After
25 hours of tiresome sailing from Kiel we reached our home port, Abbekås. We
had phoned and alerted my old friend and colleague Lars Eggeling from Malmö
Aviation and he had got hold of a few club members to come and greet us and
help with the mooring.
Just
as we set our last course to enter the harbour we saw a man with a horn at the
end of the breakwater. This man was blowing his horn enthusiastically and
waving his arms in a warm welcome to Abbekås. What we didn’t know was that this
man was the harbourmaster in charge Hans Erik Larsson and he tried to warn us
that our set course was running over a ground and that we didn’t follow the
leading line lights/sign to the harbour. We were lucky that by chance and without
knowing, we were following the old fishing boat route that took us just beside
the dangerous ground. Inside the harbour were plenty of helping hands for our
mooring. Besides our friend Lars among others were Bo Jilkén, Birgitta and
Bengt Borglin. A few days later the Harbourmaster Åke Åkesson turned up from
his vacation. Special thanks to you Åke, for arranging our stay the way you
did.
The
evening festivities were fantastic, we wouldn’t imagine beforehand what was
arranged. Marianne Eggeling and Ann-Christine Wutzler had together with some
others made the food and provided the drinks, thanks ladies, all tasted very
good indeed. A lot of club members joined the party, but not only club members.
Lars had invited another friend and colleague, Ulf Bergers, who is also living
onboard his boat, a Najad 400, cruising the world. Ulf
happened to be in Sweden at that time, because he had the weeks before changed
his old Najad 35 for this new Najad 400. Follow Ulf and Kinna on their cruising
from Sweden to……… http://www.ulfbergers.com/ His website is in Swedish, but nevertheless
Ulf shows some talents in writing that will make the most experienced author
green with envy. I hope all his writing will be published in a book one day.
On
the pictures below you can see Ulf and Lars, my old colleagues from Malmö
Aviation, Ulf is the taller beside his motorbike. The other pictures are from
the club evening and festivities.
Both
Ulf and I had to hold a presentation of our boats and our beloved ones who
accompany us. We presented our web-pages and tried to answer questions from
interested members of the club. During the whole evening delicious food and
drinks were served. That evening and the whole stay in Abbekås will stay in
fond memories with us forever. A special thank You to
Lars and Marianne Eggeling, without your help in all sorts of matters,
transportation and communication, internet etc, etc, we would not have had the
great relaxed time we had in Abbekås.
Little
Ici the ship dog to become did not like the life west and was protesting.
Together with our friends, Lars and his lovely wife Marianne
outside their house with the fantastic view over the sea.
Above,
the girls Bea and Marianne are looking at the boys to figure out whether they
knew them or not, Lars and I are really enjoying the wine!
The
above photos are from Abbekås, the marina and surroundings. The goose on one of
the pictures, is a typical symbol for the south tip of
Sweden and Abbekås in particular. The last photos are Lars running on the
breakwater to take the last shots of our boat as we leave our beloved harbour
and all the new friends we met at our stay.
We
would have liked to stay longer in our home port, but time goes on and we had a
fairly huge program for the summer, so after a week we left for the wonderful
Swedish island Ven. We hoist the sails and was able to have a very good sailing
up to Falsterbo Canal. We chose to go through this canal as it is a shortcut to
Malmö and Öresund. The sea is very shallow a long way outside the peninsula of
Skanör – Falsterbo, therefore a canal was built. Lasse Eggeling had to come to
see us through the canal, I think it was an excuse for him to take an afternoon
ride on his motorbike.
After
the canal we passed under the bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen. I have
passed on top of the bridge, I have passed above the bridge in aeroplanes, but
this was the first time I passed below the bridge. After the bridge you can see
the "Turning Torso" a very special building in Malmö town.
We
continued to sail although the wind was very week, but the evening was long and
we could enjoy a nice dinner while sailing towards Ven. I had spoken to the
harbourmaster a few days before, so we knew where we should moor. There are
three harbours on Ven, but only two are deep enough for sailing boats. One is
on the west side called Kyrkbacken with all facilities but very crowded and the
other on the east side is called Bäckviken, not so crowded due to the ferry
traffic to Landskrona. We had chosen Bäckviken due to its lower harbour fees and
less crowd. The ferry traffic did not disturb at all. The first photos below
are from Bäckviken the other from Kyrkbackens marina.
This
was the first time last summer in Scandinavia we had any feeling of summer. The
weather was wonderful for our whole stay on Ven. As
you see on the photos this island is truly a pearl with its tranquillity
between Denmark and Sweden. For those who do not know, Ven is a Swedish island
and very famous as well. The well known ancient astronomer Tycho Brahe had his
observatory on the island. There is a museum where you can find out all about
Tycho Brahe and his work.
To
our surprise a few of our friends had planned to turn up the first weekend we
spent on the island. Together we had two fantastic days on the island. Ulf, the
other live-aboard sailor turned up with his new Najad 400 and moored outside
our boat.
I
cannot leave Ven without showing you the beautiful landscape on the island. see for yourself and enjoy!
Ulf
leaves Ven in his new Najad 400.
After
four days on Ven we left for Höganäs, where we were close to Ulf and Kinna. Ulf
would help us with our scuba tanks, checking and filling them with air. Ulf, thank you for all the help and transport while we were in
Höganäs.
Höganäs
marina was a very positive experience. It had all the facilities one can ask
for and above all a very efficient and service minded harbour master, Christer
Nilsson.
It
was time to move again and we sailed up the west coast to Glommens little
harbour outside Falkenberg where we stayed one night. Quite a nice little
marina was fitted inside the harbour. Sadly the weather was cold and windy, so
we didn´t enjoy the stay as we would otherwise have done.
The
next morning we continued to the bay of Kungsbacka. Well not exactly into the
bay, but on the north western tip just inside the island Malö there is a bay
called Skallanäs. This bay is quite protected and in good weather it is an
idyllic anchor place. We could only stay one night because we had to continue
to Marstrand, north of Gothenburg to meet with an old friend and colleague
Pelle Petersson and his lovely wife Pia.
Marstrand
was crowded as usual and on top of it, this weekend the boats from Volvo Ocean
Race was due in. We had more bad luck to come, the weather was terrible with
heavy rain both days we were here. Pelle had just taken delivery of his new
Regina af Windö 40 and both Bea and I were impressed with the quality, design
and technical solutions onboard. Pelle and Pia are also planning to live
onboard for a while, to taste the life at sea and experience other continents,
just as ourselves.
I
must say we were happy to leave Marstrand and continue north. Next stop was in
the bay of Mollön, 5NM south east of Kärringön. We had the whole bay for
ourselves and we wondered why, in the middle of the season. The answer was, the
bay was packed with jellyfish. It was nice and clear water in the bay so I
decided to don my diving suit and brush the hull and clean the propeller from
barnacles. With the suit on I didn´t feel the sting from the jellyfish, but I
had to push them out of my sight anyway as not to be engulfed in these slimy
creatures. I also had to put some wire mesh into the cooling water intakes for
the diesel generator and water maker to avoid them being clogged with
jellyfish.
We
were in radio shade so we could not get the met info for the coming days, but
luckily Ulf reached us by mobile phone to warn us of a storm arriving to the
west coast and that we had to seek shelter immediately the same evening. So we
lifted the anchor and sailed the short distance to Kärringön.
Kärringön
is a nice and picturesque little island, but way too expensive marina for what
it is. Anyway, we enjoyed a few days there and continued to Stora Kornö.
Stora
Kornö won our hearts as being the most beautiful island so far on the west
coast of Sweden, well just look at the following pictures, it is paradise in
the archipelago.
Our
friends had picked a few, in their view, beautiful islands to visit, so we
continued to the next stop which was Gluppö outside Fjällbacka. It was a nice
anchorage, but not secure for winds from north west or south east. We got
northerly winds during the night and we dragged a bit in the muddy bottom, so
we left early next morning.
We
sailed straight to Strömstad where we tried to find a nice anchorage were we
could stay for a while in good shelter. By now we hadn´t have good weather
since Ven. We were tired and wanted to cool down for at least a week. First we
circled in the two marinas in Strömstad, but it was not the place for us, so we
tried some of the bays south of the town. You can find some lovely places in
the area and we were lucky to find an ideal place for us, a secluded bay where
we could lower the hook and reverse right into a granite rock where we tied a
rope to a mooring ring. You can see on the following photos how wonderful the
place is. We were in the middle of nature, just a few boats passing now and
then and it was only 15 minutes ride with the dinghy to the town centre. Not
only did we find a beautiful place, the weather was with us the whole stay of
10 days. We enjoyed real summer in this bay. We strolled the forest and
mountains surrounding the bay and I did a lot of fishing. Mostly I got mackerel
and saithe which we smoked on the beach.
This
was the second week of last summer we really enjoyed with sunshine and being
able to bathe in the sea.
We
could not stay here all summer even if we wanted, there were more to see in
Norway and we wanted to sail up to Bergen to see my old friends there since I
was working in Norway during 7 years in the early 1980´s. This stay would prove
the third best for the whole summer of 2009. More about that in the next
newsletter, “Norway”
********Read also about our new crewmember "Lisa" that joined us in Norway, who she is and how she came onboard, exiting reading!!********