After crossing the Skagerrak—which today almost feels like surviving a rounding of Cape Horn (thanks for all the congratulations!)—we fire up the Yanmar and motor at an easy pace through Arendal. It is the second-largest town in this part of Norway and, ever since the age of steamships, an important shipping centre. The drizzle refuses to let up. Our Dutch neighbours on the pontoon call it “mystical”... On we go, beneath the Tromøy Bridge and through the skerries into the Oksefjord, bound for Tvedestrand.

Arendal.

SY Blue Layla (photo: A. Calis).

Tvedestrand – once home to a fleet of grand sailing ships, it is now a charming little town with an endless supply of trailing petunias, antiquarian bookshops, hair salons, and Norway’s narrowest house, Strykejernet—the “Flatiron” (see further below).