I haven't really spoken about our summer plans much. This is partly because summer felt so far away and also that there is a feeling that if you mention it, then somehow you have the potential to jinx it. Once you say "We are doing this..." there is a sense that you become tied to that and I wanted to still work it all out in my head first and also see that it would be possible to co-ordinate everything so that we could be away for an extended period.

And we can!

While everything is still subject to change, at this stage we are planning to spend around four months out sailing fairly continuously. The idea is to sail down the east coast to the St Anna Archipelago, then turn west and cross Sweden using the famous Göta Kanal and Trollhätten Kanal to the west coast of Sweden.




We had always said that we'd never travel the Göta Kanal route as neither of us was thrilled by the prospect of long stretches of motoring in a narrow, shallow canal, of countless locks to negotiate, of crowded, noisy guest harbours, not to mention the sheer eye-watering expense. The canal also has the colloquial name The Divorce Ditch in Sweden, so that also causes you have to stop and wonder if this is an experience best avoided.

However, when we stopped to logically think about it all, there were ways around some of these things and really the other things were to be endured for only such a short time that our objections were rather silly when weighed against the chance to experience the adventure of travelling along Sweden's "orient express on water". So Göta Kanal it is!

The whole canal runs through the centre of Sweden, beginning on the east coast at Söderköping and continuing through the great lakes of Vättern and Vänern, before joining the Trollhätte canal and the river Göta älv to continue on to Göteborg. It was constructed in the early nineteenth century and remains one of Sweden's great engineering feats. It runs for a total of 190 kilometres and has 58 locks. About eighty-seven kilometres of this is man-made, dug by hand using iron-shod wooden spades. There were 58,000 soldiers assigned to do this over the 22 years of construction. I don't envy them the task one little bit. When you look at a cross section of the landscape you can appreciate what a feat this was.




Each time we pass a lock we are raised a little higher and higher above sea level, until we are 98.1m above sea level in Lake Vättern. After that, we must descend over the same distance to be at sea level again on the west coast. We've been reading up about how to negotiate the locks and as we have opted to go during the quieter spring season there won't be hundreds of boats vying for space and the guest harbours will still be quiet. Mind you, they still want to charge us the full 4,300kr (about $770) to travel along the canal ONE WAY. When you consider that most of the European canals are free or have a small nominal fee, this seems rather expensive. We also have to pay another 730kr ($130) for the Trollhätte Kanal, plus diesel for the sections that we have to motor along, so the crossing of Sweden is expensive even if you take your own boat. But it will be lovely!




We'll do all of this at our leisure, spending time looking at various towns along the way, sailing around the big lakes and checking out historic sights as well as fun places and then spend our midsummer and beyond out on the Swedish west coast, sailing up to Norway (still subject to the bird flu restrictions as Bruce and Sheila will be onboard with us). There are so many places that I want to see over there that I hope we can fit it all in. We had a taste of it all five years ago when we went to buy the boat in Göteborg and drove around some of the mainland areas, looking longingly at the islands in the distance. I can't wait to see it all for myself.




We have plans to meet up with some friends along the way at Trollhätten, Göteborg, Orust, Strömstad then again as we take the longer route home along the coastline, stopping to drop in on friends in Helsingborg and Malmö. Some of these people I've only known online, so it will be a first for me to see them face to face. I can't wait.

The summer stretches invitingly ahead - a great mixture of sailing, exploring, socialising and being together having fun. And all this is to begin in just a few short weeks.

Eeek! I better start packing now :)