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Kjøpmannskjær, Norway – August 17th

59°10’32.2″N 10°23’08.2″E

Destination 1: The Caribbean…via the European coastline and either the Canary Islands or Cape Verde.

Stop 1: Jomfruland Island, Norway

FINALLY!…Departure day has finally arrived – or more rightly said, we were finally able to leave after a few setbacks & late packages arriving. We were like over-ripe bananas, about to go bananas. Living in a sailboat with tools & boxes piled up is not very comfortable, even though we were spoiled with waterfront seating for all meals

. The boys & we were getting restless & wondering if we would ever manage to leave -ever manage to put an end to the, seemingly, endless list of things to repair or purchase. And, with the two major setbacks mentioned in Blog 1, we felt like we were never going to get to leave! 🙁

But, then – we did!

Stop 1: Jomfruland, Norway

There we were, about to leave for a long-term sail trip on an Indian Summer kind of day – actually, the first day of school for the boys! It was all kind of surrealistic.

Our point of departure is in Kjøpmannskjær where ELANE was docked in Norway – a 45 minute drive from our house in Melsomvik.

Despite of our frustrations of not meeting our goals on time, we couldn’t have asked for a better day to leave! No wind, but then again, no worries! We had sun and up to 28°C (being the warmest of the year) = rest & relaxation! A gorgeous, gracious, gentle start for our tired, battered souls. We were full of hope – dreaming of the chance to experience all that the YouTube sailors get to experience .

We decided to take a medium-long trip to start off our journey by motoring 6hrs to a little island of the coast of Kragerø called Jomfruland. Usually motoring a sailboat is uncomfortable, but since there was no wind, the waters were smooth as a baby’s butt ;). Plus, it gave us the chance to stop & take a swim on the way to cool off. Even Mommy took a dip – which means it HAS to be warm! 😉

Our anchorage at Jomfruland was as perfect as could be. We had been there once, last year (2019) & knew what to expect. The waters were calm & creamy, Norwegian summer was lingering and the water was warm. We swam, took the dinghy to land to go for a nature-trail hike/run & grilled-out in the sun. Such a perfect & relaxing way to start out our travels. So thankful & so refreshed. We stayed for one night and then departed the next evening, sailing into the gorgeous sunset for our first night-sailing. Up until this time we hadn’t used any sails yet! So, getting them up in the fair winds was fun…good to see that everything was in order, too! After so many setbacks, time-consuming projects and delays in our preparations, it was satisfying & relieving to see some success & progression finally! We felt ready for taking on the challenge of ocean sailing.