On Tryggve Andersen – Journal from a sea voyage (1923)
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| Cruising the South Coast, Sørlandet, 2011. From the island Merdø, off Arendal. |
Pleasure reading doesn’t combine with pleasure sailing as smoothly as one could wish. Nor does writhing, by the way. The Norwegian author Tryggve Andersen (1866-1920) probably would have confirmed this after his sea voyage, 1902-1903, as a passenger on board the Norwegian barque "Jonas". The ship weighted anchor in Gothenburg and sailed directly to South Africa, then crossed the Atlantic to Barbados, then north to Wilmington, North Carolina, then crossed the North-Atlantic bound for London where the journal ends. My own experiences are different from this, though, and far more modest. Sailing – which for me means pleasure cruising – means to escape the city noise and the everyday duties and bustle. It means leaving the world to its own devices while cruising through fjords, straits and bays without more tasks than those strictly necessary to avoid peace of mind from turning into boredom. But little writing is done, actually. Often the crew require some attention – and at least; complete silence is too much to ask for in the long run. Or something else interferes, and at least one has to get out of berth, and this inevitably brings about all sorts of duties. And besides, the sailing takes its toll, and then, after letting go the anchor, you have to take five; you get so tired in sea air, and suddenly the day is done. Reading is easier, but far-reaching studies are rare; most often reduced to a few minutes on deck if the sun shines, in the cockpit after mess, or a few minutes in the bunk before “fall of the curtain”. After a day in which many odd jobs have been done after all - like thinking life over, and ones place in universe – while the sunset glows and glows and glows in the north-western vault of heaven, a trough experience of the long-lasting northern summer evening. Many things require some time-space while we are still breathing and alive.
On board the ship, Tryggve Andersen read English novels, he tried to write a novel too, and he decided to keep a journal: "to take down in a hurry this and that". My own efforts in this genre have resulted in sadly unsystematic entries, some notes on positions and waves and wind, maybe, but only for the first couple of hours, half-hearted and really without any navigational or existential function. The explanation is technological. Today it's no longer possible to throw certainty overboard. In the sky satellites are soaring, tracking our true course on mother earth. Our sea crossings are still linked to cosmos, but uncertainty is gone at least concerning time and space. We don’t ask anymore – like the old-timers did – where on earth we are and how on earth our port of call could possibly have moved. Tryggve Andersen was an idle passenger. Nevertheless his journal is kept in fits and starts. He had his reasons.
I didn’t have much knowledge of Tryggve Andersen – the author of I Cancelliraadens Dage (1897), but I came across his Journal from a sea voyage (1923) at some antiquarian bookshop. Later on I took the book along as maritime reading during my summer holiday coasting, 2011, from Stavanger in the southwest, towards the Norwegian South Coast, Sørlandet. The book was a forgotten work for the most part, but enticing just for that reason. At least the book followed me all the 400 nautical miles, a round-trip adventure, Jomfruland and the Kragerø archipelago being the turning point. But time passes quickly. The crew numbers three, my wife of course and two good friends. Both sailing and socialising requires some effort and attention, and reading in spare time turns out so-so. Amateurs we are, so we wind our way down the coast, without any watches set and consequently little time for me to turn in. And every night when the sea journal is opened, shutters are put up before my eyes just when I find where I left off. The real South Coast chapters; white wooden houses, islands and inlets, wee pass by with fits and starts in varying weather, but much faster than the journal are leafed trough. And actually, it doesn’t bother me much. Besides; Tryggve Andersen might be the one to blame? It becomes evident, I would say, that the journal is a kind of raw material, not completed and worked over. So, it isn’t false modesty when the author himself writes in his first notes that the journal is meant to be a rough draft for later articles, and a way to while away the time on board. It shows. The rhythm and the stile make me bored and the reading soon ends after days filled with non-literary pleasures. Even after weather-bound days with gale and deluge, in lee of the Paradise-islets west of Flekkerøya, the journal is half unread – and now with clear moisture damages, since my old vessel has some bad leaks as supplement to the overall increasing degree of humidity.
