MKSAC Newsletter September 2001

It was very very good, and a lesson in contrasts.

The Norwegian are surprisingly friendly, seem wealthy (minimum wage about £12 / hour- high taxes too) love talking, especially practising their English. Their diet seems to be entirely fish but they do drink like fish, but don’t seem too good at holding their liquor. They have communistic outlooks and didn’t seem very funny.

There were two boats ’The Nursing Home’ and ’The Nursery’. The Nursery was full of very funny people (miss hap and miss take never stopped laughing) never red, sometimes red faced and occasionally red footed. The Nursing Home enjoyed themselves discreetly, took their medicine when needed, went to bed early sometimes red faced negotiating vertical ladders.

The diving and weather were brilliant, visibility in the high numbers, currents a little at the surface and some very good wrecks (believe the skippers? They said we were some of the first amateurs to dive them) portholes up to six inline still with glass, mastheads with lights and bulbs intact. Mention the Ferndale, The Frankenwald and Parrat to the divers who went, but only if you have time to spare, lovely wrecks, not a lot of fish, all seemed to be in the foodchain at the fish market. The weather? Great. It rains 720 days a year in Norway, we had 6 days when it was sunny and didn’t rain.

The boats and Scenery. The Gaelic Rose and The Dundarg, one laid back one ordered. Both catered admirably for people’s needs but you need to have ’lived aboard’ to understand. We dived out of Bergen into the Sognefjord, round and about then back to Bergen. Incredible scenery, definitely camera country. Places visited Bergen Ramsøy, Fedje, Hardbakke, Torshi Island, Learvik, Ytre Sula Nara, Turnaround, Hardbakke Fedje and back to Bergen.

About Tuesday/Wednesday we had a barbie at a derelict sawmill, whale steaks, reindeer burgers ’ the works’ very pleasant eating. Later while walking to the local waterfalls we were bitten to blazes by mossies and other flying bugs ’unpleasant eating’. Contrasts again.

We ferry’d from Newcastle on Fjordline, 23 of us with luggage and divestuff along with about 30 army squaddies backpacked to survive a week living rough, plus normal passengers. We caused havoc on the boarding deck, stalled the lifts, blocked companionways, our berths were good and the Norwegians went ’overboard’ on entertainments.

The return journey? (Norwegians obviously communicate) below stairs areas allocated on various decks adequately solved the problem, can you imagine P & O or British Rail doing similar?

The language Norse is strange. Written Norwegian (book Norwegian) old Norwegian, New Norwegian, various colloquial differences mean you can say the same think in about five different ways. However ’Toosan Tark’ (spelling phonetically) a thousand thanks to all who made the holiday so enjoyable, and many more for those who made all the arrangements.

(Transcribed exactly from an anonymous letter to the editor.)