Crossing the North Sea - 60° 11' 48" N 00° 00' 00" E

After staring at the weather forecasting app for several days and listening to The Shipping Forecast, we decided to make the 200 nautical mile jump across the North Sea to Bergen starting Tuesday.  We waved farewell to Lava as they headed south to Orkney.  It was great fun buddy-boating with you Annemarie, Spike and Rossi and hope to do so again!

The conditions that would trigger us to leave Lerwick was wind in a favourable direction and the seas not to be too rough.  The North Sea has a reputation for some nasty conditions.  It is shallow and enclosed so the seas can become short, steep and very dangerous.  

The Shipping Forecast for Viking for Tuesday 10th June:

(Wind) Variable 3 or less at first in Viking otherwise cyclonic then becoming northwest 3 to 5, occasionally 6.  (Sea State) Slight or moderate, (Weather) showers, (Visibility) moderate or good.

We were sailing across Fair Isle, Viking and North Utsire sea areas of the Shipping Forecast

The forecast was good.  Wind, but not too much, reasonable seas and good visibility.  Our plan was simple, leave Lerwick, round Giant’s Leg and sail a heading of 080° for 174nm before wiggling through the islands and rocks into Bergen Havn.

We left Lerwick in the sunshine and skipped along with a lovely breeze over somewhat sloppy seas.  We were heading East North East and the swell was coming from the North so we were taking it on the beam which made the boat roll and life aboard a little uncomfortable.  But it was great sailing as we crossed from the western to the eastern hemisphere!  We have now sailed across a few imaginary lines - the Equator, the Arctic Circle, the Tropic of Capricorn and now, the Prime Meridian!

The joys of being at this latitude is it never really gets dark.  The sun sets after 11pm and rises again before 4am. There is a mere hour between last light and first light so night watches are mainly in the light!  We do, however, lose out on seeing the Northern Lights!

That's a teeny, tiny gap, will we fit??

The wind swung around to the west and dropped out about 03:30, making the sloppy seas even sloppier.  As we are cruisers and not racers, we started the engine and motor sailed into Norwegian waters and through the oil rigs.  We spotted land at 10:20am and headed for the narrow gap we needed to negotiate to enter the fjords that would lead us into Bergen.

We wound our way past pretty houses, ships, docks and yachts, squeezed between two cruise ships and several large work boats into the beautiful Bergen Havn and tied up slap-bang in the middle of town.

Hurray, we are now in Norway.

Bergen Havn, we cannot get much closer to the action than this!

---

And please remember that Blogger posts your comment as anonymous if you don't have an account, so please sign off with your name so we know who you are!