When we last left you, we had just moored up in the convenient Wasahamnen marina in Stockholm, which funnily enough had the rollercoasters of Gröna Lund right next door, complete with 10am-10pm screams every day of the week. To be fair, hearing thousands of people having so much fun simply added to the atmosphere of the place, and made me desperate to ride on the rollercoasters. BUT – first stop was the ABBA museum! Big city life!
The museum is a short walk (past the rollercoasters) from the marina and we decided to not waste a minute, and went straight down there after docking the boat and giving Bernie a bit of a sniff around.
Yes obligatory selfie!These were exceptional wax statues of the band.My favourite Frida and Agnetha costumes.There was a large area with a number of their original costumes behind glass being preserved.And some cool replicas.These puppets were used in an advertisement. They are Jim Henson’s designs.
One of the biggest reasons we are in Stockholm is because we are picking up our first visitor from Australia who is flying in to Stockholm to spend some time with us. Tara is Adrian’s daughter and Adrian met her at the airport for her first sailing holiday!
The best way to get over jet lag is to keep moving while there is day light. Or in this case, because its day light till midnight, just keep moving until you stop. We wandered around to keep Tara moving and saw this cool old tram.Nordica museum close to the marina was a spectacular building.I’m certain that Bernie thinks he looks similar to this
Our plan from Stockholm is to sail to the Åland islands, which is an autonomous part of Finland, so we needed to do a little provisioning, get Bernie vaccinated, and make a sail plan. We also had friends in another Garcia Exploration 45 that we wanted to meet up with too. So unfortunately, not a lot of jet lag recovery time for Tara or much big city exploring for us yet, as we were on the move again. I didn’t get to do the rollercoasters this time but we plan to be back in Stockholm in a few weeks.
Goodbye for now pretty Stockholm!Until next time you crazy rollercoasters with all your screaming fans.
We left Stockholm on a sunny afternoon and navigated through the archipelago mostly successfully. We only had to navigate through about a dozen fast moving ferries, plus the gigantic passenger liners that frequent the area, and only got beeped once by a chain ferry who popped out at the last minute (those things are pretty scary), but otherwise an uneventful passage to a beautiful anchorage where our friends on Anemis were waiting for us!
As we crept around the corner we saw Anemis who already had their drone out to record the rare spotting of two Garcia Exploration 45s in an anchorage.Pretty boats!
The next day, we wanted to get to Finland, so we left in reasonable time, said goodbye to our new friends, and began the journey north east.
Next up we have come adventures in the beautiful Åland Islands
Don’t worry Stockholm! We’ll be back for more fun.
We left you on a particularly rolly morning at Bornholm Island. We were still protected from the wind, but the swells were bending round the headland and across the bay. It must have been bad to get us underway at 5:30am.
North of us was a stretch of open water leading to the Swedish coast around Karlskrona. As we approached the coast we passed the small island and harbour of Utklippan. We considered stopping for the night, but over 10 masts in a small surgy harbour put us off.
Utklippan has a large seal colony, a disused lighthouse and a small restaurant.
North of Utklippan is the area where the cold war ‘Whiskey on the Rocks’ incident occurred. One morning in 1981 a fisherman noticed a Soviet whiskey class submarine parked on the rocks where there wasn’t usually one. The soviets claimed it was parked there due to a navigation error. We weren’t sure if we should be proud or concerned that our navigation was more accurate than a nuclear submarine.
The anchorage we had chosen had several boats tied up to the rocks and enough room for us to anchor in deeper water. The next day after all the other boats had gone and no one was watching, we practiced mooring up to the rocks. This involves throwing a spare anchor off the back as you approach the rocks, driving the bow towards the rocks and stopping 10cm before impact so the person on the bow can run along the bowsprit and launch themselves onto the rocks with hammer, peg and a bow line in hand. They quickly hammer a peg in a rock fissure and secure the bow. Then you tug on the stern anchor line, which is hopefully not caught on the propeller, and secure the boat far enough from the rocks that its not touching, but close enough that one can step onto the rock, with BBQ in one hand and esky in the other.
After 3 attempts we were happy with our first rock berth. Most Baltic boats have an overhanging bow to make this a little easier. We had the compulsory BBQ on the rocks
The forecast for the next day was for solid travelling winds on the beam. We followed the narrow channel out to the coast and headed north towards Kalmar. There were plenty of other boats with the same plan and we avoided most of the traffic a bit further off the coast.
We made a bee line for KalmarAway sped along enjoying the gusty conditions.They’ve built a nice castle to welcome you into KalmarWe had booked a berth in the marina and a RIB came out to meet us and show us in. It had been gusting over 30 knots on the sail in to Kalmar so it was quite exciting to be led through ever narrowing channels until there was barely a boat length to turn into our berth!The castle had been here a long time and now housed a museum.Fi found this new frock but wasn’t convinced it would work on the boat. Wrong colour?The castle even had some recipes from days gone by. We particularly liked this one and tried unsuccessfully to track down a suitable duck in the moat.
We were now in the land of Volvos and took the opportunity for a quick engine service before moving on up the coast. This area of coast has so many islands that its not hard to find a beautiful place to stop.
We left Kalmar in big red sail weather, but the winds filled in as the day progressed.
The anchorage we had picked was jam packed full with two other boats, so we continued on to look for somewhere quieter. We had been warned it could be busy in July and August.
We found this cool little bay. The depth sounder showed just 1.2m as we entered the bay, so it wasn’t too crowded. Did we say we love our lifting center board?
Next day was another sailing day to the southern end of the Stockholm archipelago. Fi had picked out a secret anchorage with a hidden shallow entrance that we hoped might deter less intrepid sailors.
The entrance to the anchorage is a narrow channel behind the trees.
The anchorage was empty, sheltered and with good holding. We decided to stay a while.
Fi spotted an abundance of wild blueberries growing on the islands.We managed to stay up late enough to see the sun set.Some of us braved the refreshing waters.We even installed the hammock
After a relaxing few days we started the final journey into Stockholm. Unlike the approach to most ports, Stockholm is surrounded by a complex archipelago with many low bridges and narrow channels. We reached the outer islands and discovered our chosen anchorage had 50 boats in it! Fortunately the surrounding bays provided some quieter anchorages.
Only a few miles from Stockholm we found an empty bay for the night.This channel into Stockholm is a little tight in placesAs we got closer to the center the houses got bigger and reminded us of parts of Sydney harbourA crane in disguiseThe Stockholm skyline appeared around a corner and we motored into our marinaFi had picked out the marina, and by co-incidence there were rollercoasters right next door!
Join Fi, Adrian and Bernie as we adventure where the wind takes us.
