Changes in Latitudes

The route my boat is taking is the green line. After three years I'm back at the Institute of Marine Research (Havforskningsinstiuttet) on the summer ecosystem survey on the hunt for mackerel in the Norwegian Sea. It was hard at first because I had to leave two days before Mom and Dad left Bergen. And since I had to leave before they did it made it a little hard to be excited to work on the boat again. The view from my tiny plane. I flew from Bergen to Stokmarknes (near Lofoten) with my colleagues. From Bodø to Stokmarknes we were transported in a tiny plane that was so small we weren't even assigned seats. The ticket just said "free seating" - a first for me. The views from the plane were great! When we got there we got to the boats and met the others who were continuing the survey. The institute hired two commercial fishing boats for the survey, and mine is called M. Ytterstad. These boats make living and working at sea very comfortable. There is a ...

After just one week at my new job, I took two weeks vacation for our Norwegian wedding in northern Norway. We picked up Carolyn on July 4th, and started driving north. We drove about 13 hours the first day, and made sure to stop a couple of times to fill up coffee and give the dog a break. The second day we drove the last 7 hours, and made it to the summer house at Gjelvågan in time for dinner. Driving through Songdal - fjord Norway (western Norway) is the prettiest drive. Summer skiers...people skiing on the 4th of July - only in Norway Hard to see, but just behind Marius is the landmark for crossing the Arctic Circle We had a few days to finish decorating the old gym and some fun stuff before Mom, Dad, Aunt Jill and Uncle Jeff drove in. We decorated the old gymnasium of the community center with a marine theme. Rigmor was very creative. To drop the ceiling, she borrowed some fishing nets from her brother and bought some rice paper lanterns. We found some glass floats...