Valdemarsvik - Fyrudden pictures

This morning, I discovered that there is a reasonably quick WiFi network in this small harbour, so here are some pictures of yesterday's trip plus of our current position:

Looking Southwest down the 'Valdemarsvikken' fjord. 

A very nice Swedish summer house with its outbuildings. Most of them have a boat house! 

 We are not geologists, but we are always intrigued by the rock strata you see on the islands on the way. It is clear how the glaciers pushed the rocks over during the ice ages!

 This 'terrace effect' was also very interesting!

This is the current view from our front deck. Just the other side of the breakwater is the fairway through the Skärgård. There are also nice picnic tables on the breakwater, but unfortunately the weather does not invite for a meal there. Its currently 14C!

These last two pictures show the harbour, again taken from Onbekommerd. Fyrudden is a central place on the mainland between all the little islands. So the people that have summer houses on the islands come in their motor boats to the shop here to buy groceries. Its a coming and going of people which gives it a nice lively atmosphere. In addition there are the visiting boats like ourselves, although there is not that much place for that. We found that if you arrive early, there is usually place but after 3pm it can be more difficult, especially with the Swedish 'industry holidays' about to start. The country more or less shuts down for a few weeks and everyone is on their boat or in their summer house, it seems.

We enjoy Sweden more and more, especially now that we do a bit more anchoring and tying up 'in the wild'. It has a nice combination between being unspoilt and being 'civilised' at the same time. People are very laid back, a bit reserved but friendly and helpful when needed at the same time.

This is not our first trip to Sweden and will certainly not be our last one!

Fyrudden

We did a short 15 mile stretch to Fyrudden today. A very scenic trip first through the 'Valdemarsvikken', a fjord that goes about 10 miles inland. Then we took an unmarked route to cut off 5 miles from the official 'fairway'. We are now sufficiently aware of these routes between the islands and of course lots of Swedes do it too so the unofficial route is sometimes as busy as the official one! Then we picked up the main fairway again, very pleasant motoring...
The 3G internet signal here is quite poor, so I can't post photos. Tomorrow looks like wind and rain so we'll probably stay here. Then Saturday to Harstena which is more remote than Fyrudden, so it's unlikely to have strong internet (although you never know). After that possibly Stegeborg and - provided we can go up the small river called Störan - maybe Söderköping, which is a relatively big place (and which will be from where we will start going back South).
But we'll keep you posted as much as we can and add pictures when the internet signal allows!

Still Valdemarsvik

Rain yesterday and wind (but sunny!) today have kept us in Valdemarsvik.
We have been able to do lots of work, both on the boat and otherwise.
Not sure about tomorrow yet, we'll have rain overnight and if it is a bit more pleasant after that, we might move on to Fyrudden. The weather will remain unsettled for another week or so, the forecasts and the neighbours say.

Location:Hamngatan,Valdemarsvik,Sweden

Valdemarsvik

As promised, here are a few pictures of our latest island experience.

 Here you can see our stern anchor lines quite nicely.

 Of course the COBB came in handy!

 Our friends on 'Claudia' left a day before us, on their way South already.

 A very typical Swedish summer scene: a family on a rock..

 Exploring the island on foot...

And by dinghy.

We left yesterday morning after coffee, with the plan to find another 'island spot'.  Then we looked at the weather forecast (prompted by the VHF forecast) and noticed that it would be rainy this morning. Now rain is not a problem in itself, but pulling up anchors and finding marks in narrow channels in the rain (especially the green marks can be hard to find, I'll take a picture and post it) is not exactly fun, so we decided to go straight to Valdemarsvik, which is about 10 nmiles up a 'fjord', a 'Viken'. We got there just before 4pm, still in lovely summer weather.

During the night the rain started and we are happy with our decision! It however seems that the Swedish summer is taking a bit of a break: rain today, wind tomorrow and generally unstable for the rest of the week. Well, we are comfortable here and we can't change the weather anyway, so we'll see what happens. There are a few nice places a bit further North that we would like to visit before starting to go  back South in about two weeks.

Stern anchor

We left Loftahammer yesterday morning, together with the yacht "Claudia", Dutch people we first met at Karlskrona and who we have met a few times since.
They introduced us to a little island close to Loftahammer, where there is a small wooden jetty on the rocks where you can tie up with your stern anchor out and the bow tied to the jetty. New experience for us, but it is the standard way for the Swedes to tie up 'in the wild'. Very easy and convenient once you know the trick!
Claudia continued South this morning, but we decided to stay another night as it is so nice and peaceful even though there are about 15 boats here ( of which we are now the only 'foreigners).
We'll go to another quiet place tomorrow and then to Valdemarsvik. The weather is unfortunately going to change and we will probably need a shelter for a few days. We should then also have a better internet connection to post some pictures of this nice place!

Smedviken - Loftahammer

After spending a quiet night at anchor in a bay called Smedviken on an island called Vinokälv, we did a 2 hour trip to Loftahammer today. Loftahammer is not all that special, but it has a reasonably big supermarket and after a few days 'off the beaten track', we needed to stock up a bit.

Here are the promised pictures of yesterday and this morning:

 These are the old (big) and new beacons on Sparö, in the approach to Västervik.

 There is a narrow channel right through the island of Sparö. You can easily take another more comfortable route, but we were told that this was quite an experience, so - adventurous as we are these days - we took it and were not disappointed!

Just outside the Sparö channel there were people having lunch 'on the rocks'... 

The two pictures above were taken in Smedviken, whilst at anchor. 

We were not alone there, a total of seven of us in the end. But we were the only ones 'swing anchoring'. The Swedes generally use the system of 'tie the bows to a rock or tree on the shore and put out a stern anchor.

The weather is really nice now, sunny and warm but not too hot. Tomorrow we'll go to a little harbour on an island nearby (together with our Dutch neighbours who have been there before). After that further North, probably another 'anchor bay'. We are never sure if there will be internet connectivity 'in the wild', so far (with a few exceptions) it has generally been good. So if we can, we'll report back, otherwise I am afraid there will be a short gap.

Smedviken

We are now at anchor in a bay called Smedviken on an island called Vinökalv. It is close to Västervik, it took us about two hours from Idö and his morning.

This 'anchoring in little bays' was one of our goals this year and it does not disappoint!

Tomorrow, I will get the laptop out an put some pictures on the blog. For a preview, see the Facebook page: MV Onbekommerd (with a short text in Dutch).