We’re in Risør now.
It’s another charming seaside village, population 7000 in the winter, 20,000 in summer. The houses are a uniform white wood, like in Flekkefjord.
After a rainy drive from Flekkefjord, we arrived in Risør and headed straight for the Mayor’s office. He was looking rather harried, being in the middle of labor negotiations with one of Norway’s strongest unions, the teachers. Still, he greeted us graciously and fed us a nice lunch.
My host, Solveig Aanansen, is head nurse at the local clinic. She is also trained as a midwife but no longer practices actively. She lives by herself in a lovely flat facing the Risør harbor, so we enjoy cheerful views and are close to everything imaginable.
Yesterday we drove to Arendal, a neighboring city, to a boat exhibition. Lined up in the harbor were hosts of swanky boats, with people taking off their shoes to tour. There was also a handmade-chocolate stand, which got my attention more than the boats I couldn’t afford. I bought some lime (yes, lime) chocolate and a large bar of popped-rice milk chocolate for dessert with Solveig.
Today was a full day. We started at a fish hatchery, one of the most productive in Norway. The production manager showed us the halibut babies from fingernail-sized floating blobs to smallish, flat fingerlings with eyes on one side of their heads. They are incubated when hatched, fed algae fortified with Omega-3 fatty acids. When their eyes start to migrate, they’re placed in tanks to grow to selling size, about 4g. Finally, we saw the “spawners” — literal big mamas, 50kg leviathons swimming around dark tanks. As a woman, I sympathized with these poor creatures, periodically yanked out of their environment, then wrestled on lab tables till they give up their eggs. What a life.
Next stop: a blast from ship-building past, at Moen Shipbuilders. Risør was built on shipyards, with hundreds springing up over the past 250-300 years. Nowadys, Moen consists of two old buildings, looking so much like mammoth red barns. Inside sit wooden boats, awaiting minor repair or virtual rebuilding. The small team uses equipment from the past as well: ancient band saws, wooden peg makers, planing contraptions from the 1940s and before.
The day’s tour ended at Acanthus, a ceramic factory at the outskirts of town. We wandered through the showroom, evaluating the patterns of platters, mugs, lamps, etc. Then Ewa, our Polish guide, took us in back for a tour of the factory, showing everything from molds with clay in them to the glazing step. At the end of the tour, we were each given an unfinished fish platter to design. I figured the hardest part would be deciding on a pattern. I never got around to deciding, messing up the very first stroke and then trying to build a design from that. I ended up with what should have been a scarf-bundled child in a field of turquoise blue with clouds floating overhead. “Oh, South Park!” exclaimed Ewa, and she proceeded to crack us up with a choice line from the TV show. I had a greater appreciation of the deceptively simple designs in the showroom after that. To assuage everyone’s frustration, we also got to paint our own cups; I went for a more conservative look this time.
After dinner, Solveig and I headed to the other end of the harbor for a boat ride with Svein and his wife Bjerg, while the rest of the team went on Tonnes’ bigger speedboat. Passing a regatta of sailboats, we threaded our way through the small islands off the coast. Svein offered me the wheel. I asked if I should go any faster, and he promised I could get her up to speed on the way home. We all stopped for a decadent dessert buffet on one of the islands, then packed up when it started getting a bit chilly. Going further, we went through a narrow pass known as “Perleporten” or “The Pearly Gates.” With me at the bow, Svein followed Tonnes’ boat, a papparazzi clicking away at me. So I have proof that I’ve made it through the Pearly Gates.
On the way home, Svein made good on his promise and let me speed up a little. “Faster!” he urged, and I complied. “Turn! C’mon, harder!” So the boat careened at full throttle as best I could manage, with Svein egging me on and Solveig and Bjerg shrieking in the back.
Back in the harbor, Svein took Jim, Kevin and me for a play at the boat again. Kevin, then Jim took turns driving out toward a lighthouse in the North Sea and turning around a marker. I asked if I could try my hand at it, thinking I’d keep up with the guys. It’s one thing to zigzag at nearly open sea, quite another to pull a tight curve with a land mass dead ahead. At the last second, I chickened out and pulled back to nearly standstill, with Jim hooting at my nerves. A lesson in quitting when one is ahead.
It’s nine-thirty, with the sun still well above the horizon. As I type, I can watch a large wooden sailboat floating into the harbor and listen to a speedboat heading out to sea. Plenty of time for another ride before sunset.
