This place turned out to be the real find of this holiday. What a gorgeous place! I'm talking here about the island community of Harstena. There are some beautiful photographs of the island here (just click on the picture to go to the gallery). Some friends of ours told us about it last year but we never got a chance to come here. I saw that it was not too far away and would give us more protection from the forecast strong gales.

We moored in a protected bay graced by majestic juniper, larch and oak trees to the west of the main settlement and took the dinghy into town. I was enchanted with the village and quickly realised why this island was so popular as a day trip from the mainland. We normally shun the obvious tourist places as they are often crowded and many times very disappointing, failing to live up to their promises. But Harstena was a pearl. Honestly, it's like a place that time forgot.

Our fisrt glimpse was of several fishing shacks on the outer entrance to the main bay.



We then caught sight of the main town, hugging the shore around BÃ¥tsviken. I think what took me by surprise was the size of the settlement. I hardly expected to see a township of several hundred right out here on a remote island in the outer archipelago.



The town used to be the centre of the seal hunting industry in Sweden. There are old photos showing the boats heading out for seal hunts and views of the outer islands with huge seal colonies on them. Of course the industry collapsed in the 1950's after the near extinction of the animals. With the Baltic seal on the protected list, the people in Harstena rely on tourism and fishing to survive.

To reach the township from the west, you follow a narrow, dredged channel lined with boat houses - no, not house boats to live on, but shed to house the boats. It looked as though the local seagull population was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the fishermen.



When you round the channel, you come to a beautiful inner lagoon - quiet, peaceful and really picturesque with its old buildings and boats lying on the shore.



We moored our dinghy on a rock after asking someone if this would be okay. One of the problems of living in a place like this is that visitors tend to leave their boats everywhere and disrupt the normal activities of the town. We were anxious to avoid that and made sure our boat was well out of the way. From this point, yoy can look north towards the official guest harbour.



What looks like a boat shed in the foreground of the picture is in fact a rather well known, popular restaurant, serving local seasonal food. We first went and looked at the guest harbour and stopped at the small kiosk to buy fresh milk, icecream and a couple of postcards. I sat writing the postcards and Lambi kept guard.



We then wandered over to the post office and on to the main village. It really was a little piece of Swedish history. The houses were all quite old and very well preserved. We didn't take too many pictures as it was also rather open and full of inhabitants out in their gardens. There is nothing worse than tourists tramping all over the place, looking at you like you are a zoo exhibit and snapping away totally invading your privacy. But we were both in love with the town.



Several of the houses had tables set up outseide with postcards and handcrafts for sale. These were not manned, you just took what you wanted and left money in a tin. We were in for another surprise when we visited the bakery. I like to buy at these little shops in the islands as it helps them to afford to live out here and I'm grateful that they offer the services they do. The bakery was in one of the little red cottages at the south end of the island. Lars-Göran went in and bought some bread and wienerbröd (what we'd call Danish pastry). He said that it was the same deal in the bakery. The freshly baked goods were on display and you helped yourself, put them in a bag and left money in the tin on the counter. I can't think of another place that I've seen such trust in the better side of human nature! I was embarrassed to think that not many Australians would have been honest enough to allow a system like that to work. As well as the kiosk, bakery and restaurant, there was a smokery where you could buy smoked and fresh fish.

Lars-Göran said the place brought back childhood memories of living in Malax, Finland. He said it looked just as he remembered it.



We are hoping to sail to Finland next year, so I'll be able to see how accurate his memory is. But there is no doubt that this is a perfect place to live. There are regular daily ferries to the mainland, so you aren't too cut off but still you can choose to be at peace out here. I think we'd both enjoy this kind of life.

The other wonderful thing we found here was that it was overgrown everywhere with hallon (raspberry) bushes. They were bursting with ripe fruit, so we made pigs of ourselves again. I wished I had brought a bucket ashore with me.



I think we'll be back here again for a visit. Now we have to batten down the hatches and wait out the bad weather that is headed this way. I guess I'll be able to get in a day or two of lazy reading before we head off again.