Towards a new normal

May 24th - 28th Brønnøysund - Sandnessjøen

With my spring holiday almost over its time to get into work mode.  But we are still not allowed into the office. Everybody that can work from home hast to, but there are no definition on what home is. So for this summer the boat is going to be my home - and eventual even holiday destination. With little restrictions against moving within Norway the plan is to work daytime and slowly move the boat in evenings and weekends and to the north.

But before the spring break is completely over I have one last day of sailing - well motoring with no wind mostly. Just outside Brønnøysund I met the old local steamer M/S Bruvik far away from its home waters around Bergen.

In an earlier blog post (in Norwegian) I talked about the sinking og M/S Riegel on November 27th 1944. Where bombers an fighters from the British aircraft carrier HMS Implaceable bombed and sank the "German" steamer. The ship was really Norwegian but had been confiscated by the occupant and was sailing under a German flag. On deck the ship was loaded with confiscated cars and other goods. But below deck there where around 3000 men mostly Soviet prisoners of war but some other prisoners, German soldiers and the Norwegian crew. Around 2500 person went down with the ship making it the largest incident during WWII in Norway and the costliest ship cathastrophe in Norway. However this is almost unknown probably since most of the dead was Russians. On Rossøya where the ship enden when the captain tried to save ship and men by running aground the main propellers and an anchor is kept as a memorial. The foreigners that died is buried on Tjøtta International War Cemetery on the opposite side of the channel. This cemetery lies next to Tjøtta Soviet War Cemetery with 7500 buried making these two collective larger in terms of buried soldiers than the famous American in Coleville sur Mer in Normandy.

Finally I must say that in my opinion it is fruitless to blame anyone for this kind of cathastophes especially this many years after. BUT I feel that we Norwegians should to a much larger degree honor the sacrifice, suffering and in the end for many death by foreign allied prisoners of war in Norway.  That the leaders of many of the soldiers ending as POWs in Norway was despotic and that we after WWII ended up on different sides in the Cold War shouldn't taint our respect for the then allies and especially the foot soldiers.

But enough about me ranting about the war weather was really nice and there were natural wonders to admire.

On one of the afternoons I stayed in Sandnessjøen I took my bike at rode to admire the same mountains from a different angel and in the glow of the setting sun.

I also ventured of to take a look (as close as I could some without trespassing) of the damage to the ferry that had rammed into a freight ship in Mosjøen a week earlier.