The Bohuslän coast stretches from Göteborg in the south to the Svinesund Bridge just north of Strömstad and we intend to cover all of it while we are here. It is one of Sweden’s most popular summertime destinations and there is a wealth of information available about it.

The west coast tourist industry presents us with what it considers “typical of Bohuslän” in an effort to attract visitors. The features they always emphasise are the smooth, sculptured red granite rocks, the sunshine, the joys of sailing in the region, the excellent seafood and the small picturesque fishing villages along the coastline, each with its own character. There does seem to be a virtually endless number of small coastal towns that may be worth visiting, except that there are a few things the tourist bureaus neglect to tell you and as we discover the “other side” of being here in summer, the idea of this as some kind of paradise seems less and less realistic. But more about that later...

The morning dawned sunny, though the weather bureau has predicted unstable conditions and some afternoon summer thunderstorms. We do enjoy the lovely view around us in this bay. We have anchored furthest in and through a gap in the cliffs we have a view of the surrounding islets and some of the main route. It is unusual for us to see that we are the only boat laying by anchor. All of the other boats are tied to the cliffs – and in a most unusual way. On the east coast, one drops a rear anchor, then drives forward to the cliff, where someone jumps off and attaches the front to the rocks. We have noticed over on the west coast that boats prefer to lie alongside the cliff-face, using large ball type of fenders to protect the boat from the uneven rocks. I’m not sure why there is a regional difference but we decide that we may give it a try if we get a chance and see what it is like. Anyway, from our cockpit, the view is of a peaceful, quiet natural world.




The early birds are out already, so it’s time to get cracking and head north. There are a large number of boats around here, because we are close to Smögen, which is close to the mainland. This is something else that surprised me somewhat about the west coast archipelago – it is so accessible. In Stockholm, the archipelago stretches out many, many kilometers to sea with a band of wooded islands (the inner archipelago) and a little further out a band of rocks and islands with less trees, but still a lot of bushy growth, perhaps farms and fishing villages (the middle archipelago), then far out in the sea lie the bare, barren rocks and islands of the outer archipelago. To get to these outer islands, you need your own boat, or to take one of the few smaller taxi boats and travel for an hour or more. Here, the bare rocks are a stone’s throw from the mainland and therefore many, many more people visit them via boat, ferry and even bridges. Islands that I imagined were a long way from land, out in the sea, all alone are actually a ten minute boat trip from the mainland!

We set sail and head north. I have to say that the traffic in the outer skerries of Smögen is massive. The boats line up one after the other on this “skerry motorway”. I’ve never seen so many boats criss crossing here and there. We found ourselves in the middle of manoeuvering motor boats, cabin cruisers, yachts, small fishing boats, taxis, ferries and ships. Basic rules of seamanship were sadly lacking and the only rule seemed to be “every man for himself”. It was like an enormous traffic jam and quite stressful. This is something that you have to be aware of if you contemplate being here in July. It is massively overcrowded – far more so than in popular places on the east coast. places like Vaxholm and Sandhamn are quiet little backwaters compared to the noise and boat traffic here.

Lars-Göran was keen to show me Smögen, but I found the whole chaos in the harbour utterly repelling and told him that I’d rather give the place a miss. Smögen, calls itself the "metropolis of pleasure" with its many discos, bars and restaurants. The real “party centre” is in the old harbour, where the yachts lie jammed in like sardines in Smögensbryggan. It is so overcrowded here that boats lie one outside of the other and people have to scramble over several boats in order to get to the pier. It looked like something from Dante’s Inferno and I was glad to leave it behind and weave through the narrow channels and up to the pretty entrance Sote Canal.




This canal was constructed under a public works program by out of work stone masons in the 1930’s. There are some beautiful pictures here which shows the canal separating the area from sea outside.

Before the canal was built, ships were forced to pass one of the most dreaded sections of the coast – the very rocky, stormy Soten. From very early times, the powerful waves of the North Sea came crashing into the area, churning up vicious seas around the many sunken rocks. It was a stretch of coastline that was much feared by mariners. So this 7 km long canal was built, slicing through the granite rock of the Ramviks peninsula on Sotenäs and opened with due pomp and ceremony by the then crown prince Gustav Adolf in 1935. Ironically, the canal was never the commercial success that they had hoped for. Almost immediately, road and rail transport became much more profitable than shipping freight and today it is only pleasure craft that use the short cut.

We enjoyed our trip along the canal, which was still not so busy just yet. I gather that in mid July, it is unbelievable here. However, we had a calm, easy trip enjoying the pretty country scenery and enjoying the protection from both wind and waves.




Coming out of the canal, we could feel the wind again, so we raised sail and prepared to sail through more of the granite islands. The weather had clouded over and rain threatened all afternoon. We chose to take the inner route, past some of the towns like Hunnebostrand and Bovallstrand. I was disappointed both in the towns and the scenery around this area. The tourist brochures had promised much, but the towns were almost indistinguishable from each other, the marinas were crowded and full of “party boats” – ie large yachts chartered by up to a dozen young men, determined to drink and vomit their way up the west coast. This activity seems to be condoned by the people around here, who set up the marinas with discos etc to attract them. We passed boat after boat of these young men, all drinking beer, urinating over the rail into the water, screaming out obsceneties and generally behaving like animals. It did not encourage one to linger long in port. Can you imagine being moored next to them all night? We had that dubious “honour” in Visby a couple of years back and never want to repeat that sleepless night.

The red granite cliffs that everyone waxes lyrical about were also a disappointment. What the brochures forget to tell you is that the pictures they show you are heavily selective. Much of the area has been quarried quite recklessly. We came across miles and miles of coastline where every island showed signs of the stone industry in the form of cliffs that had been blasted away and just left, with large blocks of stone strewn around like a scrapyard. It was very ugly and I don’t buy the tourist brochures’ claims that it is “a reminder of a long lost age”. What it is, is environmental vandalism on an enormous scale and I was horrified by the destruction. I don’t know how they can be so blind to it all.

In all, it was a dispiriting sort of day, so I was pleasantly surprised when we rounded a bend and came across the tiny settlement of Heestrand - at last, a genuine, small archipelago community.




This was more the sort of place that we like to see and visit, rather than the hyped up, café-filled, crowded towns. Sadly, many of the other towns we have seen are now just a fancy facade, prettied up and sanitised with no life or spirit in them anymore. The very rich from all over Europe buy up the old cottages to live in over the summer. They are renovated and look picture perfect, but you know that increasing numbers of summer-only guests have strangled these coastal communities.




Along with the rich comes the plethora of summer cafés, gourmet restaurants and shops selling fancy knick knacks. Sadly for the year round residents, with the appearance of each new summer-only café or shop, there seems to be one fewer bakery, fish shop, hardware shop, small corner shop. The locals find they have to go twice as far to get a lettuce or a loaf of bread and the lifeblood of the towns drains away. Local people cannot hope to pay the inflated costs of houses in the town, so they sell out and move to a less desirable location. Perhaps I sound bitter, but these fancy towns the brochures crow about seem to me to be symbols of capitulation to tourism at the expense of a town's liveability. I thought it was refreshing to see that this hasn't extended as far as Heestrand - yet.....

We decided to stop here for the night in a small horsehoe shaped bay opposite the town. According to the chart, this is Dannemark and Ulön, both nature reserves, though the scenery on Ulön suggests that at one time it was inhabited.




SXK has three mooring buoys in this bay (all of course were already taken!) and there were also around a dozen boats lying by anchor. We anchored close to the shallow beach area just as the cloudy sky began to clear up. Both islands are easy to walk around and many of the boats anchored in the bay took their dinghies in to shore and walked around, checking out the interesting rocks as well as the plants and best of all, the magnificent views from the high cliffs on the west of the island, overlooking the North Sea. I believe there is an island group (Väderöarna) far out to the west that we hope to visit on the way back.




In the evening, we could look at the houses clinging to the rocks at Heestrand. It might not be Bohuslän’s oldest fishing village, but the atmosphere and the unique building style has been well maintained and things look "lived in" and I wondered who had first decided to settle here in this spot and build homes in such a difficult and relatively isolated setting.




Finding this genuine Bohuslän community so late in the day has picked up my spirits that were starting to flag a little after the crush and stress that began the day. Tonight I've made a big pot of onion soup which I'll serve with cheesy toast rounds - yum! This is an ideal food to cook on a boat - simple but delicious. I like to make enough for two or three meals as it keeps really well. My recipe uses 12 large onions, water to cover, a couple of vegetable stock cubes (a spoon of Vegemite is also great!), a large spoon of worcestershire sauce, a large glass of white wine, 125g butter and lots of black pepper all cooked to perfection in my trusty pressure cooker. The aroma is divine.......