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BOAT INFO
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NAME: Cloud Walker
MANUFACTURER: Beneteau First 345
LENGTH: 35
INFO: If hjkl hjk
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| CREW |
| emily lomax |
| Michael Thompson |
| Judy Lomax |
| Megan Lomax |
| David Lomax |
| guy eaton |
| Amity Fletcher |
| Harald Bjerke |
| Jane Lomax |
| Fred Jones |
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| LOGS FOR THIS BOAT |
add a
log entry |
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DATE: 4 April, 2006
CREW: Harald Bjerke |
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| Snow is melting. Soon the ice will be gone as well. I can wait.... a little bit longer. |
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DATE: 13 September, 2003
CREW: Jane Lomax |
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What summers are for!
Jane Lomax and Harald "Rikki" Bjerke sail the south coast of Norway. A memorably social cruise.
We celebrated moving house at the start of the summer by closing the door on packing cases and assorted rubbish and running away to sea. Cloud Walker was thoughtfully delivered to our Oslo fjord base at the beginning of July by owners David and Judy, assisted by trusty crewmember Jim. They then left us to sail her to Kristiansand, where they would be waiting 10 days later.
Although we had planned to head off in the morning, it took most of the day to make a car-shaped hole in the chaos of the garage. It was almost 8.30 pm by the time I squeezed the car into its holiday hideyhole and climbed out of the back window (no room to open the door..) and walked down to the patiently waiting Cloud Walker. Our crew for the first part of the cruise was our 10 year old son Magnus. Robin would be picked up en route to Kristiansand from a teenage eldorado of girls, sunshine, warm waters and a friendly golf club that welcomed junior novices.
At 9 pm we managed to get out of the marina in Leangbukta and motored all of half a mile before anchoring to let Magnus have a swim in the final rays of the reluctantly settingt sun, in 22 degrees warm water. We had dinner in the cockpit, a relaxed g and t, and felt that it was wonderful to be afloat and on holiday after the exhaustion of moving house. We finally pulled up the anchor to head out of the fjord at around midnight.
Magnus had the best position on the boat that evening, relaxing in a hammock swumg between the mast and the forestay, reading Harry Potter 5 by the light of a full moon. There was not a breath of wind as we motored gently past Drøbak and headed for the mouth of the fjord. I snoozed for a couple of hours, waking to a fireball of a sunrise behind Jeløya. Rikki had been up all night, but was wide awake and invigorated by the beauty of the trip. Although he has sailed the Oslo fjord in all weathers, in all seasons, he never gets bored with it. And that morning, with the temperature already more Caribbean than Nordic, was worth keeping awake for.
We took the inshore passage on the back side of Nøtterøy and then headed in for a breakfast stop with friends near Kaupang, one of the most celebrated Viking sites in Norway. Magnus and I stayed ashore most of the day, Magnus swimming with hoards of other children, while Rikki rested for a while. We left in the afternoon, armed with prawns and sun factor 20, for the next leg of our cruise; Stavern to Jomfruland.
Rakke is usually a patch of sea not to be taken lightly. This time, we had a table laid in the cockpit, and motored our way through the shallow waters that have been known to send me rushing for the rail, without a ripple on the surface. Magnus read several more chapters of HP5 and we all worked on our tans. The only problem with the sailing holiday so far, was that we hadn´t been able to do any sailing. Heavy on the deisel, but what the doctor ordered as far as recovering from the stress and strain of moving house with no movers!
We spent the night at anchor off Jomfruland and in the morning were joined by friends Pål and Ellen in their "jeep", a high speed open boat that had brought them the 5 or so miles from their cabin once they were notified of our presence by mobile phone. Herman, a year older than Magnus and veteran of a joint sailing trip in the Caribbean, was abandonned to his fate with us on board for the next couple of days. Amazingly enough, the complicated set of arrangements to enable him to be picked up and taken back to the cabin at Kragerø by another set of friends, visiting from Indonesia and travelling from Kristiansand and moving north, ended up being carried out without a hitch. Our crew kept themselves amused with a combination of HP5 (not that interesting to Norwegian speaking 11 year olds), gameboy and comics, and the favourite passtime of the summer, swinging from the rigging in the bosun´s chair.
The next leg of the trip was to Lyngør, which was the first place I lived when I first came to Norway. Rikki has cousins with summer homes there, and as always, our stay was social in the extreme. The first night we stayed at the dock belonging to one set of relatives, only to move on to another set for the next day. The weather was still tropical, and even I swam every day (this only happens once the temperature in the water is above 20 degrees, which it was for the entire summer in southern Norway.)
We paid for the tropical weather over the next couple of days, with violent electrical storms wreaking havoc with landbased telephone systems, and torrential rain showers rinsing our bedding on the one occasion as we had forgotten one small hatch from the cockpit to one of the aft cabins...
We picked up more crew for the next leg, 20 or so miles from Lyngør to Tvedestrand, where we were to pick up Robin from his friend Emil. Rikkis parents Dolly and Harald had been holidaying in Lyngør and were persuaded to join us for the day. They then caught a local boat back to Lyngør - luckily for them there was an experimental boat trip being run that day, to see if there was any interest from tourists, so they were saved the bus ride back to their holiday apartment.
In Tvedestrand, (Norway´s "book town" with 25 second hand bookshops!) Herman was handed over to his "taxi," and we picked up Robin and his friend Emil for a couple of days. We had a delightful evening with Emil´s family before leaving the next day for Borøya, at the mouth of the Tvedestrand fjord. Luckily we had finished eating out barbeque before the heavens opened. Rikki braved the rain, running through waterfalls up to his knees in his effort to get back to the boat and close the hatch before our bed was swamped. The small streets and steep pathways of Tvedestrand were streaming with water. He arrived a little late - we had a damp night...
At Borøya we tied up in front of a house built by some friends a few years ago. The perfect spot for an impromptu barbeque in the garden. It was good to catch up with old friends, and we were in no real hurry to get on down the coast. Emil, who had been promised a sailing trip to Kristiansand, did ask when we were going to get out to sea and do some sailing. We then went from Borøya to Holmsund (nearly 3 miles) and stayed there for the next night: another impromptu barbeque with more old friends. We had a wonderful trip in the moonlight in an old lifeboat, chugging around the skerries and then visiting another cabin, this time with a fantastic view over the Skaggerak.
By this time we had only sailed for about 4 hours since leaving Leangukta, but the next day, when we picked up 3 more crew members, we did manage to sail. The teenage crew all sat along the rail as we went on the outside of Tromøya, and took turns swinging in the bosuns chair. Bosuns chair swinging is being put up as an olympic event next time and our lot are in serious training.
We took a short swimming break at Mærdø before heading in to Arendal, where Emil was handed over to his father and the Holmsund trio were picked up by ancient Landrover - after a trip to the cinema and a take-away pizza on board, that is. The cinema stop gave us just enough time to say hello to other old friends from the time when we lived in Arendal. Phew! We left the dock at about 8pm and motored back to Mærdø where we spent an exciting night, with lightning hitting the sea all around us (at least thats what it felt like).
For the first time we were just the four of us on board. This was the only time in the summer when we were just immediate family. HP5 was grabbed by Robin, much to Magnus´s disgust, and read cover to cover in the course of 36 hours. Magnus had to turn to alternative lighter reading and started on book 4 of a 30 book series on vampires. What fun.
We headed down south, mostly taking the inshore route and looking out for likely anchorages to show the fleet of RCC yachts that we would be meeting in Kristiansand. We weren´t much bothered by the junior crew members who were resting up after the hectic socialising of the last few days. They preferred to stay down below and read in the shade rather than brave the perils of the tropical sunshine in the cockpit.
We spent a night near Grimstad and then motored towards the Blindleia, on the final approach to Kristiansand. At one point we had to make a quick phone check to the owners to confirm the height of the mast - on getting the appropriate information we had to make a quick back track and alter our plans. No point putting the height of the overhead cables as marked on the chart to the utimate test, even if it was "low water" (which in southern Norway is negligable).
We had run out of bread and milk ,and ice, which was one of our main problems in the heat. Cloud Walker normally sails in areas where keeping food cool is not a problem so her fridge motor was removed many years ago to make more room for baked beans and cuppasoup. The tropical weather had made keeping milk from turning into yogurt and butter from running away into the bilges one of the most tricky problems of the cruise. Anyway, we decided to make a quick stop in Lillesand to stock up on essentials (ice cream, etc). There was nowhere to tie up so we dropped the hook about 10 feet from the shore, planning to make a quick dingy trip. Rikki looked in horror as the anchor chain rattled out faster and faster ... "How deep did you say it was here?" Er, I hadn´t said. Now I did. " 17 metres!" Some Norwegian swearing was heard from the foredeck.
Cloud Walker has a history of interesting anchoring techniques. We had no intention of building on the reputation, but as Rikki hauled the massive anchor and chain from the depths of Lillesand harbour, something gave way in his back and after some more gentle Nordic mutterings under his breath, managed to get himself to the cockpit and horisontal as soon as the anchor was on board. Luckily Robin had just finished HP5, so he was handed a chart of Blindleia and read that instead, with help from the skipper from time to time. OK, he might have exagerated somewhat, but Robin did an excellent job of navigating through the labyrinth, telling me what course to steer and keeping us off the hard bits. Magnus was back into HP5 and oblivous to all else.
By the time we got to Kristiansand, Rikki´s back was a little better. We had a beautiful sail for the last few miles, in glorious sunshine, and moored up in the marina next to Ceres, one of the many RCC yachts that were gathered for the Norwegian meet. We met up with the owners (who, due to the fact that a bottle of Sainsburys gin had broken in their luggage, and that they travelled in their well worn sailing outfits, looked and smelled like a couple of down and outs...) and we were back up to a crew of 6, ready to be lead boat in a convoy of yachts on the way back to Arendal for a big party in 3 days time.
More about that another time.
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DATE: 24 June, 2003
CREW: Judy Lomax |
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Cloud Walker in Holland and Germany
Judy and David Lomax, June 24 2003
June 7 - June 24 2003: Cloud Walker, our 18-year-old Beneteau First 345, is waiting in Cuxhaven near the mouth of the massive river Elbe for force 8-9 thundersquall gusts to abate. In the last two and a half weeks we have done France and Belgium (one night each), Holland (two nights in the canals), and Friesland (ten days shared between Dutch and German mud-hopping between
islands).
Dunkerque was dull. Blankenberge in Belgium was better. Holland, en route for the Friesians, was an unexpected pleasure. After a spirited night arrival in Ijmuiden, we entered the excellent Dutch canal system, dropping two metres below sea level in the entry lock. Bridges opened for us, sometimes as if by magic, sometimes via VHF requests, as we motored past a kaleidoscope of flat scenery: at first industrial warehouses and workshops alongside modern apartments, then picturesque traditional wooden houses and windmills, workmanlike lines of modern windmills whirring high above us, flat fields set below our water level. After two elastic days which felt like weeks we rose out of the canal again at Den Helde.
From there we set out for two days in the Dutch Friesian islands en route for the German Friesians. The origins of several everyday expressions gained reality with the need to get the tide right to cross watersheds, often a matter of touch and go as we wound our way tortuously across the Wattenmeer between islands Texel and Vlieland in Holland, out to sea for an overnight
passage to the German islands, mudhopping again between Norderney and Langeoog. It was real Riddle of the Sands stuff and so it should have been, in the year of the centenary of the publication of Erskine Childers book of that name.
Valour won over discretion when we fell prey to the lure of the oogs, several more long narrow islands facing the north sea and backing onto tortuous inland passages through the Watt. The channel behind Norderney, the Riffgat, might in gentler weather have been more touch than go for Cloud Walker with her 1.8m draught and is not advised for yachts which draw more than 1.4m; but there was extra water after two days of strong winds. By putting up more sail and gunning the engine when we touched, we bounced and bumped across the watershed on high water.
Half way past the last of the oogs, en route for Cuxhaven, we were boarded by three members of the German border coastguard patrol. "Where is your black triangle?" Oops! The Germans are very keen on an international sailing regulation that a yacht under power must hoist a black triangle or take down its sails. We were excused a fine once we had dropped our mainsail, which we normally always use as a steadier when motoring, and promised to remedy our
lack at the first opportunity.
The Elbe is huge. Its complex series of shipping lanes which must only be crossed at certain points and at right angles are mercifully well marked. Cloud Walker wallowed without her mainsail as we motored in deteriorating weather into an increasing headwind inside the final shipping lane and into
Cuxhaven. As soon as the weather stops throwing gusts of F9 at us we shall cross the Danish peninsula's German neck by canal to Denmark's Baltic islands. There is another unfamiliar regulation to obey in the canal: as a yacht we have to fly the letter N, to make it clear that we are not carrying a pilot. We have it and the black triangle ready. |
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DATE: 22 October, 2002
CREW: Megan Lomax |
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| A lovely little sail to Yarmouth. Great food... and a quick pint ashore. |
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