Kalmar
In the morning I was again in a dark mood. I had sworn after the North Sea crossing that I wouldn’t go to sea in such unpleasant conditions again – and yet we had just come through another near gale that had pushed my abilities too close to the limits.
Kalmar is an interesting city with lots of character and history, but for me it was the lowest point of the trip. I did take it easier after that, and we were more often in sheltered waters and I became a lot more confident in Teal. It was still a while before I began to actively enjoy the trip.
Next stop was to be the islands around Vastervik. I chose Vastervik not because there was anything special about the islands, but merely because one of the Hatfield Peverel charts covered them, and it would save me splashing out on the big Swedish portfolio that covered the whole coast.
For once we had a quick and easy sail, without incident and with pleasant tailwinds. We followed the leading lines in, past the bare, rounded outer skerries of ice-worn granite, into the sheltered inner islands where the moss and bilberry softened the hard granite, a grey-green mottled carpet with a canopy above of birch and pine. I felt we had arrived. These were the scenes that I remembered from the only time I had sailed in the Baltic previously, in a Tall Ships Race 8 years earlier - the unending islands, the sinuous channels. This was where I had wanted to return.
Every corner we turned presented us with a new vista - here perhaps some reeds growing in a quiet hollow at the waters edge; there a rocky islet with a lighthouse; windswept and barren but for a few hardy pines clinging grimly to the scant soil.
We weren’t the only people to appreciate this fine cruising ground however. An inshore channel was marked through the islands, and from north to south a gush of plastic yachts filed by, spreading their white wings to the wind.
We anchored in Idosund, bordered on one side by reed-lined shallows with the damp dark forest of the island of Ido behind, on the other by the steeper, rocky coast of Kroko. Catherine already had the kettle on for a cup of tea, and, thus fortified, we sallied forth in the canoe.
Paradise. We paddled lazily up the channel, oohing and aahing at the light on the water, at the mottling of a hundred varieties of lichen on the salmon-pink rock and a glimpse of a shoal of fish in the shallow rocky waters beneath us; at a particularly picturesque pine, gnarled and withered with age. Where the lighthouse stood beacon on its rock at the end of the sound we turned left and paddled round the back of Kroko, where we stopped to climb through the woods and pick bilberries for dinner. We all slept happily that night.
It was nearly time for Catherine to fly back. When Anne had gone Catherine had suggested another friend who might like to come for a while, and at the last minute she had found some cheap flights to Stockholm. Good old Ryanair – the trip would have been impossible without them. So the following day we sailed the last few miles into the little town of Vastervik so that we could swop Catherine for Kat.
Winds were light as Holly, Kat and I left Vastervik, and it took a while to tack out the harbour. In the very narrow, sheltered stretch at the entrance we gently boshed a beacon with our bowsprit when I misjudged a tack, but no harm done to it or us, and we stopped soon after for lunch by an island with a steep rock face, steep enough to sail alongside and tie ourselves to a couple of stunted pine trees growing out of clefts in the rock.
Later in the afternoon the headwinds caused some tricky navigation in the narrow channels, and we resorted to rowing down one that was too narrow to sail through. We stopped off Kroko again for the night, as it had been so lovely on the way in, and Holly cooked a delicious risotto ashore on a bonfire. As the darkness grew I nipped back to Teal to fetch the guitar, for all three of us could play after a fashion, and it was handed round the bonfire while Kat and Holly sang
I had bought charts in Ystad that covered in detail the whole of the Stockholm archipelago. Our chart of the Vastervik area ran out just a few miles north of our anchorage, so although we had small scale charts that were fine for navigating offshore, we wouldn’t be able to sail up through the islands until we reached the limits of the Stockholm charts. The distance was about 60-70 miles, so in practice this meant another overnight sail.
We were lucky with wind, for it was mostly light and in our favour. Neither Holly or Kat had any experience of handling boats on their own, but as I couldn’t be up on deck the whole time I set them on alternate 3 hour watches while I stayed up when there was navigation to be done, sail changes to be made or any traffic about. As usual I asked them to wake me when I was below if the weather changed or if any ships appeared. Just before midnight Kat put her head down the hatch and got me up as ‘there is a ship quite close’.
Indeed there was – a little coaster only a few hundred yards away and coming straight for us. Poor Kat was gripping the tiller with white knuckles, not quite sure which way to turn. I grabbed it and tacked immediately, and the ship slid past in the gloom. It was a close call, for the ship had clearly not seen us at all in the dusky half-light, despite Julians ultra-bright LED sidelights and the radar reflector hanging in the mizzen shrouds.
In the morning we made landfall in the islands around Nynashamn, at the bottom of the great arc of archipelago that spreads out from Stockholm, and began to pick our way through the maze.
‘That looks fun’ I said, pointing at an extremely narrow channel on the chart, so we went that way. It turned out to be a short-cut that had been blasted through the rock, a tiny canal with walls of pink granite that rose 10 or 15 feet above our decks. It was barely enough for two boats to pass side by side, and it was completely sheltered from any wind. Holly started rowing, but a jet ski zoomed by us, stopped and asked if we wanted a tow. There was a big queue of yachts behind us now, for we were progressing very slowly, so we tossed him a line. I’m not a big fan of jet skis – I never thought I’d sink so low as to be rescued by one.
We anchored in Nynasviken in the afternoon, and slept well that night after a walk to the nearby town to get bread, milk and something for dinner. We settled for pizza, but in the absence of an oven we had to fry it, a method that I can however heartily recommend.
I felt we had arrived now. The great swathe of sea from here to Helsinki is dotted with uncountable islands, and it was the pull of this place that had bought me here. There was no denying it had been a struggle at times buying and restoring Teal and bringing her this far, so now it was time to enjoy the fruits of our labour. We didn’t leave ‘til mid-afternoon the following day - I spent the morning finishing a few bits of woodwork on the boat while the girls went for a swim. The weather wasn’t great: rain and a gusty wind, and foolishly we tried to tow the canoe despite its bad behaviour in similar conditions in the Limfjord. The inevitable happened – it capsized and we had a struggle to empty it and drag it up on deck, and then sail round in circles to pick up the paddles and odds and ends that had been inside it and were now floating merrily off in all directions.
We anchored just a few miles further on at Galoao, and took life even easier the following day. The log records that we left at 1110, but had moored up for lunch at Dalaro by 1210! There are only two more entries in the log that day: ‘1545 left Dalaro’, and ‘1730 anchored behind Torrbanken after rowing most of the way in the rain’. How indolent.
It was sunny on the 20th, though it didn’t make us any more adventurous. After a late start we sailed on through the islands, intending to make it most of the way to Stockholm. At 2pm though we were passing a particularly lovely spot, and seeing some yachts tied up to staging on the small island of Lilla Korpmaren we thought we’d see if we could stop there for lunch.
We put a stern anchor out, and rowed up to tie the bows to the staging. The other boats were very welcoming. The island belonged to one of the Stockholm yacht clubs they told us, but visitors were very welcome, and we were to feel free to use the picnic tables and the sauna on the far side of the island.
It was so pleasant we stayed the rest of the day. We sat around in the sun and played the guitar, and picked bilberries on the forested hill that rose high above the anchorage. Holly and I stoked up the wood-fired stove in the sauna until the heat finally drove us out to run down the rocky shore and into the sea to cool off. In the evening we sat at the picnic tables and chatted to the crews of a couple of other boats while eating their biscuits and drinking their coffee and whisky. It was all very relaxed and enjoyable.
Now we did have to head towards Stockholm, for Holly was flying from there in a couple of days time. With a light south-easterly behind us we had an easy sail the following morning past yet more high forested islands, then through the narrow channel that runs between the mainland and Ormingelandet. In the sheltered sections we lost the wind completely, and at times resorted to the oars. We spotted a little cove on the chart just a couple of miles from Stockholm which looked like an ideal anchorage, but on rowing in (for now the wind had died away to nothing) we found ‘no anchoring’ signs glaring at us. In the gathering dark we continued rowing another two miles - hot work on Teal - to a marina on the tourist island of Stora Fjadoholmen. It was an interesting enough place when we’d accepted we weren’t going to have our own wilderness paradise for the night; there was a little museum and lots of craft shops – all shut by that late hour, although a blacksmith who was working there stopped to chat and invited us in to look round his workshop.
We were soon in the centre of Stockholm in the morning, tied up in a big marina by the Wasa museum. Moored close by us was a very pretty gaff yawl, rather bigger than Teal, flying a smart red ensign. Later I noticed an information board hanging from the shrouds. ‘'Moosk' - Built in Falmouth 1906 by W.E. Thomas’ it read. Well I never – the same yard as Teal, who was launched just a few years later. If the Thomas brothers' yard was anything like Downs Road, in all probability some of Teals frames would have been cut from offcuts left over from the building of her bigger sister. How strange to think that the severed boughs of the same tree might meet again so many years later. I never got a chance to chat to her crew, for when I went along to say hello before we left there was unfortunately no-one aboard.
Stockholm has plenty of interesting sights, and we dutifully looked round the Vasa museum and wandered round the old city. The Vasa was worth the effort - a grand warship built for the Swedish King in 1628, but constructed so ornately and stuffed so full of soldiers, excess weaponry and unnecessary embellishments that she turned turtle and sank less than a mile into her maiden voyage. She lay in the mud for nearly 350 years years before she was raised, in astoundingly good condition. The museum was built around her.
Seeing the richly ornamented ship still intact after so long was interesting enough, but the little displays at the side of artifacts brought up with the wreck were if anything more interesting. We might think ourselves tough at times, living on Teal without engine or lights or electronic aids to navigation, but we had it so easy compared to the squalid conditions below decks on the ships of those days.
Holly insisted we go out to a smart city-centre bar one evening. I put on my best clothes, although the only footwear I had brought was a pair of old steel-toe-capped boots with big paint stains and laces made from string. It wasn't even matching string. My trousers and shirt were little more presentable: crumpled and smelling slightly of mildew. However, we were let in, and paid for drinks at a price that would have fed a family in the third world for several weeks, and sat sipping them, surrounded by sophisticated socialites be-daubed and be-perfumed with the latest in cosmetics, groomed so that not a crease or a hair was out of its proper place. It was a world utterly unconnected with our life on Teal, but one I was quite happy to have only the briefest encounter with.
We had taken an outside berth at the marina we were staying at, because it had been easier to get into. But the wash of the constant ferries and other traffic passing by made it a little uncomfortable, and when another yacht moored a little too close behind our stern the surge of a particularly bad wash fouled Teals bumpkin on their stern and broke the fitting that held the inboard end to the deck. It wasn’t hard to improvise a new one, although it took a couple of hours.
I found on checking my email at an internet cafe that I would have to be back from the Baltic rather earlier than I had expected. I had found some work for the forthcoming winter at a museum on the remote sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. It was a place I had visited briefly and had always wanted to return to, and a six-month job was ideal, for by the time I was back the northern winter would be nearly over. However, there is only one ship every 6 weeks down to South Georgia, and it seemed that the shipping schedules had been changed. The upshot was that I would be heading south about a month earlier than I expected, and so I would have to fly back to the UK around the middle of September.
Although the original plan had been to cover the whole of the Baltic in one season sailing in Teal, I had realised a long time earlier that there was no way to do it justice in such a short time. So the plan was to find somewhere to winter the boat, probably in Finland. Flying back earlier did mean though that I wouldn’t be able to see as much of the Gulf of Finland as I had hoped. I had thought it might be possible to nip into Russia and sail up the Saimaa canal into the Finnish lake system, as well as cross to Estonia and explore some of the islands there. There wouldn’t be time for all that now, but I decided to start making my way across to Finland immediately to make the most of the time we had available.
On the 24th July Kat and I left Holly in Stockholm, from where she would fly the following morning. We began to head north-east out through the archipelago, though it took most of the morning just to leave the last of the Stockholm suburbs behind. Once we were past the imposing citadel at Vaxholm We were both relieved to find ourselves in wilder surroundings once again, and we found a lovely anchorage for the night with an anchor off our stern and the bows tied to a tree on the island of Storon
The main channel leading through the northern part of the archipelago is the one most heavily used by commercial shipping, particularly the behemoth ferries that ply frequently between Stockholm and the Aland islands. Given the sparse population of the islands, it seemed strange to me that they could support such a busy service, but I was told later that the Aland islands are a tax haven, and alcohol is cheap. Any ship that touches at the islands can sell cut-priced booze on the voyage, so the ferries that sail from Stockholm to Turku and Helsinki in Finland make sure they make a 10 minute stop in Marieham on the way. Other ferries just make the trip to Marieham and straight back – hardly anyone staggers on or off there, most people just treat the ferry as an enormous floating nightclub.
It means however that the northern passage through the Stockholm islands is made somewhat hazardous as these leviathans lumber through the narrow tortuous passages, dancing drunkenly round the innumerable rocks, beacons and buoys. Imagine a couple of inebriated mammoths trying to dance a strip-the-willow in a china shop. It was wise to keep out the way I reckoned, so as we continued on our way the following day we were relieved to see on the chart another passage we could take instead. No commercial shipping here, barely any yachts either, presumably because of it being even more rocky, narrow and awkward than the main channel.
There was a stronger wind, but we were frequently in the wind shadow of the high islands so our progress wasn't fast. However, the archipelago was thinning by the time we anchored in a quiet cove late in the evening, by the island of Svartno. We explored ashore, and followed a winding single track road through the woods to the village nearby. There was a bus that came out here, for it was one of the few places in the archipelago that is accessible by land transport - the island being separated from the mainland by a narrow gap with a bridge we had just sailed under.
My next crew, Hamish, was due to meet us the following day, and would overlap with Kat for a day before she had to leave. He flew into Stockholm early the following morning, and Kat and I spent the day sanding and varnishing the woodwork in the galley until he arrived in the afternoon, for it had taken him a while to negotiate the public transport network to this obscure little village.
A fair wind helped us out to the very outskirts of the islands, where we anchored for the night in a little hole near another ferry terminal.
The crossing to from the Swedish coast to the Aland islands is only about 30 miles, but in the middle you are briefly out of sight of land, so it does feel like a proper sea journey again. Alands Hav, as the stretch of open water is known, has something of a reputation for wild weather. Even quite recently it has been known to bare its teeth, for it was here that the ferry ‘Estonia’ - went down with the loss of 852 lives in 1994, with its bow doors ripped off by storm force waves. I was keen to get the crossing over with, for beyond there should be more sheltered, idyllic island cruising for several hundred miles.
The forecast in the morning was good, so we canoed Kat ashore, waved our goodbyes, paddled back out to Teal and set off as soon as possible. It was an entirely uneventful passage, slightly lumpy at times, but we were back in sheltered waters by the late afternoon.
I was keen to make a pilgrimage to Marieham, the capital of the islands, and indeed the only town. It lies at the base of a long thin peninsula with ports on both the east and west sides. Rocky islands extend from the tip of the peninsula, with low bridges crossing the channels, so that although they are separated by less than a mile, to sail between the two ports is a journey of well over 10 miles. Our route onwards lay east, so we opted for the east harbour, which had the added advantage of not being the ferry port and so being a bit quieter. There was a marina, but we anchored a little way off. It looked like an awkward entrance, and I was quite happy not to pay for a night on a pontoon when I could lie peacefully to anchor instead.