Things in Scandinavia are Expensive

7/29
Anchored now in Mærstrand, Sweden, a beautiful little resort town, and a good decompression stop after Copenhagen.

I think Copenhagen may be one of the coolest cities I’ve ever seen. The people are friendly enough, but the city itself is a maze of squares and domes, spires and sculptures, cobblestone roads, and canals. It’s expensive too.


I saw Batman. I want to see it again and again and again. I was giddy and stupid beforehand, but I came out of the theatre with an ethereal inner glow of childish glee, having finally consummated what was one of the most thrilling, anticipated, and fulfilling movie watching experiences in my entire life. I went to the Imperial Theatre in Copenhagen, paid 105 kronor ($21), and sat down in front of the biggest screen in Scandinavia.

In the afternoon Sailmaker Buddy and I went for a walk around Christiana, one of the last havens of the free-love movement left over from the 60’s. Nestled right in town, some hippie squatters took over an abandoned military base and set up a commune, independent of the Danish government, where they live for free, grow their own veggies, make artwork, paint trees and rocks and stuff, and make money off of tourists.

The main town felt like little more than a hippie theme park set up for curious oustiders, so Buddy and I took to the trails and walked back into the compound and among the very quaint if eccentric dwellings nestled along the river bank. It’s nice that they can have their place to live their unoffending, tax-free, hippie lifestyles, but they really don’t do a whole lot of good either, just maintaining their neutral existence. I think I would have really dug it when I was in high school, but it’s not really my scene anymore. It was cool to see it though. Apparently its days are numbered, as the Danish government wants to take control of it and get tax money off the real estate and the commerce, such as it is.

The next day I got up early and took the train out to Helsingør to see the famous castle Kronborg, the setting of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. Tours of the castle were outside my budget, but I managed to get inside and have a walk around where I could.


That's Sweden on the other side of the sound. Those cannons have been pointed there for a very long time.
In the evening I met up with a familiar face, Annalisa, who used to babysit us Rogers offspring way back whenin Kansas City. Now she’s a big time business woman in Copenhagen with a Danish husband, Gustav. We went to Tivoli, the famous old amusement park in the middle of downtown, rode all the rides, talked about what we were doing these days, and marveled at our circumstances. I love how life brings people together in unexpected ways.
So now we’ve made our little detour here in Sweden, and it’s proved to be well timed. We aren’t staying for long, just two days, but it’s nice to be in a place where things are so leisurely after the week in the big city, which was beginning to get overwhelming and expensive.

On my day off, Mike and Nadja and I hiked up to an old fort from the 1600’s, we ducked inside with a tour group, and then split off and explored the inside on our own, ducking through dank underground tunnels, up shadowy stone staircases, peeking into old torture chambers, and occasionally finding ourselves on an elevated grassy terrace overlooking the rugged coast, blue water, and our lovely little barque. After our tour of the castle we, went and sat on a rock at the water, swam a bit, napped a bit, drank some beers, and watched clouds. A good way to spend the day.

7/31
In Norwegian waters headed for Christiansand, a quiet, ghosting sail, running before the wind under all squares. We’ve been bending on more sails in preparation for the upcoming tall ships race from Bergen to Den Helder. The flying jib, main t’gallant stays’l, with the gaff tops’l on the way soon – the kites. We may put something up on one of the mizzen stays too.
Last night we saw a comet or meteor or something in the sky. A bright turquoise streak went burning over our starboard side just past the fore shrouds. I don’t know if it was imagination or not, but a few of us swear we could hear it crackling. I’ve seen something like that once before, in Dominica, but it was dark orange.

Tonight there was a fishing party on the aloha deck, as Luke, Nate, Sam, and Wild Bill were putting out trawling lines. Wild Bill hooked a mackerel almost the instant he put his line in, and his second one came just as fast. No one was really surprised though. It’s just how things work when you’re Wild Bill. The end total was 24 for the group. Donald cooked them up the next day.

The sky never really gets dark here, even at midnight. There’s always an orange glow on the horizon.

Chibley is going crazy tonight. She’s climbing the mast, howling. Sometimes she gets goofy.

8/5
Alongside in Stavanger, Norway, home of none other than Lead Seaman Kjetil “Shackle” Dimmen. I am thrilled to be here. Shackle is one of my favorite people. It was him and me for most of this winter, doing the maintenance on the rig and taking care of the ship, and he became a good friend of mine. There’s really no one else on this planet quite like him. He’s unanimously regarded as weird by the rest of us, and has a sense of humor that is a mixture of Monty Python, and that bizarre uncle you have who smells kind of funny and says things that make your parents roll their eyes and change the subject.
Classic Shackle remark:
In describing for Mike the impressive beauty of a woman he’d noticed, he said, “On a scale of English to Norwegian…she was Swedish."

Today we sent down the main t’gallant for repairs and bent on the gaff tops’l.

Stavanger makes Copenhagen look like Budget City. One beer costs $20 U.S. I’ll pass.