Norway, in pictures
Jun. 11th, 2012 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shermaramaI'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:
Excellent Gustav Vigeland sculptures filling a park in Oslo
Snow and skiers, 1200m up at Finse station
A boat through sun-filled, wind-ruffled fjords, to...
Scenic villages, with mountains, and flowers, and wooden houses (and supermarkets selling interesting junk food: chocolate-covered salty maize snacks, anyone?)
Roads to the middle of nowhere
Towns in the middle of the sea (this one has a whole 600 people, don't you know)
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)
On improbable wrecks that sloped up rocks...
With ghostly sister wrecks that sat too deep for me to reach (though some did; there were many technical divers on board)
Followed by using the very handy lift to get back on board...
In order to, you know, hang around, dry the drysuits, look at the scenery...
Or the sky. There was good sky.
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...
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:
I went to Norway and I saw:
Excellent Gustav Vigeland sculptures filling a park in Oslo
Snow and skiers, 1200m up at Finse station
A boat through sun-filled, wind-ruffled fjords, to...
Scenic villages, with mountains, and flowers, and wooden houses (and supermarkets selling interesting junk food: chocolate-covered salty maize snacks, anyone?)
Roads to the middle of nowhere
Towns in the middle of the sea (this one has a whole 600 people, don't you know)
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)
On improbable wrecks that sloped up rocks...
With ghostly sister wrecks that sat too deep for me to reach (though some did; there were many technical divers on board)
Followed by using the very handy lift to get back on board...
In order to, you know, hang around, dry the drysuits, look at the scenery...
Or the sky. There was good sky.
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...
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:
no subject
Date: 2012-06-14 09:25 pm (UTC)And that dive looks completely nuts. Was that part of a general diving holiday? And would you recommend Mexico?
no subject
Date: 2012-06-14 09:35 pm (UTC)Ouchie... mind you I nearly swam into a cliff face in Vobster Quay because what I'm assured was "temporary plankton bloom" (but looked to me like "shed loads of silt which will always be there") reduced viz to about 25cm. My buddy nearly peed himself laughing because he was in a slightly clearer spot and could just see me with my head in a cloud swimming closer and closer to a cliff and then yell obscenities. (It genuinely startled me and I was looking straight ahead).
Was that part of a general diving holiday? And would you recommend Mexico?
Yes... we did 2 weeks of which 8 days was diving. We did a week in Cozumel which has great viz and beautiful scenery. Not much in the way of megafauna (one tiny nurse shark all week) at the time we were there. If you go then the "Devil's throat" is the do not miss dive. Reef tunnel from about 24m to about 42m
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Throat_at_Punta_Sur
Once we left Cozumel we did a baited shark dive which was insane (but costly) and some cenotes dives (including Angelita and Dos Ojos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistema_Dos_Ojos).
Wikipedia's list of Recreational Dive Sites is a bit insane. Just noticed it. Same list has Devil's Throat, Truk Lagoon, the M2, Hispania and Stanegarth (in Stoney).
no subject
Date: 2012-06-16 09:22 am (UTC)