Off to Sweden!

Sandefjord turned out to be quite a nice town, and we had a bit of an explore in case we did end up living here. It’s a bit of a tourist town, with a very strong whaling history which was interesting to read about. While Russell went for his interview, Angela went to Biltema to try and get them to replace our funky battery, and some other stores to get some maintenance bits we needed. This proved harder than anticipated, and would have required giving the battery to them for a week while they tested it, so we decided it was a later problem. Once Russell was back, we chilled out for a while in the sun on the dock, with the aim to head out of the fjord a little in the afternoon. The afternoon was so lovely, and we were both tired, so we decided to have a bit of luxury and stay an extra night at the marina. Turned out that since it was now September, it was off season and they didn’t have a payment system set up, so we got a free night!
We set off the next morning for an easy 30Nm sail to Sweden! Crossing the border would mean that we had now technically sailed the entire length of Norways coast. Pretty crazy. First we had to get there though, and with a lighter breeze than forecast, it was painful sailing on just the main. So much so that Russell got sick of it and dropped the Genoa to tape and stitch it back together on the go. After an hour or so of surgery, we hoisted the Genoa and we were back to full speed! We had a lovely, easy sail in the sun (although the rolling swell was still doing funky things to Angela’s stomach), and as we approached the Swedish border, we put our courtesy flag up, poured some scotch, and aimed at one of the yellow buoys marking the border. It was a very weird feeling, and a bit hard to comprehend that we actually made it to Sweden. This wasn’t quite the end for us though - we still had to get the yacht to Oslo! We found a cute bay to stay in tucked away amongst a bunch of islands, but unfortunately it rained the whole time, and there were no fish, mushrooms and very few berries to be had, so Angela decided she didn’t like Sweden. On our little walk we did see a deer wandering through the bush though. When we left our little bay the next day and sailed back across the border into Norway, we decided we should probably give Sweden a better chance than just our one night, but not just yet. For now, the time had come to make our way up the Oslo fjord, toward our final destination of Oslo. We only went a few nautical miles up it, wanting to stop at a really cool looking island, but since it was a Friday night, this was already full of boats, so we went a bit further to a quiet little bay with a buoy we could pick up. We spent the rest of the evening watching a train of yachts heading past to a regatta, judging the tackiness of their names as they went past.Read more