Photo: Leif Jørgensen·CC BY-SA 4.0· Wikimedia Commons
Islands / Oslo / Kavringen
A small, whale-backed skerry northwest of Hovedøya carrying the Kavringen light. Together with the shallows around it, it makes up a seabird reserve established on 15 December 1978 to protect seabird nesting sites.
Kavringen is the small whale-backed skerry with the red beacon northwest of Hovedøya, in the western approach to Oslo harbour. You pass it to starboard coming in through the western channel from the Bygdøy side. The skerry is low and bare, and the light stands in the middle of it. Do not land: the whole skerry and the shallows around it are a seabird reserve.
Nature reserve; access banned 15 April to 15 July for the sake of nesting seabirds. The boundaries and the rules are in Naturbase, and they are worth checking before you land anywhere outside the marked areas.
Private boat (but landing forbidden in the nesting season).
No scheduled boat comes here. You will have to find the nearest public quay yourself, and the rest is your own boat or a kayak. Check the wind and wave forecast before you set out; the open stretches in the outer fjord turn unpleasant in a fresh breeze.
Kavringen got its light in 1892. The reason was a specific grounding: the steamer DS Norge went on the rocks at Kavringen in 1890, and better marking of the western channel was demanded afterwards. Until then Oslo harbour had only two lights, Heggholmen in the middle channel from 1826/1876 and Dyna in the western channel from 1875.
The tower is 19 metres high, timber-framed with board cladding, with a focal plane 11.7 metres above the sea. The light began as a paraffin lamp, was strengthened with a lens set in 1928 and went electric in 1932. The keeper at Dyna was responsible for Kavringen until 1956, when the lights in the western channel were automated and the keeper's post abolished.
The skerry itself and the shallow ground around it, around 1.6 hectares (16 dekar) in all, were protected as a nature reserve on 15 December 1978. The purpose was to preserve the seabird nesting sites.
Kavringen is a light and a bird reserve, and nobody goes ashore there. The beacon still burns for the traffic in and out of Oslo, and the seabirds have the skerry to themselves through the nesting season.
You can pass in your own boat, but landing is forbidden in the nesting season. Protection: nature reserve from 15 December 1978, with access to the skerry banned from 15 April to 15 July for the sake of nesting seabirds. Outside that period the skerry is poorly suited to landing anyway. Check Naturbase, the national map of protected areas, for the rules in force.
Since 2000 the Kavringen light has held Oslo's time capsule, a titanium container due to be opened in the year 3000. A lighthouse on a bird reserve is the city's letterbox to people a thousand years ahead.
The light exists because of a grounding. DS Norge went on the skerry in 1890, and two years later the beacon stood there.
The light character is group occulting with three eclipses, divided into white, red and green sectors. The colour of the sector tells the skipper whether he is safely in the fairway or heading for the shallows.
Oslo Sea Experience passes Kavringen on its private fjord trips from Tjuvholmen.
The Norwegian version notes which facts were taken from each source: Kavringen på norsk.