After seeing the Hardangerfjord only in the rain, we were quite lucky with the weather in the Lysefjord. Going towards, through the Høgsfjord we had very lovely wind and above 20°C which is quite warm up here. At the entrance to the Lysefjord we stop at the gas station to top up our little 50l tank. Tomorrow there will be less wind and deep in the fjord there won’t be much left of it.
The entrance to the fjord is marked by a huge bridge and starting here, the wind became very ‘fjordy’ – meaning very light but with strong and surprising gusts dropping from the mountains. The combination of absolutely breathtaking landscape with sudden gusts had me hold the main sheet in the left and the camera in the right. – The good old Pentax with the 200mm zoom already traveled the world with us and still works great after more than 40.000 images.
In the evening we tie up at the ferry dock in Songesand – in the outer most corner, which is the only place with more than 2m depth at low water. Directly beside the little harbour a little stream, a mini waterfall and four go on discovery while little Kilian is already asleep and a fish curry is being prepared.
On the second day we pass a picturebook waterfall, sail past below the famous Preisektolen, east, deeper into the Lysefjord. The weather is fantastic, the wind absent and the day is so great it would be worth the long travel by itself. These nearly vertical mountain faces, hundreds of meters high. On both sides, everything sprinkled with lush green, reflected in the sea. No other boat but us, no other people except the one head looking down from the mountain. We go left and right and take a closer look at whatever we want. We sail east until we can see the Kjeragsbolten on the south side. We sail a big circle, visit yet another gorgeous waterfall and head back to the west.
Without wind, we arrive in Stavanger at nine in the evening. Full with amazing impressions, with a light sunburn but also a little bit sad: Tomorrow I’ll have to bring Bruno to the airport. Nearly 700 miles we sailed together in the past three weeks. And it’s been a beautiful and very harmonic time. It also made me very proud and happy to see how enthusiastic Bruno is about sailing. The fastest trips were his favourite, the most exciting the days tacking through the swedish skerries and when it was raining and we had to reanchor a third time in the pouring rain, he never lost his humour. But for six people, the boat really is a bit small and our cats need someone to take care about them…
