka came from. One kilometre north of Båly harbour – and along the canal that is to be opened tomorrow – lies the town of Spangereid.
I go down to the local petrol-station and buy some cigarettes for 65 Norwegian kroner for a packet! Why for heaven’s sake does everything have to be so expensive in Norway?
On the way back to the ship I discover an information board telling me that it was Spangereid from where Kraka came. The poor woman whom Ragnar Lodbrog (Hairy breeches) commanded to come to him not clothed nor naked, not fasting nor replete, not alone nor accompanied by anyone.
And as most of us probably remember, the clever Kraka came wearing a fishing-net, having taken a bite of onion and bringing with her a farm-dog.
Kraka belongs, as far as I know, to the world of myth but the information board could also tell me that a number of historical figures going right back to the Viking Age are claimed to belong to the family that go back to the result of the meeting between Ragnar and Kraka.
Tomorrow will be devoted to history, The history of a canal fra the eighth century that is to be reopened that day.