The harbour tug blasted out jets of water and a cannon boomed out as the Swan made her way in through the harbour mouth of the fine port of Alesund. A ferry ran past our port side and from the smiling faces of those on board waving to us we could see they were as pleased to see us as we were to have arrived.

It had been a bummly run across from Shetland. There was wind right on the nose the whole way. It started off light and freshened so that at times we had gusts of force 8 coming over the deck. The fridge door flew open coming through the Ninian field and the fos'c'le got a new topcoat of white yogurt, orange juice and Freefields finest blue and green.

We rounded the top of Statt in the early hours and heads began to appear in hatch openings as we found the shelter of the fjords and the Swan was in flat water again. Robbie got on a big pot of gruel and all hands were round the table and soon tucking in.

Soon we were alongside and familiar faces were there on the quayside, hame faces! and plenty of them! we began to wonder if we had ever left Shetland! this was a coach party across with Andrew Morrison and the classic motorbike club Tall Ships Tour as well. Throughout the day among the thousands thronging the waterfront we saw plenty of Shelties and Norweigens with Shetland connections. The cloudy skies of the early morning broke away to bathe Alesund in a summer sun and shorts and T shirts were the order of the day. The crew went ashore to check out the vast range of stalls and entertainments laid on and came back bearing assorted garments and local delicacies.

The crew for this trip are a great mix of people with a common desire; to sail in the Cutty Sark Tall Ship Races and have a good time while doing it. Because of the rules of the Cutty Sark races 50% of all on board must be aged 15-25 inclusive. We have eight youths and three adult voyage crew + four Swan crew members. Among the youths are three musicians who have been joint sponsored by Shetland Arts Trust, The Scottish International Education Trust and The Swan Trust. They are the gifted fiddle players,Jenny Napier and Stuart Grains and the excellent pianist Neil Georgeson. In addition to them our youngest voyage crew member, Terry Balfour also plays guitar as does Tommy Allan and Martha Priest plays mandolin so we are not short on musical talent. Chris Mason and Tristan Barnes are two enthusiastic lads from Norwich. Pauline and Brian Watts are from North Yorkshire and they with Ruth Brownlee are the three adult voyage crew on board. We are also joined here by a young Norwegean television reporter, Kristian Bruaroy, who works for the Norwegean television company TV2. He is on board to film our journey down the coast and to update the TV2 website www.tv2.no/cuttysark So you can follow our travels there as well!

The means of puting this page on the internet while we are here has proved to be fraught. It was to be linked into a mobile phone but the connection couldn't link into the laptop when we got here. Even an expert like Kristian couldn't sort it out. The fact you are reading this means that we have got something through but there was a lot of button pushing and head scratching in between. Anyway, we will try to get something up here each day as far as possible.