The observant among you will have noted that I often use alliteration in the titles of the blog entries here, so before you feel smug and think that I have lost the meaning of alliteration, I need to go through how the Swedish pronounce Gothenburg. For a start, they spell it the Swedish way (seems fair) – Göteborg. The initial ‘G’ then becomes...
While we waited for the overnight northerly blow to go through, we went for a walk around Marstrand. It is a beautiful island and the walk took us around much of the shore. We went past the old bath house and then on towards the north of the island. From quite woody green areas, the landscape quickly becomes quite barren and rocky, but still maintaining a stark...
A short run today and a relaxed start. We decided to head across to Marstrand – visible across the water from Åstol. The total trip was 3 miles, so hardly strenuous! In Marstrand we moored on one of the visitor’s berths alongside a Dutch boat, realising after we had moored next to them that we were the only two boats in the guest harbour – they must...
With a sunny start to the day, we headed off first thing and after a short motor down the narrow channel south of Gullholmen, we started sailing fairly quickly and we kept sailing, and sailing and sailing …. In fact the sails came down less than a mile short of Åstol, so an excellent sail. Moored in Åstol The only time that the engine went on was for about two...
We decided to stay for the day at Gullholmen. A grey start to the day made it more suitable for walking than sailing, so we decided to walk around the island. Gullholmen is at the northern end of Härmanö and the island is now all a nature reserve apart from Gullholment itself. However, this wasn’t the case until 1967 when the nature reserve was established...
Slussen apparently dates from around 1715 when it was marked on a map as Slusa. The name sounds as if it should come from the word for a lock, but in fact comes from the Norwegian word slusa which describes the rushing of water in a stream. This seems quite appropriate given the history of the village as a bathing resort. Slussen The origins of the village as a...
Vindö Marin started as a boatbuilder in 1926 adopting their approach from Nötesund’s Shipyard, which started building boats on Vindön Island in 1926. The building of boats continued through to the 1970s when their distinctive varnished topsides boats became very well known. There was even an agent for Vindö in Tollesbury in the 1970s and 80s. They eventually finished...
Today was a day of reflection on sound. The first sound was that of gulls feeding. The y-boom opposite us had ‘capsized’ and so was resting upside down. While this made it useless for mooring to, it did make it an ideal feeding platform for the gulls. All the mussels which usually grow under the water, were easily accessible to them – fast food for...
First thing this morning was taken up with various jobs. While we still had the car (until Vindö Marin put it back in one of their boat sheds again!), we did a quick shop in the ICA at Henån. We then did a final check with the Charmary delivery crew and once they seemed happy, we headed off. It was very calm at first, so for a couple of hours we motored back through...
We headed off from our buoy at Rörbäcke Kile first thing in the morning heading for Vindö Marin to sort out Charmary ready for the delivery crew. With some fairly strong gusts coming through we decided to hoist just the staysail to run down out of the bay we had been moored in. After twenty minutes or so, we needed to head east and north and …. guess which way...