Ferries from Norheimsund båtkai

The day starts here. At 09:00 the boat leaves Norheimsund for Herand, 7.1 nautical miles and 23 minutes up the fjord, and it does not come back until 18:10 — one sailing out, one in, seven days a week until the end of September.

Between those two times it works the whole length of Hardangerfjorden and returns. The 25 minutes on the inbound leg against 23 on the outbound is the only difference the timetable records.

Norheimsund is the largest village in Kvam, on the fjord's northern shore an hour and a half from Bergen by road, and it holds the Hardanger Fartøyvernsenter — a working yard where old wooden vessels are restored using the original methods. A village that repairs nineteenth-century boats and dispatches a scheduled one each morning is being consistent rather than nostalgic.