Revised: 22 FEB 2001
Revised: June 2, 2002
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Saturday, June 22, 2002
Dear Family and Friends,
It finally happened. Our new boat is, for the most part, finished, we’ve accepted delivery and we are on our way. Our new sailing yacht is absolutely the most beautiful yacht in the 112’ size range in the world today. She is gorgeous. Besides being beautiful she performs incredibly. She will do 10 to 12 knots in the slightest breeze. Swan had a party the night before we left for all the employees that worked on her the last two and ½ years. We had good food, drinks, music and then most of them came and toured her one last time. They all said she was the most beautiful yacht Swan had ever built. Hopefully we will start to see her in the yachting magazines before long.
We left the Nautor Swan Super Yacht facility Friday morning, June 21st. It was a cold gray day; we actually had some rain along the way. Good thing our boat was done because this is the biggest holiday weekend in all of Scandinavia. It is called Mid-Summer. Everyone gets together for good food, partying and Saunas. It is summer solstice, which is the longest day of the year. How they can tell the difference I don’t know, since it never gets dark here. I’m really glad that we are finally living on the boat now. I can make our room totally dark. In the hotel room I could not make it dark and we both had a terrible time sleeping. I feel so sleep deprived that the last 2days I’ve pretty much been doing nothing but sleeping.
We put our sails up (they are huge) and had a real nice sail all day Friday and through the night until this morning around 11:00. Then the wind died so we had to start motoring. We are on our way to Nynasham, Sweden to pick up our friend Mike Chambreau who will be with us until late July. He will get off after we tour the Norwegian fjords.
Gaymond has been so excited that unlike me sleeping all the time he can’t get any sleep. It will probably take a few more days for him to unwind and settle into a routine.
That’s it for now I just wanted everyone to know that we have the boat now and have started our journey. You should be getting updates from me of our journey this summer from Scandanavia to England than across to France, Spain, Portugal and into the Med where we plan to go to Gibralter, Mallorca, Sardinia, Northern Italy, Southern France and end up in Spain.
Take care, Cindy and Gaymond PS - Now that we are actually moving you can track us on the internet at www.purplefinder.com. Our user name is songsea and the password is seahorse. Once it locates us you can keep zooming in to get a more detailed location. It was only suppose to take our location once a day but apparently it is doing it twice a day. Have fun!
Sunday, June 30, 2002
Hi all,
After a nice sail to Nynasham, Sweden (Near Stockholm) we anchored in a beautiful bay. We picked up our friend Mike Chambreau (we were only a couple days late) and continued on our way towards Copenhagen. I believe it is 400 miles from Stockholm to Copenhagen. On the way we encountered some pretty nasty weather/seas. Our crew decided to duck behind an island and wait out the weather. We finally got into Copenhagen on Wednesday late afternoon. While we were here I wanted to try and find a friend from Denmark that we had made on our last trip here in 1996. Our friend Adam crewed for us crossing the North Sea then he went to school at UC Santa Cruz. While he was going to school there we became pretty good friends. With the help of some local Danish people I found a phone number for him and called it. I got an answering machine and of course the message was in Danish but I recognized his voice. I left a message letting him know where we were and how long we would be there. That evening he showed up at the boat. It was really exciting to see him. He introduced us to his wife of three weeks. We spent the evening together and made arrangements to have dinner together the next evening. It is really fun catching up with old friends.
While we were in Copenhagen, Gaymond and I took the dingy out and drove around all the canals that go through Copenhagen. It was fun seeing the city from this perspective. The weather has been ugly since we left Finland. At one point it just started pouring rain really hard so we went under a bridge and just waited until the rain stopped then we continued on our way. When we went back to the boat it looked so beautiful tied up to the esplanade with the Danish buildings in the background. I took some pictures. I’m attaching one. Unfortunately there aren’t any people around the picture so it is hard to get a perspective of the size of the boat. But I think the mast is as tall if not taller then the building it is in front of. That should help give you some idea.
Nautor Swan had sent two employees (Benne and Matte) with us to help with any problems we had along with way. If you ever see the boat you will be amazed at how complicated it is to keep everything running. There are alarms for everything. Being new it will take a while until things are running smoothly. They were a great help and very enjoyable to have along. They left us Saturday morning. We are now on our own It is either sink or swim. Hopefully we will swim.
We left Copenhagen on Saturday morning. Again we had a rough sail heading north to Goteborg, Sweden. The seas were rough and the weather was cold and rainy. Those Norweigan Fjords had better be as spectacular as we’ve been led to believe. I don’t want to be going through this misery for nothing. The Mediterranean is sounding really good to me right now. Every time I hear from my Mom she tells how nice the weather is and how much they are enjoying the swimming pool.
We will stay here tomorrow (Monday) before continuing North West on our way to Bergen, Norway. Our friends Josh and Kris Soskie will join us and spend a couple weeks exploring the fjords with us.
That’s it for now. Please think warm weather thoughts for this part of the world. I hate being cold.
Cindy and Gaymond Currently in Goteborg, Sweden
Kris and Josh – Bring WARM CLOTHES. Although supposedly the weather is going to be better next week.
Sunday, June 21, 2001
Hello,
We'll we've visited some of the Norwegian fjords and I can honestly say they are beautiful! Definitely worth a visit if you ever have the opportunity. Our guests left the boat yesterday. We are resting today and weather permitting we plan to start our crossing to England tomorrow. This should take 4 days. We will be out of email and telephone range during this time. We were having email problems, but our email should be working fine now. We have not been checking our email daily so it take a few days to get back to you.
I have attached my word file with my greeting and I have attached 3 pictures this time. It is so beautiful that I wish you were all here to see it.
Till next time,
Gaymond and Cindy
We managed to leave Goteburg, Sweden on July3rd and sailed all the way up to Bergen, Norway. We got a space to dock near and ferry and cruise ships. As we came in there must have been 80 people watching us. We seem to be getting a lot of attention everywhere we go. Most people in this part of the world have never seen sail boats this size. We did a good job docking. I was very nervous with so many people watching, but we managed to do it just right. Gaymond and I had been on the boat for 7 days without getting off so it was nice to be able to step off the boat and go for a walk. The town is really cute. There was an open-air market with all kinds of fresh fish and shellfish. They even had smoked seal and whale. I did sample them and they tasted fine, but I just couldn’t bring myself and buy any.
Our friends Josh and Kris arrived that afternoon. It is always exciting having our friends come join us for a while. We spent a couple days exploring the town and learning the history. We took a Funicular (a train pulled by a cable) to the top of a very steep hill that overlooks the area. The view was really beautiful. We then walked down the hill. It was fairly steep so the trail switched back and forth down the mountain. I was pretty sore the next day. (Kevin, I have actually NOT been working out, sorry). We then went to the home of classical music composer Edvard Greig. I didn’t know who he was but once I heard his music I recognized a lot of it. It was interesting learning about him and then going to the fjords and seeing where he got his inspiration to write his beautiful music. Gaymond learned about Mountain Maidens from the Greig museum/house and has been looking for a Mountain Maiden ever since. He spent all his free time either searching for a Mountain Maiden or fishing. I’m not sure if I should be concerned or not. We went to a few museums and discovered a wonderful restaurant. Actually that is my favorite part of traveling, finding the wonderful restaurants. We went back to that same restaurant 3 times.
The next day we started our journey north to explore Norway’s fjords. This would require us to be out on the North Sea for several hours but fortunately we finally got favorable wind conditions and we able to have a nice sail. This boat under the right conditions sails really fast. For several hours we were averaging 14 knots but there was a while where we were sailing 16 knots. That is fast for a sailboat. We sailed all day and night and the next day arrived at Storfjorden. We decided to go to this fjord because it is know for its waterfalls. We were not disappointed. There were many waterfalls but two were really memorable. One named Seven Sisters and one named Bridal Veil. We had Josh and Kris get out in the dinghy and take pictures of our boat in front of both waterfalls. It was really windy and white caps in the fjord but they were real troopers and got pictures for us. Kris had a hard time pulling the cameras out of the plastic bag and getting a picture before the next wave came over and drenched her. Of course they were soaking wet when they got back on the boat. Josh had to ring out his socks.
We then went to the town of Alesund. This was a really cute tourist town. From here we went to Nordfjorden. In this fjord we took a small cart pulled by a fjord horse (small, stocky, beige colored) 2.6km up a trail to a glacier. We were hoping to bring back some glacier ice for our gin and tonics but it melted by the time we got back to the boat.
We then went to Sognefjorden. This might have been my favorite. I’m not sure why. I don’t know if it was narrower. It just seemed greener to me. With the tall mountains and large green valleys with scattered farms. But then it might have been that this was the best weather of the entire trip. It was nice and warm with beautiful blue sky. We went to the very end of this fjord and anchored. From this spot we could look up the 3 valleys and see glacier coming down each. It was pretty spectacular. And the SUN WAS OUT. We had a special treat this evening. Gaymond and Josh made bananas flambé for all of us. What a treat!!!
The next day was basically a travel day. We motored (no wind) all the way back to Bergen. Our guests get off here and we restock and refuel for our North Sea crossing to Southampton, England.
We’ve crossed the North Sea before and it wasn’t much fun. Hopefully this will be a better experience.
Till next time,
Cindy and Gaymond
I’m enclosing some pictures. I was trying to include both the boat and trying to get some of the fjords in the pictures also. Hope you enjoy them.
