Right now I am on the fishing vessel "Kings Bay" for what will likely be my last mackerel survey. From next year I will be joining the North Sea herring survey, which runs approximatley the same time.
Before heading out on this tokt, Idar, Pancho and I did some more building on the van for 6 hours one afternoon before driving our van south to Uskedalen for a music festival called Festidalen. Idar's sister, Ingrid, was singing in one of the bands (Moyka). By the time we hit the road we had boxed in the wheel wells and built a box where all the electrical would be placed.
The previous weekend I had managed to find some couch cushions from IKEA that will be perfect for the pull out bed we plan to build. We slept on those on the floor of the van and and it was much more comfortable than our camping pads.
We didn't hit the road til 10:30PM and that meant that we would have to take detours around the tunnels because of maintainence. That meant we also missed the last ferry over the Hardangerfjord. We parked the van at the ferry terminal and slept there. A very practical perk of having the van. When we woke up the next morning, we caught the next ferry and drove to Bondhusvannet, where we had gone on a camping trip last year.
We were lucky with the weather again this year, a nice 17 degrees C and clear blue sky! We bought a crash pad for bouldering and headed towards the glacial lake where there were plenty of boulders to climb on. Pancho sat patiently and greeted people who walked by. After a couple of hours we had to pack up and drive to Uskedalen for the festival.
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| This waterdog does not swim. |
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| A small lunch before we go bouldering. |
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| Idar jumped in, and very quickly out again. Don't let the color of the water fool you...it's glacial water! |
Idar's cousin had borrowed his dad's sailboat for us to hang out on. It was really fun and after the festival ended that day, we were a big group of people on the boat and played guitar. We went to sleep in the van and woke up the next day for festival day 2 (the day Ingrid's band performed).
It was a great weekend, though Sunday morning we woke up to the sound of rain coming in through the ceiling. It was not where we placed the fan, but rather, where we had cut holes for wire insulation for the solar panel. We had taped plastic over the hole but the torrential rain found a pocket to drip through. Not cool. That solar panel needed to go up ASAP.
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| Moyka (Ingrid is second from the right) |
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| Festival chill on the sailboat. These boys felt right at home on the sailboat. |
Our solar system was finally set up last week, and Idar reports that our battery is all charged and we can run power from our solar panel. It was also water tight. He will try to put up some ceiling panels next weekend with our downlights, and hopefully he can get some help since I'm on tokt. I'll be hopping off the boat in Tromsø on the 22nd and then fly to Lofoten where he and Pancho will pick me up. Really looking forward to vacation!
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| Solar panel is in place! Super stealth |
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| Our electrical set up. These were attached to the wall. |
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