This is the place, with the famous hotel just visible in the background. In fact there were quite a few brits around, one big converted fishing boat from Jersey even. It's visible to the right in the pic above.
In the evening there was a regatta outside the harbour.
The next day the wind picked up.
Then my father arrived. At least it did not rain. Still the wind was a bit too much and also I had planned the next leg to be quite long so we started the cruise in the pub.
The next day the weather was fine, with light winds and only some clouds. I wanted to move the boat up into the northern part of the archipelago again, in order to be able to get home without having to lower the mast under that brigde. Also with the more powerful engine I wanted to take the opportunity to sail through Strömma canal, basically a shortcut to get from Saltsjöbaden to Sandhamn without having to go around the outer, less sheltered part of the skerries. Usually trying to sail as much as possible and with my wife liking open horizons more than narrow canals I never had sailed through there before. I am sure that, having seen the following pictures, Nigel will have to take his Super Anne through there next year as well.
The canal starts as a natural sound which eventually narrows. There are two bridges as well, the first is high enough for most sailboats.
Once under it suddenly a dockyard appears.
Then the inlet narrows yet more.
In fact, there are much nicer spots, but I had no time to take pictures as I was too busy navigating through. After a while the water opens into a lake-like inlet that can be sailed again. At it's end is the small village of Strömma. Here is a gas station, a restaurant and according to the pilot book even a food store. That, however had been closed for three years so we did not get any provisions there. We had a hamburger though.
In Strömma the short man made canal starts. Here also is the second bridge which has to be opened for sailboats to pass. Once again, sorrily enough no pictures, we simply forgot to take any until we were through already.
Shortly after the canal, the water opens again. From here we could sail comfortably in increasing winds all the way to our destination, Gällnö. Well, not all the way, as we had to make a little detour. About one hour before we normally would have arrived at Gällnö we were hailed by a small motorboat with engine trouble and occupied by a woman and her child. She asked us for a lift to the next harbour and I accepted, provided that it was OK we would tow them under sail, which is something I secretly dreamt of for years.
We towed them under sail at 3 knots for a while but when we neared the next headland the wind dropped and in order to reach our destination i reasonable time despite the 4 nm detour we had to ask Tohatsu-San for help. After having dropped her off outside the village of Sollenkroka where there is a dockyard and repair facilities, we set sail again and had a nice evening sail towards Gällnö. We arrived there at 1800 after almost 9 hours altogether (including the lunch stop at Strömma).
We felt a little tired so we stayed at Gällnö a few days to rest.
My Dad doing his best to lighten the boat by drinking the admiral's left-over white wine. The stay at Gällnö also was prolonged by persistent rain during the second day. Still, poor father walked the 2 km distance through the dripping forest to the store in order to buy a newspaper and get his football results. Of course I did not go with him! He brought some Danish and nice bread for breakfast though so there was some advantage in it.
Our next stop was Ekholmen, a private club which does accept visting boats. We had a nice sail there and the rain did not start until we were right outside the harbour. We were now in waters previously covered by my reports, so I did not take so many pictures. We then sailed in quite some winds, tacking most of the way to Getfoten. There, again is a restaurant where we had a nice meal and celebrated the last evening of the cruise.
The next morning a rescue helicopter was about early waking up people by hovering around for half an hour, probably not finding a good spot to land.
Getfoten also is very near the main shipping line into Stockholm and from it the big ship parade can be seen.
Our final leg home was some kind of anti-climax as we had to motor almost all the way due to light or no winds at all. It was sunny and warm though.
As every cruise even this one brought some improvements. The first one was a footstep I made during our first stop at Härsö. I probably am getting older, but this year I found the step up from the cabin to the bridgedeck a bit high...
The second one was roast bread. I cannot understand why I never before had the idea to just put slices of bread into a frying pan. It's quite obvious isn't it? Gladly, even this year nothing on the boat broke. However, the flag pole has swelled tight in his base so I cannot get it out again...oh well.
Here the doggy person, named Tinka, examines the rafting arrangements. Alongside Helinä Discovery really did not feel so big...
The second picture was taken the next morning when I took Helinä's dinghy out to take some photos of the boats.
That morning the winds were light and the weather was sunny, but in the afternoon and coming night the winds were to increase and develop into one of the quite unusual heavy summer storms.
We sailed towards Ornö quite early and in the beginning we took some pictures of the boats under sail. Not too much wind in the sails though. This is Helinä.
Doggy person in the famous position on the bow. And this is Discovery with her new high jib, taken by Helinä.
A few hours after we arrived at Ornö, Marie with Tommy and Nigel arrived as well, just in time for dinner at the restaurant while ouside the storm was starting to get up with rain and heavy winds. The storm in fact increased during the night and Discovery was bouncing around considerably at her mooring. I went out three times during the night to double the lines or secure things or just because I couldn't sleep and it felt good to be doing something. In fact I did realise that Marie's decklights were on but I put that down to them wanting to check their lines as well. However, the truth was they just had forgotten to switch them off, thus effectively draining their battery.
The next morning we found everything still in place, except that Helinä had snapped a mooring ring with bolt out of the dock thus even ripping out the beam it was attached to. Photo by Nigel.
After the storm finally abated Helina left for home while Marie and Discovery continued to cruise together some more days. In fact, we just decided to meet at Kymmendö, the same anchorage we visited during the first week of the cruise. Marie went around the outside of Ornö while Discovery first stopped at the next bay to collect a delivery of white wine ordered the day before. This was the first time I used the famous Trouville outboard I got from Tommy who did not want to have it hanging on his boat. Of course I gladly offered to relieve him of it, stowed the little Honda below and hung the big Tohatsu-San on the back, speeding away in 5.1 knots instead of the usual 3.5. The engine in fact was so powerful I had difficulties not to ram the dock at Vargvik the first time I used it. That it immediately tilted up when I put it in reverse did not help either. Otherwise it was a great improvement.
That evening we moored both boats to a rock and had a barbeque. It did not rain either.
The next day we decided to sail to Härsö again. There was lots of rain in the forecast and Härsö is a good place to wait out some bad weather. However we did not sail together. While Discovery sailed at once, Marie's crew first paid a visit to the Hamburger Bar at Kymmendö. Also Discovery sailed all the way in grand style, in rain, bad visibility (nav lights on even!) and a quite strong following winds. At one time we made 5.5 knots with only the mainsail up. Nigel and Tommy on the other hand, waited in the Hamburger Bar until the rain stopped and then just motored over. In order to charge the batteries. Yeah, right.
That evening, Marie missed dinner for some reason, but afterwards we had a nice chat over a quantity of whiskey on the dock. It got quite late actually (both Nigel and my wife retired in due time while Tommy and I bravely defended the place against the mosquitoes and the rain some more hour.)
The next morning Marie left.
Weather, at least then, was apparently good enough for crew to be almost naked. Continue to part III
The picture shows one of the nice houses along the route. Unfortunately the camera did not work that well this season and some pictures have interesting color effects.
After having made it through the narrowest part we could set sail for about an hour and make way towards the next passage when we got a strong headwind again. By now it was late in the afternoon and the engine had to work again in order to make it to Harsö, our club harbour in resonable time. After seven hours of passage we finally made it there. We stayed there for three nights, enjoying the quieteness. For some time we even had the dock for ourselves.
The weather during that first week was really hot and sunny with only very light winds or the sea breeze. Unfortunately this had caused the algae to thrive in the Baltic and we had to cope with quite of it in some anchorages. However concentration was erratic and some places where completely free of the stuff.
On day four, July 30 we left Härsö and sailed almost all the way to Kymmendö in mostly light winds and sunny weather. It was no fast sail, but quite pleasant. Kymmendö is known as the island where one of Swedens more famous writers, August Strindberg, used to write his books. We stayed in an anchorage that is quite open towards the north but has good shelter against anything from the south.
The water really isn't that green, it's the camera playing up again.
Albeit the anchorage was nice enough there were quite a few boats so we decided to make for a more quiet place the next day. It started with some engine trouble which, however, soon was fixed by actually opening the fuel vent (oops). We then had another great sailing day in a little stronger winds, mostly on a beam reach and with bits of open horizon to the east. After about four hours we had found our quiet place, on the northern end of Jungfruskär. Two nights without another boat in sight. First we stayed on the northern shore but moved the next morning when the wind shifted into the northeast. The second spot was really perfect. A small lagoon with an entrance only about four metres wide. Inside the depth was one meter (1.3 according to the chart, but we had high pressure long enough to make the water level sink) all the way to the rocks. Mud bottom without a single rock inside.
This is the view from the inside of the lagoon. The narrow entrance is to the right.
And this is the view inside standing next to the entrance. That noon there was a partial solar eclipse which we actually saw. I even tried to photograph it but it did not work very well.
During the second evening a big thunderstorm passed right over us, I think there were lightning strikes on the island on the opposite side of the lagoon. Afterwards we got a nice evening. Just before sunset some sheep suddenly appeared on the shore...
