Across the Hardangerfjord on a grey August morning — a slow drift under Furebergfossen, coffee by the old white house at Sundal, and a fjord like glass for the whole run home.
We left Bergen under the kind of sky that keeps most boats at their moorings. By the time the fjord narrowed, the clouds had come halfway down the mountains — which is exactly when this coastline looks its biggest.
Twenty-odd knots across open water, and the sky already deciding to open behind us.
Furebergfossen drops almost straight into the fjord arm at Mauranger — the road crosses a bridge right beneath the fall. We pulled the speed off and let the boat drift in close enough to hear it over the engines.
The villages out here sit straight on the waterline — boathouses first, farms up the slope behind. Arriving by sea, you see them the way they were built to be seen.
We came alongside the old quay at Sundal and walked up between the houses. The white carpenter-gothic house above the shore had its café tables out, and nobody was in a hurry — us included.
On the way home the wind gave up completely. The last hour was the kind of water you stop talking on.
