Arriving at Drøbak

After an intense day with events and sailing, we arrived late evening in the community of Drøbak south of Oslo. The off-season signs were quite obvious. A great marina close to a capital city, but hardly any boats. The ones there were empty. No people. Grabbing some food and hitting the sack was the evening option.

The next morning I did some laptop yoga and got to get some work done. At 2 pm I met with the manager of the Drøbak Aquarium. An important institution that keeps local knowledge updated by keeping the local seawater fauna, fishes and animals from the Oslo Fjord in aquariums filled with fresh water pumped directly from the Oslo Fjord just outside.

Met with manager Klaus Bareksten – a very inspiring man with lots of charming stories about the wildlife in the Oslo Fjord. This video is a snippet about Hugo, the catfish and grand ol' man of the place:-) In Norwegian, we will get it translated and subtitled some day soon...

THERE IS HOPE LOCALLY, BUT STILL A HAZZLE GLOBALLY...

Due to a marine biologist passing by the ongoing interview, I learned that the water in fact is getting cleaner and cleaner in the quite narrow fjord. The worst period was back in the days when the citizens of Oslo were blessed with flushable toilets, the farmers discovered fertilizers and began running their fields with mono culture farming. Everything ended up unfiltered in the fjord. The water wildlife suffered badly and water cleaning stations entered the area one by one due to pressure from environmentalists and concerned politicians, citizens and fishermen. Since then the water quality has improved. Hurray! However the plastic debris and micro plastic issue is a growing dilemma here as it is in every body of water elsewhere...