The name Norway derives from Nordvegen, the north route, a network of sheltered sounds, straits and fjords along the country’s coast providing a shipping route protected from the wild North and Norwegian Seas. Karmsund, the narrow channel between the mainland and the island of Karmøy, a Viking stronghold, was the final part of the route we’d follow before emerging into the open water of Boknafjorden, north of Stavanger.
We make our approaches to Haugesund shortly before 4am, following a couple of large supply vessels into the port, and picking up the sector lights of the first of the channel markers. Unlike previous night’s sailing, this was pilotage, picking out lights marking the edge of the channel and counting off the buoys, and in familiar water (I sailed here on Draken Harald Hårfagre in the summer of 2013).
The wind had died away in the evening, and Karmsund was millpond flat in the lee of the island. With first light we picked up the beginning of the open water swell, rolling in across from the North Sea ahead of the coming weather system, and at the 7am watch change, we handed over a slate grey sea streaked with white horses, and the news that we’d put into Skudeneshavn rather than try to run ahead of the storm for Lerwick or Peterhead.
Entry into Skudeneshaven is through a channel, only 30 metres at the narrowest just past the lighthouse at Vikeholmen. After a couple of hours punching into the swell we find our line into the harbour, and start dropping sails for arrival. I’m sent to the bowsprit to call distances and look out for traffic in the harbour (I’m rubbish at estimating distances) as the rain starts to sheet down.
Skudeneshavn was bustling herring port in the 18th and 19th century, a boomtown during the age of sail, where fishing and shipping brought wealth to the locals and drew in workers from the rest of the region. Now traditional herring drifters in the harbour have given way to vast oil rig supply ships and small leisure boats.
We slide into the wind shadow of an immense oil rig supply ship with a helipad several stories above the tip of our mast, and try to find a berth big enough for the ship. The harbour narrows down, lined with old buildings, and small boats are tied up on every quay. The wind pushes us to one spot, and we quickly make fast, though this involves running up one lane and down another, and hopping into a garden.
The old town, Gamle Skudeneshavn, is a winding warren of narrow cobbled lanes, quays and jetties, and traditional whitewashed timber buildings, built by the master boatbuilders that were based here, in a tight jumble around the water’s edge. The town still bustles through the summer, as a popular holiday getaway from nearby Stavanger, and the host of several heritage festivals, including Skudefestivalen, the largest traditional boat gathering in western Norway.
In late autumn, the streets and the shore are far quieter, as weather systems sweep in from the Atlantic Ocean bringing regular wind squalls and rain showers. Coastal walks become bracing, but there’s always a cosy corner in town to find hot coffee and waffles to warm up.
As the crow flies, we’re less than 15 nautical miles from the island of Utsira, imagined remote and stormbound yet so familiar from the Shipping Forecast, that regular incantation that masters the weather for mariners. Violent storm 11 is every bit as terrifying as it sounds. We’ll be staying here in the harbour for some time.
These Vagabond Shoes. 
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