After the wonderful afternoon at Beth's, we hurried home and hopped onboard the boat for a night out in the sheltered bay just a couple of nautical miles away. A quick half hour motoring brought us away from Nynäshamn and into a whole new world of islands, birds, water and peace.

Saturday nights have become a nightmare in Nynäshamn. We are kept awake at home by the noise from the pub up the road, the rowdy patrons staggering home along the street from various night spots and pubs in town, the hoons in their hotted up cars tearing around and the loud parties in our block of flats. There seems to be a generation shift in our complex with more and more young people moving into the units. Nearly every Saturday night there is a party in one of the 35 flats with thumping music, loud people and the gagging stench of cigarette smoke. We can't even stay on the boat at our own pier anymore as the new restaurant nearby has karaoke and troubadour evenings, so we are subjected to appalling cover versions of songs at maximum volume. More and more we are feeling less at home here and certainly on Friday and Saturday nights as well as on public holidays we are forced to leave and go somewhere else. It doesn't feel good.

Anyway, we were happy to lay anchor in Solmansviken in the Marskären/Lindskär archipelago just behind Bedarön (the large island facing Nynäshamn's harbour). I was feeling upbeat because of the excellent afternoon spent with friends, so we had a great evening and a good night's sleep, waking refreshed and alive.

In the morning it was time to launch the new dinghy for the first time. We've called it "the bright red scream".




Sunnies, anyone? Yes, it DOES rather stand out, doesn't it? I have to say that it was not among our first, second, third or subsequent colour choices, but the price was simply too good to refuse. And looking on the bright side (no pun intended!), we'll always be able to find it quickly in a group of dinghies. Most Swedes have grey inflatable dinghies and the importer who sold us this one said that he hadn't realised how conservative Swedes were or he would never have tried to sell red ones here. Still it was lucky for us as we got an excellent buy and hopefully this one does not leak like a sieve. It will be nice to have dry feet for a change. Naturally we had to go out for a spin to try it out!




With a dinghy, these kinds of narrow, shallow rock filled channels and bays become accessible to us. We can pop through the sound and check out what is on the other side very easily, something that would be impossible to do with a sailing boat. The dinghy is easy to manoeuvre and feels great. The inflatable floor is quite different from the old solid plywood floor we had in the zodiac and (yay!) it does not leak.

The water was crystal clear all the way to the sandy bottom and I could see fish darting to and fro. There were fat eeels slithering along the bottom, scary looking gädda (pike) and even some young striped abborre (perch) in the shadows. There were hundreds of fish everywhere we looked.




As I looked towards the shore of the island we were passing I noticed an unusual animal swimming there. Lars-Göran and I had a spirited discussion about what kind of animal it could be. It was too big to be a mink or a ferret, so I thought that perhaps it was a beaver or even a furry pig. Lars-Göran scoffed at my theory and thought it was a sea otter, even though he admits to having never seen one before. It never climbed on land so that we could settle the argument once and for all, but I'm sure I'm right about the furry pig. Aren't I?




All around us were small rocky skerries with nesting birds or those taking care of their newly hatched youngsters. Mostly there were eider ducks but there was one island with a whole nursery of Canada geese.




These geese were imported by some short sighted Swede and have spread throughout the land, in many cases threatening the smaller native geese. Town planners loathe them as they make such a dreadful mess of every area they stay in, especially picnic areas near lakes. One friend told me that in her town one of the parks and gardens staff collect the geese, load them into a truck and drive them away to some other place, only to have the little buggers reappear in town a few hours later. Maybe they forgot they have wings...

But it is hard to hate them when they look as cute and fluffy as this lot and when you see them in a large, caring family group. We tried to row past quietly so as not to disturb them, but several of them swam away, with one enterprising little one hitching a ride on mum's back.




We made our way through the winding waterways looking at the nesting terns, majestic white swans and fluffy grey cygnets swimming by as well as listening to the twittering of the elusive forest birds. We saw an occasional swallow dive out of the trees, but the others stayed firmly hidden. In one bay we saw some summer houses complete with flowering bushes glowing in the sunshine and the owners outside enjoying the precious sunshine and peace on this lazy Sunday morning.




Heading back to the boat for a late lunch, we passed a gull nesting on a rocky outcrop of a tiny islet. It was sitting there guarding its treasured eggs, only this gull seems to have benn a little slack and one of the eggs has rolled free. I hope no minks or polecats are around to take advantage of the slip-up.




We declared the maiden voyage in the new dinghy a resounding success. It was easy to manoeuvre, easy to row and much lighter to handle than the older dinghy. The old zodiac is currently home in the cellar drying out so we can try and repair the leak. Despite the glaring red colour, we think it's an excellent buy and we hope to get many years of service from it. Hopefully the colour will grow on us over time. What it will bring is greater possibilities for us to explore little island groups - and that experience is priceless.

While we ate lunch out in the sunshine, the Canada geese swam by in formation to check us all out.




It was with regret that we packed up in the afternoon and headed back to the pier to prepare for the week ahead. We've been fortunate with the weekend weather lately, so I hope that augers well for the summer. Of course all of the newspapers are predicting a sunny July like they do every year. I hope this year they are right as we will need some sunshine to help us recover from the busy time we've had lately. Those long summer nights anchored in a bay listening to the gentle lapping of water on the side of the boat are so intoxicating. It's what makes life worth living.