Finding a marina...

Finding a marina in Norway should be pretty easy. After all, there is more coastline here than in any other country of the world. You can get various reports on how long it really is. According to a survey by worldbymap.org, Norway's coastline is  83,281 kilometres, or 51784 miles. You might be forgiven to think that this is impossible, but with the islands, the crinkly fjords and the extreme length of the country, well, you would be wrong!

So, how do we begin?

We started by looking for slips available for rent. There are possibly several avenues to do this, but I relied on the Norwegian equivalent of Craig's list, Finn.no. As we bought out boat at the end of the sailing season, there were actually some options for 'bubblehavns' or slips with agitated water to stop ice forming. These were relatively cheap, but no one I spoke too did this. Those of my colleagues who owned boats had them pulled and stored on land. I figured that I would do the same.

Naturally, not knowing anything about the boating scene in Norway and having never read any forums or blogs about the same, I turned to the one potential resource that would be sure to know something. Our seller. Øyvind to the rescue!

He talked to the manager of the marina where he had been storing his boat, and arranged to have it kept there. At least for the winter. Great! One less thing to consider. So now our boat was officially lodged at Sonskilen Båthavn. They even agreed to let us have a slip the following summer. We could not have been more pleased!

As you can see, Son is nearly halfway down the coast in the Oslo fjord. It has good access to the main body of the fjord, and will allow us to explore the islands and the Swedish coast with ease.

As it is about an hour and twenty minutes drive from our house, we can get there there pretty easily. But before any of that is possible, we shall have to prepare it for winter, because, as this is Norway, WINTER IS COMING.