Random tourist

AKA  Last stop of the summer: Gothenburg.


One thing I like about crewing on a sailboat is the random places you tend to end up, like, for example, The Kingdom of Sweden. (Kingdom, really? Do kingdoms still exist?) I have a long list of places on my bucket list - more than I have time for - and yet here I am in another city, country even, that I'd never even considered. And, why not?

Gothenburg was founded as a fortified city by royal charter in 1621 by King Gustavus Adolphus and has reinvented itself many times over during the past four centuries. It is very 'European-looking' to me, in an almost generic way, by which I mean it has city wall remnants, old buildings with interesting brickwork, canals crossed by many bridges, parks with huge trees, cobblestone pedestrian streets, bakeries wafting fresh pastry aromas, sidewalk cafés perfect for people watching, squares with statues, fountains large and small, and flower shops on many corners.

Being here the last sunny weekend of summer is lovely. So is the fact that we're in a marina right downtown. I can walk off the boat and it's literally steps to the opera house (where I take in the most bizarre modern dance performance anyone could imagine), to the main square (which is hosting an international food festival with fantastic taster plates), to the old town (where I do a guided tour and learn a smattering of the history), to a huge mall, a hundred pubs and restaurants, many parks and museams, and even the main train station (from which I will leave (sob)).

And, as with so many places, it is not only the history and architecture that are interesting but also the more recent developments. Sweden has opened its doors over the past few decades to large numbers of migrants, 20% of its current population is from elsewhere, a huge real time social experiment the results of which may not yet be clear.

I'm not sure I'd put Gothenburg on my top ten essential places to visit in a lifetime list, and I can't imagine ever coming back, but I'm happy to have been... and it does have the best burgers in the world hands down!



(I tried to take a few photos of statues and buildings and the canals but they ended up looking pretty standard so instead...

...  a last shot of the boat I've been on this summer...

.... and the view from her in downtown Gothenburg. )

That's all folks!

At sea...

...Faroes to Sweden
AKA One last big blow.
AKA Be careful what you wish for.

The last leg of my sailing trip this summer is 600 nm from the Faroes to Sweden - about 5 days. I tell Drew that I'm willing to wait for good sailing weather but we're so far behind on his schedule that he just wants to go. Saturday morning he puts his wife on a plane to Europe (she's not interested in passages of any length anymore which is why I'm here to crew for him) and we head out to sea. He's rechecked windguru and windyty and downloaded the latest GRIB files. None of them agree with each other with respect to where the wind won't be coming from but they all agree that there won't be any so it looks like we'll be motoring at least to start. I'm disappointed. I wanted one last good blow to finish up the summer with.

We untie and cast of the dock lines and motor over glass out of the harbour but as soon as we are in the sound 12 knots of wind appears from nowhere. Quickly we raise sails and kill the engine. This might be the only wind we get. An hour later out in the North Atlantic proper the wind rises straight to 20 knots and then builds from there. Not, at all, what had been forecast. Seas are choppy and confused. And we're close hauled.

Drew is the first to get sick. Initially he alterates between going to vomit in his head (washroom) and then lying on a cockpit bench looking very green but soon he is so sick that he just opens the bimini zipper and vomits straight onto the deck. My body reacts differently - I always have multiple foul fluids spewing simultaneously - so I have no choice but do dash repeatedly to my head and vomit explosively in a bucket while snot runs out my nose, cold sweat pours off my forehead, and diarrhea spurts from my other end. The combined smell is lovely.

For the next 12 hours we have what would have been great sailing if either of us had felt any better off than roadkill. We lie on alternate sides of the cockpit fully dressed in boots and hats and full foul weather gear. I have my alarm set to ring each 30 minutes and we take turns getting up to check the AIS and radar to see if any other boats are about. It's freezing cold and seems to get dark very early. Outside it's squally, raining on and off, and, with random larger waves, boatloads of seawater are forever being dumped on us. The cockpit is almost waterproof but not up to taking a beating like this. By midnight the cushions we are lying on and the blankets we pull up over ourselves are cold, wet, and salty but we are both so sick we barely notice and certainly don't care. As the wind continues to rise we work as a team to reef the sails once, twice, three times and then take the mizzen completely in so we have just two small triangles of cloth out. The boat flys up waves fast enough to get airborn only to crash down the other side with a slap that is a bang.

By 4 am Drew seems slightly better so, after a particularly violent episode of dry retching, I choose to sleep on the couch in the main salon instead of going back up to the cockpit. At 7 am it's getting light out and the boat is still flying over the water. I drag myself up to replace Drew on watch and he rolls over, pulls his wet blanket a bit more tightly around himself and lies as if dead. "I'm glad we're sailing," I can't resist saying. Drew opens one eye and gives me the wryest of smiles, "Lili would not be enjoying this," he replies. I am too tired and too sick to figure out if I am or not. I know I'm starting to get seriously dehydrated but also that if i took even a sip of anything it would just come right back up. I go to check the instruments and see that we have a near collision with a military vessel coming up. Tracking its progress and making sure we don't actually hit it will keep me out of trouble for the next half hour. And so the day continues...

Eventually the wind drops and swings round beside us, the seas settle, and we pass between the Shetland and Orkney Isles without stopping and then are into the North Sea where hundreds of oil rigs tower out of the water like gargantuan alien abodes from a futuristic sci-fi movie, tugs tow drilling rigs about, and huge tankers are a dime a dozen. There are fishing trawlers, many with their AIS turned off, presumably to hide their location from others in the same business, and research vessels dragging five mile long sounding instruments. Drew says in 10 years at sea he has never seen so much activity.

The next morning the wind has lowered some more and is directly behind us so we rig both poles and sail all day wing on wing with Norway on our left, Denmark on our right, and Sweden straight ahead. The boat skims effortlessly along under a blue blue sky. We shed our foul weather gear for the first time since leaving Halifax, shower, and sit warm, clean, and dry out in the sunny cockpit. It's our last full day of sailing and conditions could not be better. We have the windows open. Tunes are playing. It is heavenly. Yes, the day is perfect. Perfect. Not even one last whale could make it better. Drew says he'll take me out for supper tomorrow night. What? Are we going to be there already? I don't want this leg to end. I can't believe that the summer is almost over. I want to sit right here, on the starboard cockpit seat, with the boat gently rocking and the sun warming my back, forever. I wish once again that life was more like plums and you could somehow bottle up the best parts and save them to take back out to enjoy again later. Instead I'll just have to try and remember: what the rocky Norwegian coast looks like, the joy of being warm, how much Drew makes me laugh... (And just when I didn't think the day could possibly get better I did the first night shift - still sailing blissfully along wing on wing - and stars came out as the sky darkened and a bright orange moon roze lazily from the sea and then pink and green northern lights danced for hours as if in celebration...).  

Man, it's been a great season!

Foggy Faroes

Five days in the Foggy Faroes...

Every morning starts out foggy. Some days the sun burns through and the sky actually turns blue. Some days the fog sweeps in and out like waves on a beach engulfing you completely, being blown away, and then rolling back over you again. Some days the clouds fall and the mist, almost heavy enough to be called drizzle, persists, and you end up spending at least part of the afternoon hunkered down in a rustic mountain refuge nursing a hot drink and taking time to chat. But it's all good. When the mist lifts the views are spectacular and when it descends it dampens everything (grass, sound, you) creating a silent fairytale landscape likely inhabited by elves and pixies.

From our base in the capital, Torshavn, we split up and used the extremely modern effecient public transport to explore the islands (4 day pass including unlimited bus and ferry trips and 4 helicopter rides $150 CAD). Drew tried to get to most of the museams and art galleries as the focus for his days, Lili, a knitter and lover of wool products, looked for unique shopping opportunities, and I chose the best of the many day hikes.

The islands are like a giant's fingers rising up from the water with long bands of hills separated by deep fjord-like sounds. The hills, old volcanic flows heavily eroded during the last ice age, and more recently by wind and water, are predominantly orgasmically gorgeous porphoryric amigdaloidal basalt. They are almost completely treeless covered instead with grass and sheep. They are green, very green, and the grass, criss crossed with sheep paths over a thousand years old grows in distinct waves. Steep cliffs protect deep harbours and provide nesting sites for millions of seabirds. Water collects on the hilltops, meanders through alpine meadows, cascades down the hillsides, and falls 100's of meters off the cliffs directly into the sea. Tiny villages, hamlets really, which were isolated for millennia, still retain all their original charm.

Hundreds of km of brand new high quality roads, dozens of impressively long tunnels, bridges, causeways, ferries and associated harbours, and many heliports have all been paid for with EU money even though the Faroes refused to join the EU in order to continue their annual whale slaughters. But I digress. The islands are not yet a major tourist destination, the whole country is one large safe old fashioned village where the honour system is used to pay for coffee and unaccompanied children regularily travel from place to place by land, sea, and air. On any given day you are unlikely to see more than a handful of other people on even the most popular of hikes and you might well be the only one dropped off by helicopter on one of the more remote islands!

The Faroes were not on my bucket list. Not even the extended version. I'd never considered them as a place to go. But I am thrilled to have been. They are fabulous, fantastic, and unforgettable. I could happily have stayed for months.

(#privilegedtobehere)

Vestmannaeyjar

A walk around Vestmannaeyjar

I wish I could say I took a helicopter tour ... but this is just a photo of a poster that was on a wall. It does show Vestmannaeyjar well.

On the way in we sailed past rocky islets...

... and cliffs that looked like modern art.

We were the first sailboat there so got to dock at the one floating visitor dock. Later boats had to raft. The occupants on the small black sailboat have to climb up and over the bigger navy sailboat and then the white, yellow, and blue fishing boats each time they want to go ashore.

I hiked the hill across from the marina...

... saw a gazillion puffins ...

... and a few puffin egg collectors.

Heading back into town I passed many piles of fishing nets.

The Volcano museum had a complete excavated house in it which had been totally buried in the 1973 eruption and the aquarium, as well as large tanks of live fish and a great rock collection, had several excellent taxidermi displays.

I climbed both the volcanic cones...

... and could see my old friend Ejyafjallajokull peeking out between the clouds far away on the mainland.

If you dug a wee hole on the volcano the rocks - 40 years after the eruption - we're too hot to touch. I was amazed.

What a delightful way to spend a free day!

PS We were supposed to leave tomorrow but the wind is blowing the wrong way so we'll have to stay another day and visit the local geothermally heated swimming pool spa that comes with water slides, hot and cold tubs, saunas and steam rooms, water fall massages, and an inverted rock wall that your climb up till you fall back in the water... what a shame!

Iceland Hike

Landmannalaugar to Skogar in 4 days.

(THE classic Icelandic hike.)

AKA Lost in Landscape

(NB: no one got lost... it was just that the landscape was so huge that you felt tiny.)

The bus ride from Reykjavik to the trailhead was 4 hours of driving through amazing landscape, which I often feel gives a good indication of how a hike itself will pan out, and this time was no exception. The best bit of the bus ride however was that I ended up sitting beside Crystal, a Canadian outdoor education teacher and wilderness guide extraordinaire, also on her own, and also planning to do the same hike as me. We agreed to start out together - though as I am a very slow hiker I doubted our alliance would last - and we ended up hiking with each other for the full four days! She was an absolute dream, I'm not sure I would have finished without her support, certainly I would not have had nearly as enjoyable a time. (And, as she is incredibly cute, is always smiling, and rocks my favourite 'Yes! I am here!' pose, she features in several of my photos.)

So. Day 1 the bus deposited us at Landmannalaugar at noon and we hiked up up up for the rest if the day over and along beside an incredible obsidian lava flow (relatively young at only 14 000 years old). Obsidian, also known as volcanic glass, forms when lava cools extremely quickly. This whole lava flow had erupted, flowed, and hardened underneath a glacier. Our path also took us past many fumeroles spouting hot sulphur rich gasses and over large snowfields. Just awesome.

Day 2 we had hot springs, lovely streams bordered with stunning green vegetation, and a long stretch across a stony desert filled with wild flowers.

Day 3 brought rolling hills and many river crossings some of which had bridges and others of which required wading.

Day 4 was the grand finale in which we hiked up up up to the very top of the brand new 2010 Ejyafjallajokull volcanic cone and then back down the other side of the mountain past waterfall after waterfall. If you're going to hike down 1 km vertical there is no better way to do it than with an endless set of waterfalls beside you!

In short Landmannalaugar to Skogar was 4 days of bliss. We were extremely fortunate to have cool cloudy weather everyday - perfect for hiking if not for photos - in a place where rain or fog are the two most common forecasts, we met many other great people along the way, and we finished with only good stories to tell. A huge shout out goes to Joan Kalechstein who noticed I was in Iceland and recommended I do this hike. THANK YOU!

From the bus widow. 

Crystal was a natural at the classic "I am happy to be here!" pose.

Who else would chose to hike over snow August long weekend!

I considered cropping the random person out but left them in for scale. 

Typical long distance view .

Typical close up view.

Typical trail view.

Attempt to show flowers in stony desert... note glacier behind mountain.

Crystal checks out a canyon.

Close up of dyke cutting through lava flows on far side of canyon wall.

Some rivers had to be waded...

... some had movable bridges since the braided channels kept changing ...

 ... and some merited permanent structures.

We made it to the top of Ejyafjallajokull!

Note Crystal posing.

Another of the many many waterfalls.

Crystal and I still smiling day 4.