We thoroughly enjoyed our few days at Klintehamn. This is a charming little coastal society, in a beautiful rural setting. We really love to find these small places to visit and enjoy wandering around. But we missed having a bicycle as there were a couple of "ship burials" nearby that I would have liked to see. We both felt that if we had bikes with us, we could have explored much further afield than we did and we determined that we would purchase foldable bikes as soon as we could.

The actual township is about 500m inland from the harbour area. It has about 1400 inhabitants and we wandered around looking at the lovely homes and the busy little centrum area. Despite the small size, there were two large supermarkets with excellent prices, many small interesting boutiques, cafés and so on.

It is quite an old township and the harbour area is visited by about 300 large ships each year, picking up raw timber, wood products and limestone as well as dropping off goods needed on the island. But the small boat harbour, lying next to the main wharf is quite charming and protected with a lovely view across the bay.



Opposite us was a small island, reachable by a footbridge that has a lovely little hotel on the beachfront called Pensionat Warfsholm. You can glimpse it through the trees here:



We went for a few evening walks over to the hotel and really, it's a lovely spot to unwind and enjoy a quiet holiday. Check out the view from in front of the pensionat across to the islands of Lilla and Stora Karlsö:



Remember, I said this was an evening walk! It is around 10.30pm, even though it looks like midday. I couldn't believe that the girls were out swimming. While it was sunny, the water was quite cold and there was a brisk wind blowing from the sea towards land. They are far more resiliant than I am. *grin* The hotel also has a nice little, private sand beach in a protected bay - ideal for a family holiday.



This, too is a late evening picture. I just don't know how Swedish mothers get their kids to go to bed in broad daylight. I know that I've forced Lars-Göran to put up covers for the boat's skylights so it is dark enough for me to sleep. He can sleep through anything, but I like it to be dark first.

We also watched other boats sailing in and the tour boat to the Karlsö islands come and go.



We would have liked to go across to Stora Karlsö, as it is supposed to be a beautiful nature reserve full of rare and colourful wildflowers and an abundance of birdlife. But unfortunately, pets are not allowed to come across to the island and we can't leave Lambi alone to wait for us, so we had to pass up that trip. Perhaps another time.

On Sunday in warm, sunny conditions, we set off for home, with the view of the Lilla Karlsö to accompany us.



You will notice a green marker buoy in the water. This marks the channel, with a series of green markers on the left and red markers on the right. You must keep between those markers, where the channel has been dredged to a decent depth. There was quite a sobering site about half way along the seaway, just outside of the marked area where a ship did not heed the markers!



The trip home was uneventful, and not too comfortable as we had to sail downwind with strong winds and choppy waves of around 2 metres behind us. We reefed in the genoa a couple of times to make the going more comfortable for the passengers. Funnily enough, Bruce and Sheila (being true Aussie birds at heart) ignored the whole thing and calmly went on eating and chatting to each other as the boat pounded along in the waves. Any doubts I had about their ability to withstand boat life have been well and truly answered on the trip home.

The bulk of the work went to poor Lars-Göran who steered us safely through the night to the Landsort lighthouse - several hours of it alone! When I came out in the early morning, it was calmer and he looked so tired that I sent him below to sleep while I took over the steering. It was beautiful! Early morning (4am), blue skies, sunshine, calm waters, rocky islets and the familiarity of being in home waters and a mere 15NM from our pier!



He slept solidly for two hours. I didn't have the heart to wake him and anyway, I know these waters well, I had the sea chart in front of me and I used this to take the boat home. It was so exciting to see my first glimpse of Nynäshamn, but not as funny as seeing Lars-Göran wake up and peep out of the window and realise just how long he'd been sleeping and that his mad wife had steered the boat through the rocks and grounds of Gårdsfjärden right up to out boat club. I don't think that either of us thought I'd be brave enough to do it. It just goes to show what you CAN do if you set your mind to it!

So we are home until later today. Yesterday we went into Stockholm and bought those bikes we wanted. How's that for fast! We got this bike, though we chose the dark blue ones rather than the silver ones. At 2,000kr they were an excellent price and are foldable and able to be stored in a bag on the boat and then quickly unfolded when we need to use them. I can see we are going to get a lot of use from them.

Our other project is to sell our small inflatable dinghy and buy a bigger one. A friend of ours has the model we were considering and we met him at his boat yesterday evening to try it out for size and stability. It was perfect and I felt secure in it, even sitting on the pontoons (something I can't do with our current one). The downside of this is that we can't store a bigger, wider dinghy on deck, so we'll have to tow it along behind us. But it will increase our ability to go and visit those remote outer islands together, which will be a bonus. Now we have to sell ours and shop around for this one!

Next week we will be taking out Lars-Göran's son and his girlfriend for a few days sailing in the archipelago. Emily has not sailed before, so we are waiting for good forecasts so we can take her out in sunshine. Rain and clouds are forecast until early next week, though it is very sunny at the moment. We are going to load up the boat, change library books and head out this evening to find another group of islands to enjoy.

And for those of you who read Swedish, we have a Swedish sailing blog at Fiona.seglar.nu...

Till next time!