shermarama: (diving)
Sherm ([personal profile] shermarama) wrote2012-06-11 11:56 pm

Norway, in pictures

I'm not going to review exactly what I did in great textual detail. I'm just going to post a load of photos of excellent things we saw.

I went to Norway and I saw:
Monolith I
Excellent Gustav Vigeland sculptures filling a park in Oslo

Downtown Finse
Snow and skiers, 1200m up at Finse station

Wake Patterns
A boat through sun-filled, wind-ruffled fjords, to...

Village Green
Scenic villages, with mountains, and flowers, and wooden houses (and supermarkets selling interesting junk food: chocolate-covered salty maize snacks, anyone?)

Long Shadows
Roads to the middle of nowhere

Fedje Reflection
Towns in the middle of the sea (this one has a whole 600 people, don't you know)

Diver Ready
And between them, diving... (this is a rebreather diver, and they really do carry a lot of shit, though I didn't have that much less)

Up The Ferndale
On improbable wrecks that sloped up rocks...

The Parat
With ghostly sister wrecks that sat too deep for me to reach (though some did; there were many technical divers on board)

Diver Up
Followed by using the very handy lift to get back on board...

Dive Deck
In order to, you know, hang around, dry the drysuits, look at the scenery...

On Deck
Or the sky. There was good sky.

Art Book
Until we got to Bergen, where we stayed in an artist's house while she was away for the weekend, for very nearly as cheap as it's possible to stay anywhere while there's two festivals on in Bergen, and...

Walking Down Floyen
Did some travelling up (by funicular and cable car) and then walking down mountains. As well as looking at art, eating enormous hot dogs and drinking painfully expensive beer, but I don't have many pictures of that.

It was peaceful, man. Or it was once I'd got over the inhibitions caused by the terrible experience of Dutch diving, and the mild claustrophobia induced by all the cabins in the boat (a converted trawler) being below the waterline and therefore windowless, poorly ventilated and profoundly dark once the door was shut. The trick was to leave the door open, letting in both air and a smidgeon of light from the skylight in the corridor, because this was 61 degrees north in late May and the hours of darkness were neither very dark nor very many. Both the peacefulness and the late night light best encapsulated in this I leave til last, then, taken at not far off the same time of night as I'm posting this:

After Sunset

[identity profile] braisedbywolves.livejournal.com 2012-06-11 11:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Aw, that looks properly lovely. And I'm glad you have your diving joy back!

[identity profile] the-elyan.livejournal.com 2012-06-12 06:24 am (UTC)(link)
That looks fantastic - its'a country I very much want to visit. I'm hoping to get something similar in Iceland - as I'll get to within a few miles of the Arctic Circle, and a week of Midsummer, I suspect night will be a rare commodity indeed.

[identity profile] openidwouldwork.livejournal.com 2012-06-12 10:58 am (UTC)(link)
Awesomeness! *drools on keyboard* Looks absolutely wonderful! *congratulates you for having a great vacation*

[identity profile] motodraconis.livejournal.com 2012-06-12 11:51 am (UTC)(link)
This is the kind of holiday review I enjoy. Beautiful and/or interesting pictures punctuated by explanatory blurb. Looks like you had a cracking time!

[identity profile] steer.livejournal.com 2012-06-13 11:48 am (UTC)(link)
Wow... beautiful diving. Looks like some great viz.

[identity profile] yiskah.livejournal.com 2012-06-16 07:31 am (UTC)(link)
Wow, it looks gorgeous. (And I really like the long shadows pic - I have a couple of those from when I went to Norway around midsummer.)