Humming it as an intro to what may prove to be my own story. Or an attempt at it, at any rate. I have been inspired by the unlikely fact that once more I find myself here, on board the Voyager, surrounded by stories, layer upon layer of scents, the switches to huge mechanisms in my memory. I kept my mouth shut when Hanna said that the boat had once belonged to ‘a legendary actor’. She was well aware, of course, that I had known Gabriel Sand. Much has changed, though. For one thing, they have installed a four-cylinder Volvo Penta diesel engine. A wise move. Here, among such high mountains, the winds can be everything from insidiously capricious to absolutely non-existent. Voyager is also a grander name than the old one, the Norge. It befits a boat which, by their way of it, is going on a voyage of discovery. Into a new millennium. The Norge was more apt for a vessel which lies safe in harbour and never sets sail. I had a strange experience out at the point north of Mannheller.
