I’ve been at a loss at what I should do in Stavanger. Everything seems so expensive and I don’t really want to part with the little bit of money I have budgeted for the trip. Yesterday I decided simply to wander along the waterfront.
As a typical landlubber tourist, I felt compelled to photograph practically every ship I came across. What was interesting about this was that when I downloaded the images on to my computer and googled the names of the ships, nearly all of them had something to do with the construction of oil platforms.
I walked on to get a good view of the Rosenberg Mekaniske Verksted, the shipyard, which was across the water on the island of Buøy. This has been here since the late 19th century and today manufactures (and repairs) predominantly oil tankers, as well as oil platforms.
I kept going past the Stavanger offshore tekniske skole, what I later found out to be a technical college aiming to be “a leading national centre of education for offshore related education”. As far as I can work out, this means they prepare students for work in the oil industry. Continuing, I passed numerous office blocks, all of which seemed to house oil companies.
Although it is light until gone eleven, I decided to head back around eight o’clock. The memory card of the camera Elena had lent me was full and my legs were starting to get tired.