This is "Onbekommerd"!

Thursday, June 30, 2016

An expensive harbour and a not-so-quiet anchorage

From Trosa, we travelled through the quite rugged skärgård around Landsort towards Nynäshamn. There was practically no wind and some of the marks and sector lights looked like mirages. On the way we passed the small harbour on Öja which looked very nice. We made a note of it for a future occasion.

Nynäshamn is also a ferry port and a cruise liner stop as it has good connections to Stockholm. It's a bit confusing seeing the 'Sea Princess' where you think your berth will be. The fast ferry to Gotland also stops here.
We read somewhere that 'Nynäshamn' must be Swedish for 'spending your kids' inheritance'. This is because the harbour fees are high at SEK 300 (excluding electricity) and the harbour is ok but nothing special. We see that many Swedes just stop to do some shopping (there is a good supermarket and a 'Systembolaget', the Swedish state acoholic beverage shop) and then leave to anchor somewhere quiet.
We stayed the night and then left for an anchorage on the island of Ornö. It's very nice and protected from all winds, which explains that -whilst we were the third boat here at 13:39 - there are now (at 17:00) 11 of us.

We will continue to Saltsjöbaden, near Stockholm, tomorrow.

As the Internet connection is very slow here, I will have to post the pictures that go with it tomorrow. Look forward to the mirage marks, the harbour on Öja, the 'Sea Princess', the Gotland ferry and the busy bay!



Location:Haninge,Sweden

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

A late sunset picture and a trip to Trosa

You did not get a picture in yesterday's blog, but after I posted it, Lyn took a nice sunset so we start this blogpost with that picture.






This morning we explored the bay with the dingy and the electric outboard motor and pulled up the anchor after coffee.

An easy 15 mile trip took us to Trosa, a fishing village from the 17th century. In 1719 it was burned down by the Russians, who only left the church standing as they needed it to stable their horses. We visited it, but it does not look that old (or particularly interesting).
There is an old fisherman's cottage from the late 1700's which was worth a picture:





And also the town hall is quite nice:





Trosa is a real tourist place, although not visited by many big yachts as the harbour is relatively shallow at less than 2m. At the height of the season (which it is not yet, although it's clearly more busy on the water), the harbour gets filled up with mainly Swedish motor boats and smaller yachts. At the moment though, we have a good spot alongside the pier (with tourists walking past and admiring Onbekommerd).

We are quite far North and East, here are the coordinates of the end of the pier (which is called 'end of the world')





Location:Trosa,Sweden

Monday, June 27, 2016

Travelling on

Our apologies for firstly the lack of recent posts and secondly the lack of pictures in this post.

After the nice Midsommar experience, we stayed in Nävekvarn for another two nights, mainly because we wanted to discuss our winter storage requirements with the owner of Swede Port Marina. We successfully did that this morning and we have arranged that Onbekommerd will be lifted out on 18 August. That is a bit early, but we have stuff to do in London at the end of August.

We then left Nävekvarn after taking leave of our new Dutch, British and Swedish friends and travelled in between the islands and rocks to a really nice bay at Ringsön where we are now at anchor. Although there are a total of 12 boats here, all you can hear are the birds. We just had our evening coffee on the front deck.

Tomorrow we'll carry on to Trosa, an easy 15 miles.

Location:Tystberga,Sweden

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Midsommar

We are in the small village of Nävekvarn and yesterday was 'Midsommar', the celebration of midsummer. The day falls on the Friday nearest the summer solstice (which was on the 21st).

We celebrated in real Swedish style: In the afternoon, there is the raising of the 'stang', a pole decorated with greenery. Then there is dancing around the stang by mainly the women and children, although fathers will also join. We went to Koppatorp, where the ceremony is done in real traditional style which attracts a lot of people.




The stang is almost up.




Dancing around the stang

It is then custom that everyone leaves to celebrate Midsommar with family and / or friends. The Nävekvarn harbour is very international and a Midsommar celebration was arranged by the Dutch community. Some of the snacks were Dutch, but the meal itself was typical Swedish with pickled herring, other fish, meatballs and boiled potatoes. All of it washed down with aquavit. It was a very international affair, including (apart from the Dutch), also Swedes, Brits, Germans and a New Zealander.





Location:Skeppsviksvägen,Nävekvarn,Sweden

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Naturhamn and Gästhamn

For the past 4 nights, we have been staying in 'naturhamn', natural harbours. These really are often not 'harbours' at all, they are nice places to anchor or tie up to a rock. They are known for good shelter and scenic beauty. There are usually no 'facilities', although really popular places may have a little hut with a 'dry toilet' and a place to leave refuse.
This morning, I took the dinghy to the hut on the shore to drop off the rubbish:





Then we pulled up the anchor and motored to Arkösund. This now is a Gästhamn!





When you see this sign, you know that it is a harbour where guests are welcome. Also, to be allowed to use the sign, the harbour must meet minimum standards around facilities such as toilets, showers, power and water on the jetties etc. The Arkösund marina has all that (including of course a sauna) and in addition you get met by a guy in a dinghy who escorts you to your berth and takes your lines. The only - rather serious - drawback is that the Gästhamn is right next to the diesel pump and the fairway where youngsters on jet skis and water taxis cause an incessant wave pattern in the harbour. Also, at 260SEK it's quite expensive.

We took a walk around the rocks and found this swan who had successfully hatched her eggs. We have seen quite a few swans sitting on their nests, all the way back to Vordingborg in Denmark so we were pleased to see this happy family.





Location:209,Norrkoping,Sweden

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Summer solstice but not 'midsummer '

We went ashore with the dingy this morning and walked 20 minutes through the forest to the Harstena village.
Now this is very popular in season, there is a small shop (where you can buy delicious freshly smoked fish), a bakery and a restaurant. But although today was the longest day, everything was still closed. That is because the season only starts at 'midsummer' which is the Friday closest to the solstice, i.e. in three days time. So there was a lot of preparation going on and a couple was trying to convince the restaurant to sell them a meal or some drinks.




At anchor.





Preparing for the season.





Are those people on the top deck getting a meal?





The bakery is still locked up.



Otherwise, there are just two boats (including ourselves) in the Flissfjarden bay tonight. In a week's time it will be busy, in two weeks time it will be packed. In six weeks time it will get quiet again, the season is very short here....





Location:Sweden

Monday, June 20, 2016

Bokö and Harstena

There was no blogpost last night as we did not have an Internet connection. Usually there is a signal in somewhat remote places, but it appears that Bokö is too far.

We tied up on a jetty on this interesting island. There is an information hut where there is a supply of brochures, from which we learned that people have lived there since the middle ages. Apart from fishing, hunting and agriculture, pilotage was an important source of income. We hear this time and again along this difficult to navigate coast. These days, with good charts and GPS it's not that hard, but if you don't know where the rocks are....

Only 10 people live on Börko and after one of them (a farmer, we think) left in his boat this morning, we went for a walk along the quite well marked trail. Here are a few impressions:

















Around 10, we left and made our way to 'Flissfjarden', a bay on Harstena. We also spent a night here last year (after having spent time in the Harstena harbour itself) and we decided to go back, probably for two nights.

Getting here requires a bit of careful navigation, as you are away from the main fairway and there are no buoys anywhere to guide you. So it's good use of the chart, your eyes and the GPS plotter. Once inside Flissfjarden, you are very well protected from any wind direction. We are now at anchor, there is one other yacht anchored as well and two tied to the rocks:





We continue to be amazed how quiet it is everywhere. In four days' time it will be 'midsummer', the unofficial start of the holiday season. A week later, in July, there will be 40 boats here.

We plan to take the dingy ashore tomorrow and walk through the woods to the village. In season there is a bakery and a fish smoking place there and we wonder if they'll be open yet.

Location:Sweden

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Björkholmen - in the wild

We are now tied up to a little jetty on a rocky island, using the stern anchor.
It's what the Swedes do all the time, there are six Swedish boats plus us here.
Quiet and different. Tomorrow we'll do the same a bit further north.











Location:Vastervik,Sweden

Friday, June 17, 2016

A strategic stop

We are now in Västervik. This is a 'strategic stop' for us for two reasons. Firstly, there is a very good supermarket in this nice town and in the next week we will be in little bays and on small islands with little or no option to get supplies. So we stocked up today. And secondly there is a lot of rain forecast tonight and tomorrow (it has just started raining).

Yesterday was also rainy, but not a downpour. We decided to stay in Klintemåla, where we now we're the only 'guest boat'. That was clearly not enough to get the harbourmaster to make an appearance: we had a free night.

The trip from Klintemåla this morning was nice. We are now in the skärgård proper, you make your way around the little rocks and islands guided by buoys and little lighthouses that look like huts for pixies:





Close to Västervik, you go through the Sparö channel. It is quite narrow (but not the narrowest we have ever been through) but quite deep, about 6 metres at the shallowest point).

















In days gone past, the waters here were unmarked: King Valdemar did not want his enemies to know where the rocks were. And also the pilotage business, which was owned by the Crown, was an attractive source of income!

In just over 4 weeks, since we left the Netherlands, we have covered some 650 miles. The people from a Dutch yacht whom we have seen regularly since Ystad told us today it is now 196 miles to Mariehamn on the Åland Islands. That's sort of their destination and ours too. Back in Ystad it was 450 miles to go, and we look forward to the next bit which promises to be fun with the Midsummer celebrations next week and a visit to Stockholm thereafter.

We'll keep you informed!

Location:Notholmsvägen,Vastervik,Sweden

Thursday, June 16, 2016

The lonely German yachtsmen

We arrived in Klintemåla yesterday. It's a very small and very scenic 'harbour', part of a community of mainly holiday homes built straight onto the rocks.








Yesterday we lit the Cobb, our view from the on-shore table was this:





There was only one other visiting boat and he is the reason behind the title of this post.
We quite often meet German yachts with only one person on board. This is not a new thing, in our previous visits to Sweden it has occurred regularly. They are always very friendly men who are happy to have a conversation. When we asked one of them if he would not prefer to have his wife on board, the reply was : "Sure I would, but German wife's are not like Dutch or English, they don't like to be on board for a long time". Now we have also seen German yachts manned by (presumably) happy couples, so maybe there is a bit of a generalisation in the remark of that skipper but the fact remains that we see quite a few of these lonely souls (who sometimes hope that their wife will join them for a week or two).

In the meantime it's rainy today and as we have a bit of time in our 'schedule' (bringing us to Nävekvarn for the midsummer celebrations on the 24th), we have decided to enjoy the solitude (the lonely German has just left) and award ourselves a rest day.

Location:Klintemåla,Oskarshamn,Sweden

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Into the 'skärgård'

We are now in Figeholm, the 'entry point' of the 'skärgård', the archipelago on the east coast of Sweden. This was our first 'aim' of this year's trip, so we are pretty happy with the progress.





From here we'll work our way North, in between thousands of (mainly) very small islands, often not more than just a rock. Most of the 'open sea' work has now been done, at least for a while. Every now and then one may have to cross a bay or so, but nothing like 'looking for the land'.
Today we did the last bit of that, from Sandvik on Öland (where there was not sufficient Internet for a blogpost) back to the mainland. On the way we crossed paths with the high speed ferry from Gotland. As it is difficult to estimate what the course of a high speed vessel will be (a change of course of a few degrees makes a big difference), we called the ferry on the VHF and negotiated with the duty officer how we would cross courses. All very efficient also thanks to the AIS which gives us the call sign and name of the vessel.

We often tie onto low jetties here and Onbekommerd's bow is quite high, making it difficult to get on and off. To help with this, we followed the Swedish example and acquired a 'bow ladder':





Very smart, we think!

Ultimately, we would ,like to go to the Åland Islands this year. That is still quite a way to go and there is a special chart folio for it. As the Åland Islands are a semi autonomous part of Finland, the charts are in Finnish (but with Swedish and English notations as well, fortunately)





Location:Smedjegatan,Figeholm,Sweden

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Kalmar

A final picture of Kristianopel, the church in Danish style with both the Danish and Swedish flags flying.





This is because Kristianopel was a border town (on the Danish side) between Sweden and Denmark until 1653. Now it is at the northern end of the Swedish province of Blekinge.

When we left Kristianopel this morning for the almost 30 mile trip to Kalmar, there was little wind, but as we got further north it picked up to maybe 15 knots. Not a lot, but enough to get salt on the boat again.

Arriving in Kalmar is always a bit special as you are greeted by the castle:





Kalmar is a useful stop, as a big town it has good shops and also the least expensive diesel in Sweden (that is the accepted wisdom at least). So we filled up with 289 litres....

It is interesting that in every harbour you meet a 'core' of boats that are doing the same route as you are. A mixture of a few Dutch and a few more German boats. One tends to become quite friendly: 'how was your trip?', 'what are your plans for tomorrow?', 'what is are your further plans this year?'.

Sort of a big happy family, travelling North. Sometimes someone skips a place, only to rejoin later. It's nice!

Location:Landgången,Kalmar,Sweden

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Into the Kalmarsund

We spent an extra day in Karlskrona and in really nice weather got into the Kalmarsund today.
First you go through the 'skärgård' (archipelago) of Karlskrona, which is very pretty:





There are some narrow channels to navigate. They are all well marked with red and green buoys and in addition sometimes with 'leading lines', beacons on shore which guide you along the channel by keeping the one in line with the other:








After the skärgård bit, you pass Torhamns Udde en get into the Kalmarsund which is open water again. The wind was light and we only got an occasional bit of spray over the bows of Onbekommerd. Three hours later we were tied up in Kristianopel, a small harbour which we like a lot. No wonder when this is the view from the front deck!





As the weather was nice (although a bit colder than before yesterday's cold front), we lit the Cobb and had drinks on the rocks whilst cooking our meat:





Just a reminder: if you click on the 'location' at the bottom of each blogpost , you will get a map showing our location.

Location:Karlskrona,Sweden

Thursday, June 9, 2016

High school graduation day

After a nice calm trip from Hanö, we arrived in Karlskrona around midday.





We took advantage of the excellent facilities in the renovated harbour to run two loads of washing. Next we went into town to do some shopping. It transpired that today is the day that the high school students get the results of their final exams. We have seen that before in Denmark as well as in Sweden, it's a big celebration. Here in Karlskrona, the successful students sit in the back of trucks (all wearing sailors' hats) and get driven through the town. Hundreds of people, parents, siblings and many other members of the community line the streets and cheer them on. They themselves blow hooters and make a lot of noise. Presumably some alcohol flows, but at 4:30 when we witnessed all of this, that was not all that obvious. It was all very festive!











Location:Skeppsbrokajen,Karlskrona,Sweden

A small Swedish island

From Simrishamn to Hanö is about 30 nmiles, 5 hours motoring. We once again left early (6am) as the predictions were that there would be a 20 knot+ wind from 5pm onward. And even if that would come earlier we wanted to be tucked away in a harbour.
After three and a half hours the wind picked up a bit (it was not the planned easterly but a westerly wind) and the waves came exactly side-on , which is uncomfortable. So we headed up a bit and an hour later could run straight before the waves to Hanö. It took 20 minutes longer that way, but it was very much more comfortable. Those who look on marinetraffic.com will have seen the strange track, hence the explanation.

Hanö is a really nice little island, only 2.2 sq kilometres big. It has a lighthouse on the highest point which is 55m above sea level. We walked there.








On the way down we passed the 'English cemetery'. During the Napoleonic wars, England had a Navy base here and a few sailors were buried on the island.





On the way down to the harbour we found the only car on the island. It is no longer in an operable condition:









The 20 knot wind eventually arrives as predicted at 5pm from the East. It's calm now and it is predicted to be fine tomorrow for the next leg to Karlskrona.

Location:Sweden