While enjoying a quick piece of toast before heading off to Stockholm, my step-daughter watched while I reached for the Vegemite to make the perfect combination of cheese and Vegemite. She was going to try the usual strange Swedish combination of apricot jam and cheese, but hesitated and asked if she could try my Vegemite.

I'm keen to spread the word about this wonderful delicacy, so I handed it over and awaited her verdict - But it tastes just like caviar. So, all you people out there spending a fortune on finest Beluga Caviar only need to reach for Vegemite at a fraction of the price for your canapes. Hey, it's even the same colour!

This week, Nynäshamn was visited by her first cruise ship for the season - the luxury liner Star Princess. She was on a Baltic cruise and she stopped here for the day.



The blurb says that the stop is in Stockholm, but because the archipelago area is so shallow, ships have to be fitted with specialised steering equipment before they are allowed any closer. Even with pilots aboard, it is too difficult to navigate these waters without this equipment, especially in a ship this size! So Nynäshamn is as close as they can come. From here, the passengers who wish to can take a charter bus or a train into town. Most of the passengers are Americans and quite a few choose to stay in Nynäshamn and take a look around here, so there were a lot of English speaking people checking out the spring sights. The ship is due to stop here another 20 times this summer and another cruise liner, Arcadia, is scheduled to stop here three times as well. Baltic cruises must be becoming increasingly popular.

I noticed today that foreign yachts have already begun appearing in the guest harbour. There were several German and Finnish boats stocking up on provisions today and I expect from now onwards that we'll see foreign boats here every week.

Spring seems to be exploding all over the place now. The most striking display this week has been of white blossoms on the ornamental cherry trees. Almost every garden has a tree and they choose to flower at the same time filling the air with their heady perfume. I love the smell, but I feel sorry for anyone suffering from allergies to pollen. It must be hell for them.



This tree is called "hägg" in Sweden. I discovered today through a friend that in English it is the Prunus padus or European Bird Cherry. I believe it is also known as a Mayday tree or Maybush. I guess we must have had them in Australia in some gardens, though I don't recall seeing them before. They are very common garden trees in Sweden and this time of year they put on a wonderful display. Yesterday when we were at Solna I saw many blossoming street trees with striking pink flowers, too. I have no idea what they were but it looked lovely as well.

The boat has had her finishing touches added and we've moved her around to her normal summer pier space. First, there were the last couple of things to be added to the top of the mast.



This is the bird's eye view of the boat from the mast top. Boy it's a LONG way down to the deck from up here. Sometimes when it is calm, Lars-Göran climbs up to the spreaders and takes photos of the islands around us - madman! However, this time he was actually adding instruments from the mast crane, so it was reasonably safe as long as you didn't look down.

He also got in a spot of sailing with a couple of friends while I looked after Lambi on land (her paw is still very swollen and sore).



This was in our friend's boat and while he was only out for three hours, it was still great to be out on the water again. Of course, it's been a while, so he forgot to dress warmly enough for the fresh breeze and when I asked him how he was after the sail, he said "Cold". Well, now he knows for next time.

Today we decided to load up the boat with the things we were storing home over winter - electronic instruments, cushions, bedding, the tv, dinghy and outboard etc. We literally overloaded the poor car but cleverly managed to squeeze it all into one trip - just...



Luckily it's only a couple of kilometres to the club, there is no traffic in this town and (more importantly) no policemen :) It didn't take very long to unload the car and pack all of this away into the boat. And I have to tell you that Lars-Göran managed to go aground today - already! I know Ian and Jenny will laugh at this. The first day and he hits ground - what talent. To be fair, it is very low water at the moment and he was trying to moor her at the loading pier, very close to the launching sledge. Very, very close to the launching sledge. Extremely close, if you get my drift. All that was hurt was his pride and we did have a laugh about it later. I was only glad that Lambi was not on board when it happened as it may have put her off the boat for the rest of the season. I had offered to wait at the pier with her while he collected the boat to make sure the space stayed free.

After loading, we fired up the engine and motored the short distance around to the next bay to her mooring spot on smörpundet.



It is such a relief to have her ready to sail. This week I'll start stocking up on basic food and provisions and hopefully next weekend we can set off for a few days to try her out again.

If only that lovely sunny spring weather will come back...