She was built in 1957 and served as a shrimp trawler until 2001. In 2018, Eirik purchased the Sølvskjær and began restoring her. This is where we spent our last night in Norway.

Sitting on deck in the morning, following our last dip in the rejuvenating fjord waters, we reflect on our two weeks spent in Norway; the first stop on our journey. There’s a line in The Tao (“Way”) of Pooh, which Heather read and Corey re-read while in Norway, that reads, “It’s really great fun to go somewhere where there are no time saving devices because, when you do, you find that you have lots of time.”

With all of our devices (aside from camera gear…a necessary exception) in the off position for the entire two weeks, this statement could not have felt more true. To take it a step further, it also happened that none of the three accommodations we stayed in while in Norway had a working clock. And sunrise was some time around 4am with sunset in the region of midnight. So not only did it seem like we had lots of time, it actually felt like time–as we had come to know it–completely ceased to exist. And it was amazing.

Just as we had planned, we spent each day doing exactly what we felt like doing that day, with no advance plans, and on top of that, we did it whenever it felt right.

In the few instances where we knew we had to be “on time,” like when we took the ferry across the fjord to hike one of the nearby mountains, and because we felt strongly about following the guidelines of our self-imposed device restriction, we relied on taking a photo and checking the metadata for a quick time check. Which explains the handful of photos that look like this on the memory card.

The basic pleasures that started to feel like luxuries in our hectic lives in London became the way we spent our days during these two weeks. Going on walks together, jumping in the water, cooking (often improvised but always delicious) meals together, sitting in a hammock, reading for pleasure.

The scenery around us and in which we were able to immerse ourselves was inspiring on so many levels. Aside from the boat, we also stayed in a fjord-side guest house with a local family who found so many ways to take advantage of and share their surroundings with others–everything from growing cherries commercially, to raising goats, to hunting and fishing, to renting bicycles (Corey traded some drone photos of their house for a free bike rental) and kayaks, and renting out their two guest homes.

Our other temporary home was a secluded and rustic cabin, steps from another fjord. It was the antithesis of apartment living and exactly what we needed to further shift into the peace that comes from moving through each day in whichever way feels right.

While only the beginning of our journey, we sit on the deck of our boat that last morning in Norway feeling like we have already arrived somewhere. And the path ahead seems brighter and more exciting than ever.