Audacious

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Forgive me, but I prefer cruising the west coast of Norway in summer to the Caribbean in winter. In spite of the occasional harshness of weather during the summer (Bergen is about 60 degrees north) and the rocky coastline, Norway made me feel safe, rooted to the Earth. The Caribbean, by comparison, feels fragile, temporary--it doesn't give me any kind of anchor to keep me from floating off the planet. Silly, but true for me. Norway is rocky, dotted with patches of intensely green foliage, lush farms, hundreds of lakes and the odd glacier or two. The air is squeaky clean, salty and a little biting; the water is light pea-green and cold. Viking ghosts haunt the coastline with a spirit of great courage, strength, high adventure and supreme seamanship.

Coastal Norway is a time machine--in Bergen, I ate lunch in The Unicorn restaurant on the second floor of a wooden building that was built in the early 1200s. Imagine what these buildings have endured, what dramas were played out within their walls. Makes my spine tingle just to think about it. Not far from this row of 13th century commercial buildings at Bergen's Fisktorget (outdoor fish market), you can buy the world's sweetest strawberries (grown right there in Norway), the freshest fish and the niftiest hand-knit woolens. Squinting to shut out the details of dress sent me back 100 years and more. Then the Fisketorget was more necessary than tourist attraction.

I re-entered the 20th century on the north side of the harbor, along Bryggen. Snuggled against the quay, where bald truck tires lashed to the bulkhead protect the topsides of visiting yachts, was my charter, Audacious. She's a Swan 51 of mid-1980s vintage. An early Swan is a good charter boat because the interior is carved up into a lot of individual spaces. You can have a crowd and your privacy. Four of us would be aboard for much of the week, the skipper, a photographer/adventurer, the owner, and yours truly. I took the after stateroom, which has its own head, enough stowage for all the gear a person needs this far north, and a comfortable double berth. Her weekly rate is $6,500, plus all expenses. Across Bryggen, I found the tourist information office packed with people, brochures and books. East and west of there, a handful of shops (catering to tourists with native woolens, replicas of ancient Viking jewelry, and statues of trolls) salt-and-pepper a string of real-life businesses. The tourist shops lend the street a liveliness that's pleasingly devoid of the slideshow atmosphere.

In fact, every port I visited in Norway smacked of the country's routine daily life, but that's why I loved being there. I was a tourist, but at the same time, I wasn't. The Norwegian people are partly responsible for making me feel this way. They go about their routines with cheerful resignation. "OK," they seem to say to themselves. "I have this and that to do, so I'd better get on with it." They hurry when they must, but hardly ever seem rushed.

They are a rugged bunch, too--as rugged and beautiful as the local topography--and fiercely independent, though they balance these traits with openness, warmth, humor and an eagerness to share their country and culture with strangers. Don't, however, mess with them in a queue. "After you," is a phrase that doesn't come easily to the lips of Norwegians waiting to board a plane. This behavior, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with rudeness: they're simply trying to get through, as quickly as possible, a routine that cramps their spirit of independence.

A large part of daily life in Norway is pinned to the sea. Trade with Europe, for example, put Bergen on the map in the 13th century. Germans set up trading companies along the north side of the harbor and were responsible for building the row of 13th century buildings opposite our mooring. The architecture and the beer in Bergen are distinctly of German ancestry.