Sailwithme #3 - Steilene

Yesterday I moored up by Steilene, a group of islands nearby Oslo. They have been filled up with oil tanks and industry in earlier times - today almost everything has been cleaned up and the islands appears to be clean and inviting. There are some four islands - Landsteilene, closest to land, it has some harbour facilities owned by "Stiftelsen Landsteinene" and it's connected with Persteilene by a causeway. At Persteilene the harbour facilities and most of the buildings are owned by Nesodden Seilforening. Storsteilene is the biggest, it has one toilet, one remaining old tank without a ceiling and some unmaintained old harbour facilites, but except for that the island is mostly wild. Knerten is the smallest island, it's restricted area, reserved for seabirds - and then it's Fyrsteilene, it has been with an old lighthouse. There are several buildings on the island, but it's mostly deserted.

There is one quay at Persteilene, but the water level was a bit too low. Notice there is a gap between the boat and the quay - I was not able to move closer!

I almost felt lonely - so I decided to do a bit of searching to see if there were other people on the islands. Although there were lots of footprints in the snow at Persteilene and some few on Landsteilene, it appears I was the only person on the whole group of islands, both Friday and Saturday. That's amazing. Those islands are teeming with people in the weekends in the summer time.

Those buildings are owned by the sailing association ...

This is an old factory building. In the end of the building there are water toilets and a washing machine, publicly available, owned by the municipality - however today there was no water. I wonder if the pipes are frozen, or if they closed the water for the winter (but no signs about it ... so possibly the first). Too bad, I tried starting the washing machine before I discovered. Also, the toilet was not flushed when I came there, took me some time to figure out why ... :-(

I moved the boat, eventually

Every Saturday the children are attending a school downtown, so I left the big boat behind and went downtown with the dhingy. My seven years old son was with me. He said he was only freezing at his hands, though at the very end he was repeatedly asking how far it was left. I hope he enjoyed the ride and got a great experience from it, though it may have been a bit rough - apparently he had fever this night.

This is the straight of some islands with the name Ildjernet. Weird name for some islands, I think. It's deep enough to pass even with the big boat here, there is even a passenger ferry taking this route sometimes. Houses are hugging the hill to the mainland, it's pretty amazing.

Nesoddtangen

I took quite some photos of Aker Brygge when arriving downtown, but I'll post them in a separate post. Here is from the return trip.

This is the only remaining oil tank - serving the purpose of being a monument. The ceiling has been removed.

The tank has two entrances, one door on the middle of the wall - it's not accessible ... and then there is this hole.

I've been crawling in before, but today I was not really in the mood, just my hand and the phone (aka camera) went in the opening.

The ground on the inside looks really clean and wild, with lots of plants and even trees living there. I suppose the ground was covered with concrete when they used the tank for storing oil, though there are no traces of it. There are channels running down leading to this exit hole.

This island has no water ... but there is a simple toilet facility for the visitors. It even has toilet paper.

Then I went to Fyrsteilene, I've never been there before

This house can be rented.

"Engine house" ... "no access". I wonder a bit what it's used for.

The lighthouse itself is now privately owned, according to the information an artist is living there. No footprints anywhere, so he's obviously not living here now.

The light itself is removed, probably made obsolete by all the other lights and marks that has appeared, many of them directly in the sea. Lights are rapidly becoming obsolete by themselves, as people navigate by gps and digital maps rather than old paper maps. It is several years since I last navigated by a light. (edit: later the same day the lights proved useful for me, as I was navigating with the dhingy in the dark, difficult to go fast with the dhingy while holding the telephone. This light is still present on the official up-to-date seamap, so I should probably revisit in the dark and check).

Fenced, so nobody should climb up and fall down ... though, seems like someone wanted to climb up anyway.

No idea about this building. Who owns it, what is it used for, what works and what doesn't work ...

Webcam?

This is the view captured by the camera, if it still works.

Right ... so this is where I was supposed to leave the boat. I was wondering a bit, seemed to be no safe place to leave a boat.

This is the new breed of lights, they are non-standard Norwegian invention, called "HIB" - Hurtigbåt Indirekte Belysning. They were designed after an accident with 16 fatalities in 1999 where a fast boat (hurtigbåt) misnavigated. They have a green, red or white light at the top and is usually replacing lateral marks in the sea, but the main feature is indirect lightning - strong downward-pointing LEDs making the triangle visible from long distance and easy to see by the fast-going boats. Arrow points towards safe water.

All photos (and more of them) available in full quality at IPFS QmRWTBJxCYoWGAwXBhVcmwPv8PQwjtdzVnuLaKn3LMqcF7. CC BY-SA 4.0