Norway Expedition update

www.seakayakingcornwall.com/norway2009.html

22 03 2009

We had a superb day out on the water with members of the Bergen Kayaking community. We all met up in the small fishing village of Glasvier, on the outer coast. We spent the first hour of the day discussing leadership, incident management, and rescue training. Then it was out on the water for 3 or 4 hours of training. Rescues and towing techniques were practiced in ever increasing conditions, in fact on occasion the weather certainly increased too much and had us hurrying for cover. Squalls came through several times, strong winds, hail, snow and then glorious sunshine and blue skies which all shared the same five minutes.

Mark and I would both like to thank the guys we got to meet and paddle with, we hope to catch up with you again, maybe back home in Cornwall or Maine.

My apologies to the chairman of Austevol Kayaking club, we wanted to be able to meet and paddle with you guys. When I received your SMS I thought your club lay to the North of Bergen, my eyes betrayed me and I mistook Austevol for Askvol, we did not arrive in Glasvier until late in the day and tiredness got the better of me. We both hope to get to paddle with you some time in the future.

All the best

Jeff and Mark

 

Update

Sea Kayak Scandinavia

The journey continues.......Well not quite, Oliver my son, and I have been over here for a week now, exploring the local Stavangar area, paddling through the many islands and walking in the surrounding mountains.

Oliver shall soon be off to the RAF hopefully and this has been a great week for us to spend together in fine company and a wilderness setting.

Preikestolen Rock (Pulpit Rock) is a must see/do location if you are ever over here and the ideal person that you could make contact with for local knowledge would be Erling Brox(erlingb@gmail.com)

Erling and his lovelly wife Sonja have been our hosts for the past week and they have been very kind, treating us with fine accomodation and superb home made cooking as well as showing us around. In fact Sonja has hand knitted me a wonderful woolen hat with kayakers in the patterning.

Last Friday I presented to the local sea kayak club, previous expeditions as well as future projects were spoken about and viewed on slides at a local pub, I think it was well recieved as everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

Mark has now left the U.S and is on his way over to join me, Oliver sadly has to return home to the U.K tomorrow, Mark and I shall then, shortly after be setting out, paddling Northwards once more, we hope to make it to Bergen by the weekend, where we shall be meeting up with local kayakers there to do some training together.

I hope everyone is well back home, I am missing everyone, especially Lizzie, we shall be getting married this December and I can't wait to see her soon.

Love and best regards

Jeff and Ollie