With a vague long-term plan of retiring in 2004 and then sailing into the sunset, there was no hurry to move Taniwani further south in the first year. During the many visits while Taniwani was built, we had fallen in love with the beautiful sailing area of Sweden and Norway, and thought it would be a great place to get used to our new boat. In addition it seemed wise to stay close to the yard in the first year in case of warranty claims or new wishes.

Like so many of us, we could not afford more than six weeks of sailing in this summer, and Harald had to plan to fly to the states from somewhere for a few days in between. All this lead to an easy going and wonderful round trip of just over 1000 miles, that ended where we started.

The following is a collection of short reports from this round trip.

24.6.2000

After a long but smooth car ride from Frankfurt, we arrived in Henån last evening. We decided to leave our car here at Najad for the six weeks of cruising our new boat. The crew for this trip: Harald, Beate, young son Felix and nephew Ulf. We have just had our first breakfast on board (see picture) and are now waiting for some work to complete before we can leave Henån and start our trip. The weather is reasonable, about 18 C, partially cloudy, with occasional rain showers and very light winds from the south.

27.6.2000

Most work on the boat completed, we just arrived in Gulholmen, a small fishing village on a small island just off the bigger island of Orust. Very attractive little place and great to stroll around!

With Najad we had appointed to meet again tomorrow at the main island, in order to get the inverter replaced. It finally arrived from the Dutch maker Viktron, only three hours after we left the yard. Leif from Najad had agreed to meet us by car at Ellös, so that we wouldn’t have to sail all the way back in. After that rendezvous we plan to sail north.

The weather is still mixed, we had force 6 from west and it was fun sailing in calm water behind the protecting skerries. Now, at 8 in the evening, the sun is shining and will probably do so for at least another two hours.

29.6.2000

Today we sailed from Smögen to Grebbestad. While we had to tack against a modest 12kn wind from NNW, we really enjoyed a fantastic sail. A first impression on how well our new boat goes to windward.

The previous day started with a short trip from Gullholmen to Ellös, that’s where the Hallberg Rassies are built, and Leif changed the defective inverter, helped us swing the compass, and gave us some great advice as to which places to visit and what to watch out for in this sailing area. Now everything seems to work fine.

Once done with these final tasks, we sailed on to Smögen, a place we had already visited on our maiden voyage in April. It was now substantially busier and filled, amd we tied up alongside a motor cruiser. And as mentioned, today we sailed some 38 miles further north to Grebbestad in perfect sunshine.

Grebbestad was nice and very convenient, we were able to enjoy a nice meal right at the dock in front of our boat.

2.7.2000

Today we arrived in a nice island group right at the entrance of the Oslofjord. We are now anchored at 17m of depth between several small islands. Right now we have a light wind from the southwest, blue sky and a wonderful evening sun.

Our sailing today was the relative short stretch from Stromsted in Sweden to these islands, the Hvaler Islands belonging to Norway. Ulf and Felix took off with the dinghy to find the next pub some mile or two away, where they hope to see a soccer game.

Yesterday we had a harbor day in Stromsted, for some work on board and some relaxation. The day before was some fast and rougher sail from Grebbestad to Stromsted. Nevertheless it was a nice trip for non-seasick part of the crew.

5.7.2000

In the mean time we have moved up the 60 mile long Oslofjord. Last evening (Tuesday) we arrived in Oslo. Sailing through the fjord was fantastic and mostly with spinnaker, which we tried for the first time.

The Spi-Equipment worked just fine and it seemed like child's play to set and recover it.

Gliding this way through the picturesque fjord was sailing at it's very best.

Now, in Oslo,  the weather is gorgeous, but hardly any wind, which doesn’t bother us as we planned an Oslo-day anyway.

When we arrived in Olso and where looking for a place to tie up to, we found the eastern pier almost empty and the orange paint on the pollards suggested that the place wasn't meant for visiting yachts.

So we asked a Navy ship that was moored there and the officer told us we should tie up some 100m further south, since they would have to come and go with members of the royal family.

So we got a great place just under the old fort, and where able to stay for the whole weekend, until the morning that we wanted to leave anyway, when an excited harbor master spotted us and told us to leave immediately.

Obviously he had the weekend off and nobody else bothered, and so we could leave with fond memories of Oslo, despite the overfilled yacht harbor.

15.7.2000

Since our last note from Oslo, we have come a long way to Arendal, where Taniwani is now moored in the middle of incredible action, but more of that later and back to Oslo now:

Leaving Oslo we just moved some 10 miles further south into a nice bay. So far this bay was the only place where we had some success fishing: In just a few minutes Felix had caught 3 and Beate one fish. All were between 1 and 1.5 kg.

Certainly the seagulls would have liked to pinch them from deck and we really had to guard the fishes. One of the seagulls was hanging out on our radar antenna and we had fun turning on the radar surprising the beast.

Still in the Olsofjord, another nice bay followed, probably the most beautiful one so far, and then a somewhat longer leg to Tønsberg which we found not that great and we would probably skip it the next time.

Our next stop was in Stavern, a fantastic anchorage between many islands. We spent two days at this place, one of them (Monday) the only real rainy day so far. Since then we have come to accept that a falling glass (from 1005 to 985) and a depression moving in, always brings sunshine!

On we went to Risör, a little town, where we could tie up just in front of a good restaurant. We enjoyed dining there while seeing our boat through the windows. Since Harald had to fly to Texas for a few days, we were looking for a decent place for the remaining crew to hang out and decided to try Arendal.

Still having some time left before Harald’s departure we made stop in a tiny and pretty little bay a few miles before Arendal, where we used our stern anchor and ran a line from bow to shore.

Now Taniwani is moored in the marina of Arendal, a place that turned out quite interesting for the crew with the speedboat world-championship going on for the whole weekend. With race teams and spectators from all over the world, the little town turned to a bustling international place.

23.7.2000

Today we rounded the infamous Cape Lindesnes and arrived at the beginning of the Norwegian west coast. We are now moored in the town of Farsund located at the entrance of the first deeper fjord. As it is time to think about the return trip, we will probably not go much further north along the Norwegian coast.

The current plan is to explore the fjord tomorrow and then leave toward the evening for Denmark. With our relatively fast boat we would be at the entrance of the Limfjord by next morning.

But there is more to report since our last note from Arendal: Harald returned from the states on Wednesday, and Taniwani left Arendal on the same evening to anchor at a nice place. Since then we have been moving from one nice anchorage to the next, all the way through a mace of tiny islands; beautiful and interesting to navigate.

A little island named Lyngholmane, where again we anchored between stern anchor and the bow tied up to the rocks ashore, we liked the best. A closer look at the picture of Taniwani in Lyngholmane shows Ulf on the top spreader. Our young crew started to enjoy hanging out high up on our 22m mast, and jumping from the lowest spreader (7m) is another new sport, aside of scuba diving and dinghy excursions.

But sailing between these anchorages was no less exciting, especially since the weather remained friendly, so that we had everything from smooth spinnaker glides to tacking and today a fast reach between small islands towards our destination.

We are all having a great time!!!

30.7.2000

Well, it is now a week since our last report from Farsund at the southwestern end of Norway. As we pointed out, we wanted to explore the fjord behind Farsund, before taking off for Denmark. Unfortunately we had to find out the hard way, that we didn’t fit under the big bridge, which is charted with 22m of clearance. Obviously we are taller than that.

Knowing it would be a tight fit; we had Felix up in the mast and approached very slow. From some two meters below the mast top Felix had the impression we would fit, well we didn’t and broke off the lightning rod. Certainly not a big problem, but we turned and looked for an alternative plan.

We took another small passage towards east and found a nice bay that looked like an Alpine mountain lake, with lots of sheep along the shore. There we had the second shock of the day, when a blood vessel in Ulf’s eye broke after scuba diving. It looked bad, and we returned to Farsund to check with a doctor. Fortunately we learned that it wasn’t a serious problem and once we had things under control again, we left as planned for Denmark around 7:30pm.

What followed was a wonderful night cruise that we all keep in fond memory. We moved quickly on a close reach through a starry night. Certainly it was also quite exciting as the stretch is quite busy with big ship traffic and lots of trawlers. But using radar we always had a clear idea of what was going on around us.

We entered the Limfjord at Thyboron the next morning at around 11 AM, and sailed on to Lemwig, the southernmost point of our journey. In Lemwig we were received by a friendly harbormaster that showed us to a nice place.

We found the contrast between Norway and Denmark huge: Denmark seems like one big sandbank and a long way from the shore the sea starts to shoal. Sailing at a depth of 20 – 30 m for several hours, feels odd after coming from Norway. But that was just the beginning: The Limfjord which cuts through the northern part of Denmark at a length of about 100 nautical miles, seems all but a fjord. Often it is so wide that both shores disappear behind the horizon, while at the same time the depth is some 4 meters.

Approaching shore, there isn’t much more to see than endless fields, cows and wind generators. For an overnight stay we approached the island of Livoe as close as we could possibly get, and still had to anchor a half-mile offshore in 2.5m depths. An impression of that gives the picture of Felix on the shore, with Taniwani a tiny spot in the far.

Exiting the Limfjord, the Baltic Sea remains shallow and we sailed some three miles from the shore at a depth of 6m. Going north along this shore we stopped at Saeby yesterday, a nice little harbor. Today we had a sunny and relaxing sail to Skagen, Denmark’s northernmost town.

We found the harbors crowded, almost like in the Med and really not many alternatives for anchoring outside. Spoiled by western Sweden and even more by Norway, we found Denmark interesting but not a cruising area that we would absolutely have to return to.

4.8.2000

Yesterday we arrived back in Henån and after cleaning and taking the sails off; we have to leave Taniwani tomorrow.  Since our last report we sailed from Skagen back to Sweden, and since we had a few days left we headed further north than our final destination. Again we went to Hunnebostrand, and the following day we anchored near Fjaellbaka in company of another nice Najad. As a last stop we anchored near Gullholmen again and yesterday we had a really nice down wind ride into the long sound towards Henån; just to make it harder to part from our wonderful new ship after this first wonderful summer. But we all hope to have many more fantastic journeys with Taniwani.