Norway = excellent

[shermarama]

Just a quick one while Chris is having a nap (I have a theory that there are special Nordic-Germanic germs that he's more susceptible to; I think he's had more coughs and colds in the last year than in the entire rest of his life) to say that Norway has been stunningly excellent. Since last Saturday morning when we set off on the boat, the weather has been calm and sunny and increasingly warm, culminating in today where downtown Bergen was hitting somewhere in the high twenties. The fjords and islands of Norway are ridiculously scenic; perhaps the most scenic way to see them is to go around them by boat; and the only thing more ridiculously scenic than going round them is diving on the wrecks contained therein. The trip was full of very experienced and amiable divers (slightly intimidating to find out that this is where professional dive guides, marine biologists and technical diving instructors go on holiday) and the whole thing was such a relief from the misery that is Dutch diving that I have made a firm resolution to never go in the peaty blackness of Vinkeveen ever again. Vinkeveen has conditioned me to be afraid of going below 20m, into a featureless darkness where silt never clears and free-flows are almost inevitable. Norwegian diving has reminded me that what ought to be below 20m is great visibility, impressive wrecks and fascinating marine life, and I'm determined never to forget that again. 

There will be some pictures from the wrecks but not many, because even with such good visibility, exposure times at forty metres are anything up to a second, and it's tricky to get anything underwater (including myself) to stay still for that long. There will be rather more from above water because everything kept being so damn scenic. I'm not much of a photographer but I'm very glad I had a camera on this trip. 

In the meantime, once Chris wakes up, it's down to a city bursting with enthusiasm for the summer, with daylight til midnight and two simultaneous arts festivals going on. Everything is expensive, especially the beer, but there are times when it's just not worth worrying about that sort of thing. 

Comments

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Norway is breathtakingly expensive! But the rest of it is great. What sort of wrecks are they?

[shermarama]

A variety, but mostly big cargo ships, and of those mostly armed merchantmen that went down in WWII - some shot down, and some that just ran aground in tricky waters during blackout. The strangest thing was the wood. Great thick wooden teak decks last a long time in water, but they'd still have gone years ago in UK conditions, I think.

[openidwouldwork.livejournal.com]

*is green with envy* and *wants to dive where below 20m is great visibility, impressive wrecks and fascinating marine life*

Great visibility below 20m, impressive wrecks and fascinating marine life just happens in the dreams of us mainlanders...

HAVE A GREAT TIME!