We decided to leave Brønnøysund, even though the wind conditions wouldn’t change until the next day. We only made a short leg to a nice anchoring spot, where we would take the dinghy to shore and take the cats on a nice hike to Torghatten.

Torghatten is famous for the huge hole running straight through the mountain. The tunnel is around 160 metres long and 35 metres high, and was carved out by the sea over thousands of years. The hike up to the hole is relatively short and easy, but a little steep.

The weather was not on our side, but with the right clothing, we took our chances and prioritised an adventure over getting soaked. It was worth it, because we had a lot of fun and, even though the weather wasn’t great, we had some cool views and took amazing pictures with the fog and clouds. The cats and we were wet to the bone when we came back, but we didn’t really care. The cats were so tired that they fell asleep before they were even done drying and cleaning themselves. That’s what we call a successful day!

Despite the forecast, the wind didn’t really help us get south. There was actually hardly any wind at all. We still wanted to make some progress tho, so we motored most of the time before choosing a sheltered anchorage for the night, as the winds were supposed to get pretty strong.

We were hopeful for good wind and got up early to make the best of it. Shortly after we left the anchorage, when the wind should have helped us get out into the more open ocean, we only had big waves and not much wind. We also discovered that our radar reflector on the shroud was hanging down because the zip tie had broken. The radar reflector is important because it makes it easier for other boats to see us on their radar, so we definitely didn’t want to lose it!

We decided to seek shelter behind an island so that I could climb up the mast to repair it. This worked out pretty well and, after that, we hoped we would finally have good winds to make some progress south. Annoyingly, this didn’t happen. We were able to sail a little, but not like we had planned, so we found another anchorage for the night.

After a few disappointing days weather-wise, we finally got lucky! The conditions were good enough to make a long leg, and we were able to sail most of the day. When the day turned into night, the wind died down a little, so we used the engine for the night. This was actually pretty convenient because it’s easier to navigate between the islands and around the big ships.

It was also our first really dark night with other boats and obstacles around us, so it was a good opportunity to practise. We then had to get fuel at 3 AM. Reto chose a harbour where we had already stayed on our way north, which made it a lot easier since we knew where the fuel dock was and how to approach it.

The rest of the night was a lot of navigating between narrow and shallow passages before we were able to sail the last few hours all the way into the port of Ålesund.

We arrived after Lunch and had a slow afternoon exploring the city and cleaning up the boat from the passage. The next day, we walked around the whole city, had some Swiss people say hi when they saw our big Swiss flag on the boat, and then enjoyed a beautiful sunset with the cats from the viewpoint overlooking Ålesund.

After recharging, we decided to make another long leg. We didn’t decide where to go yet, just that we would keep going for as long as the wind was good and the spirtits high.

We had to pass Stad again, the infamous peninsula that has long been known for its challenging and exposed waters. The Vikings were already well aware of how difficult this stretch could be and even had ways of avoiding the exposed waters around Stad by dragging their ships over land.

After our uncomfortable sail from last time, we decided to sail further away from the land this time, and we had a pretty pleasant journey. The wind was with us for almost the whole passage. We only needed the engine for about 3.5 hours during the 29-hour journey from Ålesund all the way to Bergen.

We chose Bergen as our destination because we really liked the city, the wind was about to die down, and we knew there would be a somewhat well-equipped marine store there.

We ran all our errands and enjoyed our time in Bergen when, all of a sudden, someone knocked on the boat and screamed, “Reto! Karin!” We were SO confused! I looked out of the companionway and saw a somehow familiar face, but it took me a second to realise that it was the same guys we had seen in Ålesund — the Swiss !

Of course, we invited them onto the boat for a drink and had a great chat with them. It’s really impressive that it took us both roughly the same amount of time to get from Ålesund to Bergen — them by car and us by sailboat. Of course, they made a few more stops along the way than we did, but we were still feeling pretty proud.

Also, what are the chances of seeing the exact same people twice in only 72 hours?!

Stay tuned to see what we will do during our last few days in Norway!

PS: Turns out if you go to the fishmarket in Bergen just before they close, you get 50% off the take away stuff!

Day 124: Brønnøysund NO - Torghatten NO