Mandal, a small town with many boats.
Our plan is to stay two nights in Mandal, discover the small town, get some exercise for the legs, enjoy a glass of wine or beer with our dinner and back to Medemblik, The Netherlands.
We were not disappointed with Mandal: friendly people, lovely wooden houses, quaint shops. Oh yeah, and electric cars. It felt as is every 10th car was a Tesla and every other car a hybrid or electric one.
Alcohol; needless to say that we knew that alcohol is very expensive in Norway, hence we brought along a couple of bottles of wine + some beers.
Shocking, however, were the prices of everything else. Being it bread, veg, fruit, clothes… You name it and the price is right! We almost felt back in Abu Dhabi where the cost of living was also outrageous.
Rain or shine - read: rain, rain, rain - the locals completely ignored the weather gods and just went on with their usual summer activities. Great to see: shorts, summer dresses, flip flops and all that at just 15 degrees and RAIN!
Unfortunately, the weather gods weren't very nice to us and a storm forced us to stay in Mandal for another three days. Hence we enjoyed some extra time here.
If all goes well, we will leave around 6:00 on Thursday afternoon… The weather forecast is still somewhat stormy at our ETD, but the captain - Peter - says that a somewhat challenging sea is perfect to build up our experience and confidence + we have our back-up and extra hands Johan with us!