55°37.3'N 5°00.9'E to Flekkefjord
I wake up from a slumber when I hear two successive sighs next two me. Last night the North Westerly light air made place fror a Southerly gentle breeze - indicating imminent change - and 'Easy' is making good progress towards Stavanger. 'Sir John' - for some reason auto pilots need a nickname - is happily steering, Koen is reading in the cabin and I must've dozed off at watch. Slightly puzzled I look over the side, from where the sighs came. Dolphins!
I scrable down for the camera and for fifteen minutes try to capture them. On a moving boat photographing these incredibly fast creatures proves a near impossibility, so most pictures show the distinct blur that marks the absolute amateur among marine photographers. But if not unique, the experience of dolphins swimming along the boat and playing with it is at least 'esxclusive'. Later in Egersund we would meet a Dutch couple, with obvious experience sailing these waters, who had never seen dolphins. Were these Atlantic white sided dolphins, bottle nosed ones? I don't know, I'll leave that to the marine biologists....
It is pitch black when we enter Flekkefjord. It isn't night that causes the darkness, by now we're at the latitudes where it never gets dark at night, but the severe weather that awaits us. Twelve hours before, I contacted Rogaland Radio - a bit tired of the Norwegian only weather forecasts and slighly worried by the ever increasing wind - who were nice about it and explaned in English that a cold front was nearing with heavy rain accompanied by 8 Beaufort wind with gusts up to 45 knots. Not looking for trouble we decide to divert to Flekkefjord instead of pushing for Stavanger.
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| 'Easy' in Flekkefjord |
The first thing we hear when we moor in Flekkefjord is the Dutch "Goedenavond!", uttered by two teenage girls in a RIB. Later they appear to be the daughters of the local fysotherapist, who moved here in 1992 and - very considerately - comes to visit next afternoon. First, we need a drink and some sleep.
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| Next morning's first view of Flekkefjord |
