Pre-Departure
July 18, 2024 | Getting ready for a passage
Hjelmås, Bergen
We are in Bergen as we speak, or actually, to be more correct, in Hjelmås, about 45 minutes north of the city, rafted up to ISBJØRN at her summer berth. FALKEN arrived to Bergen from Galway on Saturday and I flew in with Andy. Last year when we looked at the schedule, we realized that both ISBJØRN and FALKEN would be in Bergen at the same time, for the first time. We had to do something special! We hosted an ‘Open House’ on Sunday in downtown Bergen, and on Monday we took both boats out sailing up the fjords and got some stunning photos of the two boats alongside each other.
Nikki, who is the skipper for this leg, arrived Monday and we have spent the last few days getting the boat ready and planning the passage south to Amsterdam, a new port for 59º North. Crew will come out to FALKEN today; this will be our third ‘All Female’ Crew, something we started back in 2022 when Emma, Nikki, and I sailed ICEBEAR from Marstrand, Sweden to Portsmouth, UK.
- Mia
Hjelmås, Bergen
We are in Bergen as we speak, or actually, to be more correct, in Hjelmås, about 45 minutes north of the city, rafted up to ISBJØRN at her summer berth. FALKEN arrived to Bergen from Galway on Saturday and I flew in with Andy. Last year when we looked at the schedule, we realized that both ISBJØRN and FALKEN would be in Bergen at the same time, for the first time. We had to do something special! We hosted an ‘Open House’ on Sunday in downtown Bergen, and on Monday we took both boats out sailing up the fjords and got some stunning photos of the two boats alongside each other.
Nikki, who is the skipper for this leg, arrived Monday and we have spent the last few days getting the boat ready and planning the passage south to Amsterdam, a new port for 59º North. Crew will come out to FALKEN today; this will be our third ‘All Female’ Crew, something we started back in 2022 when Emma, Nikki, and I sailed ICEBEAR from Marstrand, Sweden to Portsmouth, UK.
- Mia
mia@59-north.com
View more passage logs
Hat overboard!
On June 4, we reviewed our passage plan before our departure from the marina in Hjellested.
Departure from Bergen!
The crew on the women’s sail training on Isbjorn is settling into a great routine for managing the boat and life onboard.
The sun sets on another journey
The hardest part of sailing across French Polynesia wasn't the night watches, the heat, or the open ocean — it was the prospect of being trapped on a small boat with a group of strangers. First-timer Natalie boards as a self-described land crab and discovers that the sea has a way of reshaping both your sea legs and your assumptions. What follows is dolphins, sharks, the Milky Way in full technicolour, and a crew that somehow made the whole thing better than she ever imagined.