Sailing

We left the Bullando marina early afternoon after some breifings about how to start/stop the engine, drop anchor, safety features, etc.  First there were some jobs, I earned some brownie points cleaned the dingy.  We arrived at Staviken at about 8:30, a nice little natural harbour.

There were lots of islands to to sail past which makes things interesting, the water was quite deep, even close to the shore (U shaped valleys formed by glaciers), but there were many of them and it was sometimes tricky to choose the way through, esp. under sail.

Lisa went out for a kayak and met "Goodie" from a very large "holiday" house nearby.  We had earlier been admiring his robot lawn mower (and his house).  She had a long chat with him about the millionaires living around, and his 5 private islands with various houses and a golf course where you hit from island to island.  Martin cooked potato bake and fried up some veggies in the final stages of the voyage, leaving David and I to navigate and control the auto-helm.

The next day, Goodie came over in his dingy to show us where his islands were, we promised to sound our horn as we went past (he was having a family lunch there).  He also recommended Alandsskar, a nature preserve on the edge of the archipelago.  We stopped here and took the dingy over to walk the island.  There is a lighthouse and many red-painted huts, many are rented out by the Archipelago trust.

10-20 boats were moored there enjoying the sun and relaxing.  It's normal in the Baltic to drop an anchor off the stern and drive in to the shore hop off the bow and tie off to eye bolts in the rock.  It's space efficient and you can access the shore via a ladder off the bow.  It's the same in the marina guest areas where they have "lazy lines", which are permenantly attached to a mooring block out in the water and also to the dock where you can pick it up and walk back to the stern and attach it.  It sounds like a tricky operation, getting it set up quickly before you're blown into the boat next door or hit the dock or get the line wrapped around the prop.

No one was swimming but Martin jumped in and braved the jellyfish and the cold (18.1 deg). I decided it was too cold.  The trouble is the sea temp even in the south of England is no better.  Lisa cooked pasta and vegies and sausage and made fruit salad for desert.  They are really looking after us!  Games after, Blokus and Rummy Kub.