Navigation

On the peninsula Bygdoy are several museums about navigation: Framhus, the museum of seafaring, the Kontiki museum and the museum of Viking ships. This is a good possibility to remember the past days of navigation just the day before my own embarkment and to compare it to the passages of the present.

On the left in the picture is the 'Gjoa' which made the north-west passage (up north around Canada and Alaska) for the first time.

In the Framhus is the 'Fram'. This ship was twice in the Antarctica and once in the Arctic in the beginning of the last century. The ship was pulled on land in 1936 and then the hall was built around it. Is is possible to visit the whole ship, even the inner part. The narrowness of the cabins is dreadful: on 2 square meters two people had to live with each other. The Southpole conquerer Roald Amundsen travelled with the Fram for longer periods and not even he had a bigger cabin...

Navigation is one of the most important features of seafaring. The Vikings navigated with the help of landmarks or coarse route descriptions. The Fram, at least, had a compass and they knew the navigation with the help of the stars. And nowadays? Where are the pretty steering wheels and where is the sextant for the location of the stars?

... The answer will follow in two days from the passage on the 'Bruarfoss'.