Britt Halden has skippered on Lindhavn fjord since she was nineteen. She now takes our guests out, six days a week, and the most valuable thing she does is not navigate. It is decide.
The fjord is eighty kilometres long and four hundred metres deep at our jetty, which means the weather at the mouth and the weather at the head are frequently different weather. Britt can look at the water for about four seconds and tell you which one you are going to get.
What she looks at
- The colour of the surface against the northern shore, which shows wind before you can feel it.
- Where the birds are working, which shows where the fish are, which shows where the boats will be.
- The line of the cloud on the eastern ridge — if it is flat, the day is settled; if it is torn, it is not.
None of this is mystical and Britt is impatient with anyone who suggests it is. It is thirty-one years of paying attention to the same eighty kilometres of water, which is a form of expertise we do not have a good word for and undervalue accordingly.
The days she says no
About one day in nine between November and March, she cancels. Guests are occasionally disappointed and once, memorably, argued. She does not argue back; she simply does not go. It is the single most important safety arrangement at that house and it consists of one person being allowed to say no without needing anyone's agreement.
