The oil-rich city of Stavanger is the fourth-largest in Norway, and is a wonderful combination of working port, historic districts, modern street art, and excellent restaurants. We were excited to arrive, even if it did mark the end of our five-month Norwegian cruise.
As is normally our habit, we spent our first day there on a walking tour around town. Below are trip highlights from September 30th in Stavanger, Norway. Click any image for a larger view, or click the position to view the location on a map. And a live map of our current route and most recent log entries always is available at mvdirona.com/maps
9/30/2018
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Stavanger
Position: 58°58.41’N, 5°46.08’E
First view to Stavanger.
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Apartments
Position: 58°58.47’N, 5°45.32’E
Water-view apartments in Stavanger.
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Marina
Position: 58°58.47’N, 5°44.65’E
Residences overlooking a private marina on the island of Grasholm.
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Stord
Position: 58°58.48’N, 5°44.49’E
The ferry Stord (right) and the research vessel Pacific Finder (moored at Stavanger.
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Ferries
Position: 58°58.48’N, 5°44.49’E
Stavanger has a lot of ferries. Here are four more just west of Stord.
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Oil Museum
Position: 58°58.49’N, 5°44.16’E
Stavanger is an oil town and the Norwegian Oil Museum there covers the history of North Sea exploration from 1969 discovery to present. It is considered one of the best museums in Norway and is high on our todo list.
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Boreviga i Stavanger
Position: 58°58.50’N, 5°43.99’E
Boreviga i Stavanger, one of two guest harbours in Stavanger, looks quite full on this Sunday morning.
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RS
Position: 58°58.50’N, 5°43.99’E
The Norwegian Rescue Service Stavanger station.
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Street Art
Position: 58°58.52’N, 5°43.82’E
Our first view to one of Stavanger’s many street art displays.
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Welcome
Position: 58°58.40’N, 5°43.65’E
“Welcome to Port of Stavanger”. We’re excited to finally be here, even if it does mean the end of our Norway cruise is near.
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Vagen i Stavanger
Position: 58°58.26’N, 5°43.83’E
Dirona tucked away behind a floating pier in Vagen i Stavanger, the city’s original guest harbor right downtown. We’re the only boat here and love the spot on restaurant-lined Skagenkaien.
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Tronds Lift 7
Position: 58°58.26’N, 5°43.73’E
The huge boom on the barge Tronds Lift 7 extends right over of Dirona.
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Table Heater
Position: 58°58.24’N, 5°43.85’E
We really liked these table-pedestal patio heaters at one of the waterfront Stavanger restaurants.
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Leopold I
Position: 58°58.31’N, 5°43.81’E
The Belgian frigate Leopold I moored just north of us in Stavanger Harbour.
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Phileas Fogg
Position: 58°58.32’N, 5°43.83’E
The pub Phileas Fogg is one of the many, many pubs and restaurants nearby our moorage in Stavanger.
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Dognvill Burger
Position: 58°58.25’N, 5°43.92’E
A delicious lunch at Dognvill Burger in Stavanger. We’ll likely be back.
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Nao Guardian
Position: 58°58.41’N, 5°43.75’E
Nao Guardian‘s distinctive Ultsein X-Bow inverted bow design. The shape improves rough-water handling and fuel economy, and is becoming the standard for North Sea supply ships. As of 2018, over 100 X-Bow ships have been ordered.
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Hole Opener
Position: 58°58.38’N, 5°44.08’E
Hole opener on display outside the Norwegian Oil Museum. The opener weighs 13,778 lb (6,250kg) is designed to work with a 17.5-in drill bit through the top section of a well in areas with boulders.
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Blowout Preventer
Position: 58°58.38’N, 5°44.08’E
Blowout preventer, used to stop uncontrolled release of oil should a system failure occur, at the Norwegian Oil Museum grounds. In the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico the blowout preventer failed to seal the flow, resulting in the largest oil spill in offshore history.
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Powerlift
Position: 58°58.40’N, 5°44.17’E
One of 120 750-tonne powerlifters used to jack up the Ekofisk North Sea oil installation. The rig had sunk by 2.5m following seabed subsidence due to the extraction of oil beneath and were at risk of damage from a 100-year storm. The topside, weighing 40,000 tonnes, was jacked up by 6m to allow leg extensions to be inserted.
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Xmas Tree
Position: 58°58.40’N, 5°44.19’E
Norway’s first oil flowed through this Xmas tree, a stack of valves able to cope with different pressures up to 10,000 psi (703 kg/sq.cm). The Xmas tree was placed over the well and a pipe carried oil and gas to the Gulftide jack-up rig.
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Stord
Position: 58°58.31’N, 5°44.45’E
The ferry Stord departing Stavanger for Tau. This ferry has a single screw and rudder at both ends, the most common bi-directional ferriy configuration. This allows the ferry to operate in either direction (with a switch to change the nav lights) and also allows high degrees of maneauverability. In Mode 1 operation, it runs as a normal single-screw boat with screw and rudder to the rear. In Mode 2 operation, the propellers are live at both ends of the boat. To go sideways, the captain can put the props on both ends opposing each other and both rudders turned hard over to the same side. The ferry will just move directly sideways in the opposite direction.
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St. Johannes
Position: 58°58.11’N, 5°44.91’E
700-seat St. Johannes church in Stavanger opened in 1909.
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Swans
Position: 58°58.13’N, 5°44.06’E
Swans in Breiavetnet, a lovely downtown lake and park in downtown Stavanger.
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Stavanger Domkirk
Position: 58°58.18’N, 5°44.03’E
Stavanger Domkirk dates from the 12th century and is Norway’s oldest cathedral still in it’s original form. The church isn’t open for visiting today (Sunday), so we’ll try another day.
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Harbour
Position: 58°58.18’N, 5°43.92’E
Looking down to the harbour from Stavanger Domkirk. Dirona is dwarfed beneath the boom of Tronds Lift 7.
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Street Art
Position: 58°58.33’N, 5°43.65’E
More Stavanger street art on the western harbor shore.
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Load Line
Position: 58°58.38’N, 5°43.60’E
Diagrams on the side of Nao Guardian showing the ship’s maximum load line. The circle with the line through it is the standard Plimsoll Mark, certified by Det Norske Veritas (NV). The other marks show the load line depending upon water salinity and temperature. TF is tropical fresh water, F is freshwater, T is tropical seawater, S is summer seawater, W is winter seawater, and WNA is winter north Atlantic.
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Gamle Stavanger
Position: 58°58.33’N, 5°43.55’E
Walking through the cobblestone lanes of Gamle (Old) Stavanger lined with 18th-century houses.
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Villa 22
Position: 58°58.27’N, 5°43.80’E
At Villa 22 restaurant studying a Carta del Barolo by Renato Ratti, over a wonderful bottle of that vintner’s Barolo. The winemaker had an event at Villa 22 a few weeks back and is a featured wine at the restaurant. We’ve always loved big reds from Italy’s Piedmont region. Since we were interested in the wine, the staff brought us some of the handout material from the event.
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Evening
Position: 58°58.26’N, 5°43.82’E
Enjoying the lights of downtown Stavanger under the our patio heater on the back deck.
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Click the travel log icon on the left to see these locations on a map, with the complete log of our cruise.
On the map page, clicking on a camera or text icon will display a picture and/or log entry for that location, and clicking on the smaller icons along the route will display latitude, longitude and other navigation data for that location. And a live map of our current route and most recent log entries always is available at mvdirona.com/maps. |
I remember i saw you guys on youtube last year and last fall i was downtown Stavanger and saw your boat. waited around for maybe to meet you guys but you where probably out sightseeing. Great little ship you have and a marvelous journey it looks like. Me and my wife lived in a boat for a couple of years but we ended up with a 50 foot sailboat but if i knew about Nordhavn boats back then i would easily gone for that one.
It looks like you had a wonderful time in the oilcapitol of Norway and the views of Lysefjord. Welcome back anytime and have a great trip further on.
Sorry we missed you in Stavanger and yes you are right, we had a great time there. In fact, we had a great time in all of Norway. Today we just entered Sweden (mvdirona.com/maps) and plan to spend the summer in Sweden and Finland.
Renato Ratti is one of the best Barolo producers.
Good to hear it from an expert and good to hear from you Andrea. We definitely enjoyed that Borolo.
It all looks very neat and orderly.