25 August 2010; Oslo Norway.

It was quite nasty outside while we made our transit through the Skagerak. Luckily the swell was nearly on the stern. Same for the wind, wind force 9 was whistling over the water but it did not do the ship any harm. Instead it pushed it forward even a bit faster. Tonight will be a different story when we have to go against it. For the time being things were with us and the seas only made the ship move a bit, when we were fully in the open between 2 and 5 am. As soon as we came under the lee of the Norwegian coast everything was quiet again. By 7 am we had the pilot onboard and were on our merry way to Oslo. Due to the distance between Copenhagen and Oslo we cannot get there much earlier and thus we have a –scenic cruising- arrival in the morning at 11 am and a departure at 8 pm when it is getting dark already. The first 30 miles or so are in wide open waters and we race full speed through it. Then by 0930 we had to slow down as we went through the narrow part and needed to avoid wake damage to the little boats moored along the shore lines.

Akerhus fortress and castle on the portside of the ship, while normally we see it from the starboard side. Because the weather outside was so bad, it also affected the weather in the fjord, but in a totally different way. As the Fjord runs basically North to South, the wind was pushed into it from the open Ocean and funneled itself down in that direction. So while the wind in the open ocean was from the South West, it became North because of the hills on either side of the fjord. A most peculiar thing to see and it made me wonder what the wind would be in Oslo itself. However one phone call from the pilot and we knew there was no wind at all in the port. Close to Oslo, where the Oslofjorden ends, it does not run North South anymore but more East West and thus that funneling wind does not affect that area. Good for us.

The Oslo Opera house. The whole topside area is open for visitors to walk on. Given a whole new meaning to the phrase “Walk in Concert”. By the time we docked, the sun was shining and we had a great afternoon in the port. We were docked this time not at the sea front across from the downtown harbour but at the ferry port in the back. Today there were two Aida ships in and as they call on a weekly basis, they get priority due to seniority in number of calls. That is the way it works with dock reservations. For the occasional caller as the Prinsendam it depends on a bit of luck of where we end up. If a dock takes larger ships we might be banned but if it is a small dock, than we are quite often lucky as nobody else can go there. Not today and we ended up at the Riverkaia in the ferry port. I have never docked here so this time I could see the Arkerhus fortress from the other side. Also we had a good look at the new Opera House of Oslo, which has as the novelty that you can walk all over it. The roof is a public area.

There was a lot of construction going on and I stood looking at it a bit puzzled as they were ramming poles or piles into the ground. I was puzzled because Oslo is built on rock so why the piles. It turned out that the bedrock on which Oslo is built is not very solid. Water seeps through it and the under laying layers of rock can be quite brittle. So for laying a new metro track they needed to shore up the sides of the metro course and stabilize the foundation for the tracks.

By 8 pm. we were on the way out again and just managed to sail through the scenic area near Drobak at the end of the dusk period and that was scenic in its own way.

Because of the inclement weather which we now had to face “bow on” I had announced to all the guests to be prepared and the crew had made the Prinsendam ready for bad weather sailing. However when we came outside at 11 pm. it was not that bad at all. There was still a swell running, but one of a size which the Prinsendam could ride nicely. Tomorrow I will have to figure out what happened to that bad weather that it so suddenly disappeared. Not that I am complaining……………..