Just before we left Lake Mälaren, we watched a large cement carrier squeezing into the lock at Södertälje with only a couple of feet to spare each side – very slowly and precisely steered through the lifting road bridge and lock gates …
The Södertälje Canal is quite narrow
and commercial shipping takes priority, so sometimes apparently it may take you
hours to get down the canal, but we were lucky and didn’t meet any big
ships. Our mast is not too tall to get
under this road and rail bridge …
… but it still looks scarily close
as you pass underneath!
We spent the night anchored in a
peaceful little bay called Fifång next to a Nauticat 43, a very similar boat to
ours – a type we almost bought in fact.
We passed the time of day with them across the water and discovered they
were heading to Visby on the island of Gotland too.
It was nice enough to swim at
Fifång. Although our thermometer only
read 12°C, I was encouraged by the sight of several other people in the
water! I enjoyed an invigorating lap of
the boat and it was lovely and warm drying off in the sun. I’ve decided to buy a new thermometer!
It was a day of changeable skies and
complicated navigation through narrow channels amongst the many islands that
make up the Blue Coast archipelago. This
channel had green and red port and starboard markers painted on little sheds!
This yacht was tacking through the
channels – it’s a Swedish boat and they probably know the area well but it was
still pretty narrow …
Later in the day, the weather improved and the Blue Coast
began to live up to its name …
We thought this looked like a lovely
place to live with your own sundeck and boat jetty …
We anchored for lunch in a delightful little
bay between Kalvholmen and Grisskär – lovely and sunny when we
arrived …
… but suddenly dark clouds appeared
…
… and seconds later we found
ourselves in the middle of an absolute downpour!
… which – just as quickly – blew
over and we were in sunshine again! The
motorboat in the foreground of this picture is actually tied up alongside a very
steep-sided rock rather than bows-to …
This is the largest vessel we’ve
seen moored in the Swedish way bows-to a rock and tied up to trees – it’s a
small cruise ship about 50 metres long (Astraia is only 13 metres) …
More islands typical of the Blue
Coast …
… and narrow channels to negotiate and
explore …
We motored past Oxelösund, one of
the less beautiful spots in the archipelago …
… and anchored in a bay off Ålö
island. This is Ålö at sunset –
Oxelösund is just round the corner but out of sight!
Ålö at gone midnight – so much light
still in the sky at this time of year …
It’s hard to believe the industrial
landscape of Oxelösund is just the other side of this island – you can’t see it
at all, just hear a faint rumble from the port and factories. Here it’s quite beautiful, surrounded by pine
covered rocks and sea, and a glorious sunny morning – tempting enough for a
swim whatever the thermometer says! This
is the first day we’ve worn shorts and a T-shirt this summer – at last it feels
warm and summery …
Later we motored round to Oxelösund
– here it is just emerging from behind the island …
… and a close-up shot of the port
area ...
I went for quite a pleasant cycle
ride to the supermarket and chandlery (to buy a new thermometer, among other
things!) on my little folding bike – it’s slow going with those tiny wheels,
especially uphill! This was brought home
to me when I was overtaken by a man in his eighties!! He turned out to be quite a well-known
theoretical physicist, Bertil Holmqvist, and he was very pleased to have an
opportunity to speak English and tell me all about his life! He had done a lot of research on neutron
physics and helped to establish Studsvik in Sweden, a research facility similar
to the one at Harwell near Oxford. A
random but interesting meeting.
Meanwhile Charles was spending some
hours upside down in the engine room trying to change the waterpump impeller on
the main engine. It’s a
job that we have had trouble with before and it’s tricky because the impeller
is in a nearly inaccessible position. In
the end it took two of us, plus a couple of jubilee clips, and we had to turn
the engine over once (without starting it!) while pushing the new impeller in. A great sense of achievement – it’s the first
time we’ve succeeded without having to call in an engineer!
We continued with our progress
south, sometimes able to enjoy a sail …
We passed a boatload of sheep being
moved from one island to another – or possibly to market!
We found a perfect spot to anchor
for the night in a beautiful and very sheltered little bay called Harstena
which everyone else seemed to have found as well! The entrance was very narrow …
… but it was beautifully sheltered
inside. Surprising how many boats were
there considering how few we’ve seen on the way …
We found ourselves anchored right
next to a Nauticat 385 belonging to Tim Fooks, another Cruising Association
member who we’d met before in London and Stockholm, and we were able to get
together by dinghy for a drink!
Next stop was Röholmen, which is
part of the delightful Långö-Häfsö-Sundsholmen mini-archipelago. Here’s the chartlet from the guide to help us
navigate our way in – we were anchored right on the little anchor symbol
between Röholmen and Bredholmen …
This is what this little
mini-archipelago looks like from the air …
It’s a very pretty part of the ‘Blue
Coast’ – rocky islands with trees, but not as thickly wooded as the Stockholm
archipelago and not as barren as the outer skerries or the Åland islands.
The Sundsholmen mini-archipelago is
an idyllic spot, not at all crowded and with plenty of space to anchor or moor
to a rock. It feels amazing and special
to be here as you can only do it by boat, and large ferries and cruise ships
can’t access this area. It’s so peaceful
and close to nature, an ideal place for a swim and the temperature is up to
16°C with my new thermometer – that’s worth at least 4 times round the boat!
Changeable weather in the middle of
the afternoon – grey clouds in one direction, blue skies in another, a short,
sharp shower, then back to glorious sunshine.
What a strange summer!
One of the great things about
sailing in Sweden is the policy of ‘allemansrätten’ or the ‘right to
roam’. Anyone is allowed to have ‘access
to nature’, so you are allowed to walk, cycle, ride, ski and camp on any land
including the shoreline as long as you don’t go into a private garden or the
immediate vicinity of a house. This
right to roam comes with a responsibility to look after the natural environment
– the maxim is "do not disturb, do not destroy", which the Swedes
seem to observe pretty well. It is so
nice to be able to go ashore and explore anywhere you like.
Lovely reflections in the early
evening – only one other boat here …
We enjoyed watching some herons
fishing …
Maybe they were watching us too, as
the sun went over the yardarm!
We decided to spend the night at
Röholmen – it’s so peaceful and lovely.
Sunset …
Later still …
Such crisp reflections the next
morning and another opportunity for a swim in 17 degrees!
Somewhat reluctantly we moved on towards
Västervik, but enjoyed goose-winging with the wind behind us …
The settlements on the islands here
look less like wealthy Stockholmers’ summer houses and more practical and basic
…
We noticed some tenacious wildflowers
growing on what appeared, from a distance, to be barren rocks …
The entrance to Västervik is
described in the guide as ‘narrow but well-marked’ – they weren’t wrong! The red and green buoys marking the channel
are massive, a bit out-of-proportion compared with other buoys and marks we’ve
seen …
Västervik is a ‘fantastic
summer-town’ according to the tourist information and really comes alive in the
holiday season from June to August, with pavement cafés and restaurants,
museums, outdoor activities, watersports, music, festivals and so on …
We caught a stern buoy and tied up
bows-to in the guest harbour opposite the town …
… and celebrated our arrival in the
usual way! Charles is aiming to only
ever appear in this blog with a glass in his hand!
As well as the usual facilities,
this marina has its own private swimming pool and now that summer has really
arrived it was a very welcome place to cool off …
The next day we walked over to the
main town of Västervik via the man-made causeway across the fjord …
We took ourselves on a self-guided
walking tour and enjoyed wandering through the narrow streets with their
traditional wooden houses, colourful window-boxes, roses rounds the doors and
delicious floral scent everywhere …
It is really hot today – summer has arrived with a vengeance,
so we appreciated the surprisingly cool interior of St Gertrud’s Kyrka …
When Västervik was founded in 1433, the inhabitants were
granted four tax-free years to build a church – St Gertrud’s. Services were then held for almost 500 years
until 1905 when the new Church of St Petri was consecrated. St Gertrud’s was used as a granary during
World War I, but was re-consecrated in 1933 …
It has a valuable Wistenius organ dating from 1743 and later
in the evening we returned to St Gertrud’s for an excellent concert of
‘Sommarmusik’ with a choir, a string quartet and the famous organ – it was most
enjoyable.
St Gertrud’s is also notable for its elaborately carved
wooden pulpit adorned with cherubs and angels …
St Petri Church is the ‘new’ church,
built in 1903-05, and looked a fairly conventional style from the outside …
… but we were pleasantly surprised
by the attractive wooden-painted interior …
… especially the lovely ceiling
decoration …
St Petri boasts two excellent
organs! But unfortunately we didn’t have
an opportunity to hear them …
From there, we made our way to
Båtmansgränd (Boatswain Alley), which consists of eight small cottages, built
of logs dovetailed at the corners, for the town’s boatswains and their
families. They date from the 1740s and the
town of Västervik was required to provide these dwellings by
the State.
They really are tiny cottages as you
can see from the surrounding buildings and even compared to Charles – forced to
pose again for the sake of the blog!
Nowadays they are rented out as
holiday cottages by a local family, who also run the excellent little café,
Österboden. We thought it would be a bit
of a tourist trap, but far from it – the café was full of locals and the food
delicious and very good value. All the
tourists seem to stick to the waterfront cafés.
The next bit of our walking tour
took us past this rather quaint trompe-l’oeil.
Above the painted bank entrance, there is a gabled house with curtains
blowing in the windows and a cat trying to catch a pigeon in the attic window …
This is the former bathhouse or
bathing spa built in the Art Nouveau style in 1910 …
This old wooden house with a grass
roof dates from the 1700s and is called ‘Little Birdcabin’. It was built for a local boatswain, and was
later the home of the blacksmith …
These waterfront houses are a few remaining that still retain
the right to moor their boats to their garden fences …
There are seals all over the town
guarding the footpaths and cycleways against motor vehicles!
Finally we walked back to the boat
in the evening sunshine past the town harbour and busy waterfront bars and
cafés …
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