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Oslo means God’s Field. The sail from Fredrikstad up the Oslofjorden has reminded us of our Puget Sound country. We understand why the Norwegian immigrants in our family settled on the Northwest Coast of North America, it looks like the Norwegian Coast. Evergreen forests, protected inland waterways, rocky islets and cold clear water. We have come to recognize a happy contentment in the Norwegian people too.  They love their boats and their bays and they are out in force this being the peak of the summer holdiday. From Fredrikstad we sailed first to Klokkerbukta where we anchored amidst many happy small boats, families towing their kids on skis and tubes, Then we sailed to Son, a town at the southern entrance to the narrows of the Oslofjorden, and spent a night at the town guest dock with dozens of other transient boats. We enjoyed meeting Irene and Robert sailing their Bavaria 38 and showing each other our boats. Robert was kind and willing to help me raise the furling asymmetric spinnaker on DOVE for the first time (at the dock!) so now we have a sail more or less ready for light downwind sailing.

After Son, we sailed up to Sandspollen where we lost the summer weather and rode out a storm at anchor.  From there we motored in light wind and rain to the Royal Norwegian Yacht Club, Dronningen, in Oslo, where the kind and capable harbor masters, Martin and Peter, independently helped us when our motor failed to start. Martin found us a dealer available to work on the problem and even did some basic electrical diagnosis. Volvo dealer Tim Wang of Sjosenteret Killingen came to us in his boat within an hour of Martin’s call and towed us to his dock in Killingen. His excellent mechanic quickly discovered our engine was in agroup known to have a bad ‘black box’ that Volvo had notified all authorized installation and service centers to replace back in February. So the black box was replaced under warrnaty and we had our required 20-50 hour service and were ready to go by the end of the day. Thanks Tim and Ebber at Sjosenteret Killingen and thanks to Martin and Peter at KNS, Dronningen.

Now we are at anchor at a beautiful anchorage a short sail west of central Oslo, swimming off the back of the boat and soaking up the warm rays of the sun that have returned to God’s Field.