It was another perfect day’s sailing in great winds to cover the last 25NM and arrive at the charming little hamlet of Mem a day before we were expecting to arrive. This gives us a full day to prepare the fenders and ropes ready for the locks ahead, to study the route and plan our stops and to rearrange things onboard.

We began early again. It’s funny that now we are out on the boat where time does not matter, we are still awake at 5am as usual and listening to the early morning weather report. For the third day in a row, the winds are strong and in a perfect direction. It’s cloudy again today and while it could be a few degrees warmer for our tastes, we aren’t complaining as we are close to our interim goal and that makes us really happy.

Leaving Arkösund, we set sail southwards along a buoyed route through the inner archipelago, which was beautiful with the exception of this strange island.





Every other island around here is covered with pine and birch forests, but the cormorants, so loathed by the local fishermen have chosen this one as a nesting island and it was stunning to see the amount of damage that they have inflicted on the landscape. I didn’t think that anything could kill a pine tree, but I was wrong. Perhaps I can better understand why people feel animosity towards them.

We travelled quickly through the start of the Saint Anna archipelago , then swung west, sailing up the long, deep bay of Slätbacken. The wind and waves were directly behind us, pushing us steadily along and giving us ample time to look around at the shore as we passed. It was a very pastoral scene, with lovely lush green grass dotted with cheerful yellow dandelions (maskrosor), pretty red cottages with white trim and the occasional cow resting in the meadow.




Not far from the start of the bay, we saw a small island with a chapel and clock tower on it. The conditions were not ideal to take a decent picture, but we snapped one as we passed by, fascinated to see that the rocks in front of the church were a breeding ground for nesting gulls, that looked like confetti sprinkled on the ground.




This is the famous Capella Ecumenica Chapel, which was built in 1965 on Västra Gärdesholmen island by ecumenical volunteers. It is a very popular church for wedding ceremonies and many couples have pledged their troth in this small chapel surrounded by the open sea. There is a service here on every Sunday during the summer, with a special church boat that takes visitors to the island from the mainland at Kungshällsudden in nearby Bottna.

Travelling further along this bay, we came to a narrow sound, defended by a massive fortress, which now lies in ruins but still looks imposing.




This is the remains of Stegeborg Castle, which was originally built to defend the important trading town of Söderköping, further upstream. It sits on a point in Slätbaken bay with the oldest sections built in the 1300s. The castle was at its height during the 1600s when kings Gustav Vasa and Johan III held court here. In 1590 the latter transformed it into one of Sweden´s loveliest Renaissance palaces, which he used as a summer home. During the 1800s it fell into disrepair but was restored to its current condition in the 1930s. Today it is a conference centre and there is also a restaurant, guest harbour and herb garden.

Just past the castle, sitting in the countryside is a beautiful old church overlooking the water.




Skällvik Church dates from the early 1400s, though it was during the 1600s that King Johan III gave the church its Renaissance appearance. It is always a surprise to me to see how many large and quite impressive churches there are in the Swedish countryside. Often these churches are surrounded only by small communities of tiny crofter cottages that are dwarfed by the scale of the structure. It demonstrates just how powerful the church was in Sweden during those times.

The shore passed by quickly in the fresh breeze and I enjoyed looking at the houses perched on the hills, with pastures running right down to the water.




What a lovely setting and so lush and green after the recent rains and the warm sunny days earlier this month. It’s hard to believe that this is the sea we are sailing on and that these are coastal fields. I think it makes a difference that the Baltic does not have tides and is not very salty – it is easier to farm here and soil erosion is not the problem it can be in tidal waters. Not everything was farmland, though. Along part of the shore were small clusters of summer cottages clinging to the cliffs and on the more level ground there were even some lovely large homes.




This one particularly appealed with its cheerful yellow colour, the interesting tower built on the side and the pretty setting with the masses of bird cherry blossoms (hägg) exploding on the trees in the garden, with all of this overlooking the glittering waters of the Baltic.

Soon after, we spied the approach to the tiny hamlet of Mem and the pier just before the first lock of Göta Canal!




As the wind was blowing directly into the harbour, it was a little wavy at the pier, but we are simply happy to be here and to have all day tomorrow to prepare the fenders, fender boards and ropes in readiness for the canal journey. It is so quiet here and our only neighbours are a flock of bleating sheep on the narrow tongue of land next to the pier.




A quick evening walk and a chat with the friendly locals has been productive in that we have already got our “Upplevelsekortet”, a swipeable key card that gives us access to the toilets, showers, laundries etc in all of the guest harbours. We have a day to prepare the boat, study the charts and instructions and then bright and early on Saturday we will pass through the first three locks and on to Söderköping. Lambi is delighted to be able to toddle around on firm land and we are all feeling relaxed, though a little nervous about the locking technique. I hope I don’t make a complete dog’s breakfast of the ropes!