13-Jul-2000 -- The first sea confluence
We usually spend part of the summer each year in a cabin owned by my
wife's parents. This cabin is located on Asmaløy, one of the larger of the
several hundred islands in the Hvaler archipelago, just north of the coastal
border between Norway and Sweden.
About 5 km south of Asmaløy, and just 3.5 km SW of the community
center in Skjærhalden lies the n59-e011 confluence, just offshore from
Søndre Lauer. This is a somewhat problematical point because it a) is on the
unofficial list, and b) from the map seems to be a little over 100m from the
nearest dry land.
Yesterday (13 July 2000) Halvor Norløff (picture #5) and myself set
sail from Viker harbor on Asmaløy to check it out. Getting closer, we noticed
the two old stone cairns (picture #2), put up when this area was an important
fishing and sea pilot community, to help find the narrow navigatable channels
between all the underwater rocks.
Just slightly over 100m from the confluence point, the sea chart (picture #6)
shows an iron marker and a tiny surface-breaking rock (picture #3), both of them
can be seen on the photo.
Using a Zodiac, it would be possible to land on this rock, to set foot on the
confluence, but we tried instead to sail as close as possible to the exact point:
On the first attempt, we got to N59.00011 E011.00001 (picture #1), i.e. within
20m, which we decided was good enough, so we spent the rest of the day sailing
around in this area which must be one of the nicest places in all of Scandinavia.
Terje Mathisen