The lesson we learned from yesterday's leg was that the major challenge facing us sailing in the North Sea is going to be the strong wind. When it blows here, it blows hard. I now recall the nightly wind reports on radio P1. This western coastline often has gale force winds. Why didn't I think of that earlier? In the protected waters of the Stockholm archipelago, it is very rare that you get the change of wind speeds and directions like you do here, where you are forced to make drastic sail adjustments like we had to yesterday.

The second challenge is the waves. We'll be sailing a lot in long open areas. In those places, you get big swells but you also have waves coming at you in different directions because of the wind. All this is new for us and it will take us some time to adjust. One thing for sure is that it is time to attach the cutter stay and make sure the storm sail is always ready to hoist! This area of the North Sea, known as Skaggerak, is a rock-strewn maze with a fearsome reputation for shipwrecks and should not be underestimated. We will have to be more on our toes in future.

Now we are headed to the mainland to get some necessary shopping done. I still have a lot of provisions onboard, but we need some fresh fruit and vegetables, something for midsummer dinner in a couple of days and to restock the wine cellar that seems to get rapidly depleted. Must be evaporation, don't you think? I also need to fill a prescription and it is just as well to do this in a large town with a well stocked chemist, rather than muck around in some tiny out of the way place that may have to order in the tablets. With this in mind, I consulted the guide books I had for the area and declared Stenungsund to be the best town for our purpose. I also warned Lars-Göran that we had to stop there, no matter how much he might hate the place. We could leave later in the afternoon and drop anchor somewhere else, but he had to overcome his distaste for commercial marinas and just do it! He has a habit of forming an instant dislike for any place with more than one boat in it and making any excuse to sail on by rather than go there. Sheesh.....men!

After a sunny breakfast, we hoisted sails and had a very peaceful, if uneventful trip up Hakefjord, the deep straight separating the island of Tjörn from the mainland and soon we were passing under the large spans of Tjörn bridge and heading past a monumentally ugly chemical plant and into the town of Stenungsund.




Yes, Lars-Göran was right to want to avoid the place, which was wavy, noisy and a veritable windhole. There was a ghastly looking hotel on the water and a large, modern, soulless mall adjacent to the guest harbour. As I pointed out to my sourfaced husband, we were not there for the ambience, it was strictly practical and I promised to be as fast as I could. Fortunately there were very few boats there and we chose a spot on the outside in strong side winds. This involved a lot of cursing and sweating, but eventually we tied up and I prepared to attack the task of shopping, while Lars-Göran amused himself watching a passing parade of foreign novice sailors in enormous charter boats trying to catch a buoy in order to moor here. It was a relief to be able to cast off three hours later with a fully stocked boat.

We were now near the route of the famous race, Tjörn Runt (literally, Around Tjörn), held every year in the third week of August.




We were in the position marked on the map as "Tävlings expedition" and were weaving our way through the islands to the northwest, headed for the bit marked "Skåpesund", a narrow passage between two high cliffs. We were hoping to find an anchoring spot for the night somewhere here. It looks promising on the chart, doesn't it? Unfortunately, the area is very shallow and it was very hard to find anything suitable.




The urgency we felt was not because of the hour, but because of the weather, which again was rapidly changing. We had begun the day with beautiful sunshine, eating breakfast in the cockpit and wearing short sleeves (well, maybe not me, but I only had one jumper on *grin*). By the time we were approaching the Tjörn bridge, it had begun to cloud over and the wind picked up. After I finished shopping, the sky looked positively threatening, so we were hurrying through the area frantically looking for shelter before the heavens opened.




As you can see, we were too late! It just bucketed down, as though someone up there was emptying container after container of freezing water over us. Mist swept in and visibility was reduced to just a few metres, so we had to carefully ease our way into a rather open, shallow bay on Norra Björnholmen, which appeared to offer some shelter from the increasing winds. Poor Lars-Göran looked like the proverbial drowned rat and it was probably not the best time to discover that his wet weather gear was leaking at the seams! I guess we'll have to buy a new rain jacket when we find a chandler, but in the meantime he can console himself with a glass or two of Australian red wine, newly purchased today. See, every rainy day does have it's rainbow.




The following morning was overcast and very windy. It was okay in the bay we were staying in because a tall, wooded hill protected us from the strong westerlies. The forecast spoke of increasing gale force winds for at least the next few days which is not welcome news as we had hoped to spend midsummer at the exposed outer island of Käringön. If these winds continue, we will have to rethink that option. You have to be prepared to be flexible when you sail, so we'll go with the flow, I think.

We decided to head a little closer to the outer islands and make for the eastern shore of the large island of Lyr. However, when we round the edge of the island we were on, the wind and waves were strong and it was impossible to battle against them. After a fruitless half an hour of fighting the conditions, we resolved to return to the bay we were moored in last night, only to find that the waves were rolling in there as well. We had to backtrack quite a way and luckily managed to squeeze into a small, sheltered pool just off the main route. It was not ideal, but we have to wait out the wind.

Towards the evening, it seems to moderate slightly and in view of the weather report that predicts even stronger winds overnight and tomorrow, we are determined to get to the shelter of a large island and so we bite the bullet and take Fiona out into the open waters and press on the rather bumpy, windy eight nautical miles to a sheltered bay on the east of Lyr, where we are able to hook onto another free SXK buoy. What a relief to be here.




When I took a looked at the surroundings, I had to smile. It felt strange that here in the middle of Sweden I was curiously reminded of Scotland and areas of Cornwall, for in both those places little farms lie close beneath small hills in just the same way. It is all very pretty and inviting, so I hope we will be able to take the dinghy to land tomorrow and see what is there.

In keeping with the fast pace of change over here in the west, the sky has been putting on the most amazing theatrical display this evening. The clouds are arranged in different layers and are racing across the sky at a phenomenal speed, while the setting sun looks like a ball of fire above the bare cliffs. Who needs tv when you can watch this all evening?




Looking out of the bay onto the open fairway behind us, everything is so quiet and the clouds continue their racing across the sky, reflected in the bare rocks that make up this part of the coast. I still haven't quite gotten used to the absence of plants on many of the islands - it is eerily quiet and while beautiful, it feels a little threatening as well.




In the morning we note that the wind has increased overnight to around 21m/s. It started off sunny and we did the washing, thinking that it would dry well in the sun and brisk wind. It was perhaps not one of our smartest moves as the wind was so strong, it threatened to rip the sheets off the line and fling them into the sea. It is a constant battle to keep an eye on the clothes and to repeg everything. Eventually, as has become a familiar pattern in the west, the clouds sweep in dramatically and seconds later, it is dark and forbidding as the winds howl and the rain pelts down. This necessitates us taking in the partially dry laundry and draping it inside the boat on emergency lines we string up in the main salon. Thank goodness we have a wonderful, roomy cockpit tent and thick, cosy matresses so we can be outside reading, listening to music and watching the world around us. Imagine being cramped inside the boat with all of this:




Midsummer is also a very windy day with strong squalls moving through at intervals. We stay here in the bay and enjoy our traditional meal of four different kinds of herring, tiny new potatoes with a buttery chive sauce and hardbread. Simple but delicious, especially when you can share it with someone you love and care for. We were slightly disappointed that we could not go to Käringön, or even go to land here to see a midsummer pole and join in the communal fun. It was really NOT the sort of midsummer that we had planned for this trip - we imagined being part of a traditional west coast celebration. However, Mother Nature cannot be argued with and we are very content with each other's company.

We puzzled a little over the place we are staying in and how very different the wind behaves here than it does at the east coast. I know that if we were in a similar bay in the Stockholm archipelago (say, Östermarsfladen), then we would be lying in a lake like stillness, protected from the wind and waves by the high cliffs and trees. We could go for a walk to the top of the cliffs and see how the wind was furiously whipping up the water on the other side of the bay and watch the Baltic come crashing in to the side of the island. But in our boat, lying in lee, we would be in calm, gentle water and it is that contrast between the windward and lee side of the islands that is exhilarating.

But here, while we have protection from the ocean swell, the high cliffs do not appear to provide shelter from the wind. If anything, the wind comes over the top of the bare hills then accelerates unencumbered down the side and slams across the bay lathering up the water and creating rather startling waves. All this on the so called lee of the island! Just see how the other boat in our bay is struggling with the conditions. And if it is this wavy on the protected side of the island, imagine what it looks like on the windward side.





Lars-Göran is disappointed in himself for choosing the bay. He prides himself of being able to pick out ideal places from the charts and I agree that his knowledge is excellent and I trust his choices. His confidence has taken a bit of a knock over the last couple of days, but I encourage him to just chalk it up to experience and learn something from it for next time.

We have to keep in mind that this is not so much a vacation but more of a trip and as such it does involve a lot of work. It is a challenge to travel from place to place, searching out new bays to stay in each night, getting lost, misreading maps and experiencing the unknown. Some couples find that they fight a lot more because of the tension that accompanies the newness that both confronts and confounds you each day. We both need to work hard to avoid that build up of tension. And there is also the strangeness of each new place and each new day. While there are days when you want to go out and embrace these places and to just follow where it leads you, equally there are other days when you are tired and dispirited and simply crave the familiar.

It's time to accept that we are human, we make mistakes, but we can learn from them and look forward to a new day. As luck would have it, tomorrow is being touted as a warm, sunny day with perfectly lagom winds (SW 8-10m/s) to take us further north. Someone up there must like us!