We further discussed the feasibility of sailing into Stockholm city and in the end made up our minds that the effort would not make the trip worthwhile. For one thing the winds were not favourable to head southwards, so we either had to tack the whole way or engine against the winds and waves. Neither option really appealed and if the weekend weather forecast is accurate, we would get very little chance to see the Tall Ships as it would be pissing down all day. With that decided, we set off heading to nowhere in particular. The idea was just to sail and when we felt like it, to stop and head somewhere for the night.

We sailed out of the protection of the inner islands and began to cross the main route of Furusundsleden, which leads into Stockholm. One always has to keep a good look out here as the big ferries plying the Åland/Finland/Estonia/Sweden trade use these waters and the ships are the size of a skyscraper and move quite fast - it's always better to be well out of the way when they appear on the horizon.

As well as playing dodge the ferry, we saw one of the participants in the Tall Ship's race out on the route. She was naturally motoring as the wind was directly on the nose, but on looking through my binoculars, I could see that some of the crew were right up at the top of the rigging.




Better them than me in this wind was all I was thinking. It would have been good to see the boat under full sail and this certainly brought back memories of the few days we spent last year at the Baltic Sail in Halmstad. I idly wondered which boat it was and waited while we edged closer to see if I could spot the name. From a distance I saw the German flag, but I did a bit of a double take when I saw the name Roald Amundsen on the hull. Lars-Göran thought I was surprised to see a Norwegian name on a German flagged ship, but really the shudder was at the thought of Amundsen, who I hadn't thought about since Sister Mary's grade five Social Studies class in 19... - well, a long time ago.




Any of us who went to school at that time in the British Empire knows just how black that name was painted. While he may have been the first to the South Pole, it was the manner in which he did it that was considered "just not cricket".

"For us, the true hero of the Antarctic exploration" I told Lars-Göran with a passion, "was Robert Scott."

"Don't tell me." he said "Let me guess.... he was Australian." And he laughed.

But he wasn't. Scott was English. I explained that we were taught that he planned a scientific expedition to the south pole. Amundsen (a professional explorer in the age of the amateur, gentleman explorer) was supposed to be racing for the north pole. However, when he got wind that Frederick Cook and Robert Peary had beaten him there, he secretly headed to the south pole. He had not even told the people in his expedition party until it was too late for them to refuse. Sister Mary made much of him being underhanded and sneaky. He turned up at the Ross Ice Shelf illegally (it was British Territory at the time) and challenged Scott to a race to the pole.

As history notes, Amundsen made it to the pole a good month before Scott, whose entire party perished in the snow on the return journey. Many in the British Empire blamed Amundsen for Scott's death, claiming that he'd exerted pressure on him that was unbearable. One of the reasons he could go faster was that he travelled light, with only half the provisions carried by Scott's party. And the thing that sealed Amundsen's fate as "a bad guy" in the eyes of the nine year olds listening spellbound to this lesson was that he only needed provisions one way as for the return journey he butchered his dogs and ate them! All of us with pets at home immediately burst into tears and from that day forward we hated the name Roald Amundsen.

Lars-Göran just shook his head and declared "I used to think it was just you, but I'm becoming more convinced that your whole country is certifiable."

Anyway, it was quite sobering to think what an impact that Social Studies indoctrination class had on me and that so many years later I could still get goosebumps of revulsion at the sight of that name. Lambi sitting in her basket staring up at me didn't help, either.




We had talked about this for ages and by now we had a choice to make. The islands around here are quite large and Lars-Göran said we must decide whether to go northwards or southwards to get around them, but I told him that I knew a short-cut through the middle. He rolled his eyes and asked if he'd need his brown underpants as he knows that my so called "short-cuts" are often quite challenging. I showed him a narrow opening marked as Klintsundet on the chart. I read had about it in the Åke Améen navigation book we have onboard and it separates two of the larger islands. It would save us many nautical miles of sailing and bring us straight out to the other side.

Of course, what I neglected to mention was that it was quite shallow as well, probably around 2 metres deep, so right on the boundary of what we could safely negotiate with our keel. I thought I'd do an Amundsen and tell him when it was too late to turn back. Oh yeah, and there was a bridge only 3 metres high across the passage, but we could ring and get them to open it, but I'd wait to tell him about that as well.

So we turned off the craziness of Furusundsleden and found ourselves alone again, sailing through a quiet and pretty area. I did fleetingly wonder why there were no sailing boats here, but decided that there was probably no reason to worry. It would be okay. Wouldn't it? Close to the passage, we saw the funniest sea marker that I've seen in Sweden:




I laughed and declared that it was worth coming this way just to have seen that and when I asked L-G what he thought, his only comment was "I think there must be Australians living in the area". Why does he automatically associate anything whacky with Australians, I wonder?

It was a little hairy going through the channel, not helped by the motorboats who were zipping through at high speed like maniacs. We rang the very helpful brigde operator and he came out and manually opened the little bridge and we found ourselves through and out onto the open waters of Gälnan just north of Ingmarsö. Easy Peasy and no skid marks in the undies! We meandered past the islands of Äpplarö, Ingmarsö, Svartsö before deciding to make our way into the area around Lådna and dropping anchor in the large flad.




We eschewed the popular and crowded bays of Skomarsviken and Krokholmsviken (pictured above), settling instead on laying by anchor in a private ground filled bay where we had a great view of the afternoon cow parade. These cows really cracked me up. They were not afraid of people and were quite happy to just wander in and plonk themselves down on the picnic blanket. They didn't even seem to mind that the air was filled with the smell of their rellies grilling on the many bbqs. No doubt this cow is looking at the motor boat and thinking "There goes the neighbourhood".




Friday and today were rather grim weatherwise. We had periods of sunshine and blue skies, followed rapidly by the inevitable black cloud mass moving in at high speed, bringing an hour or so of thunder and pouring rain. Repeat ad nauseum. I really wish the weather would make up its mind as this on-again-off-again summer is most trying. In the bursts of sunshine we could roll up the flaps of the cockpit tent and enjoy watching the cows and the boats again, before the arrival of the next thunderstorm.




We spent our time doing odd jobs on the boat, cooking up a few meals for later in the week and reading. We both have a lot of books on board and this is perfect weather for us to bring out the cosy mattresses, fluffy pillows, red wine, cheese and biscuits and laze in the cockpit watching the fascinating theatre provided by the passing clouds.

It was very relaxing. All we could hear was the gentle lapping of water on the shore and occasionally the far off sound of a motor on a boat across the bay. Every now and then a tern or gull cried out before divebombing to grab one of the tiny silvery fish that broke the surface of the bay. In the afternoon I saw some birds diving in the water and sat there staring at them, simply spellbound by their elegant beauty. I had never seen these birds before and so I swiftly consulted my book of European birds and saw that they are called Storlom in Swedish. I had to consult my Swedish-English dictionary to see that they are called Black-throated Diver in English (Arctic Loon in North America). They really were quite superb looking birds.




We were not wholly occupied with impersonating sloths, however. We grabbed a few opportunities to go to land and have a look around at the pretty meadows beckoning to us from the shore. Again we were dressed in our Swedish summer uniform of rain jacket and rubber boots. It was hardly worthwhile bringing my sandals this trip, I fear. But the meadows were fantastic and after the cleansing rain, everything smelled fresh and very fragrant.




Again I was taken with the sheer variety of flowers in these fields. If anything, it was more impressive than those we visited at Ängsö. Lars-Göran told me of his happy childhood memories of summer holidays spent on his grandfather's dairy farm in similar countryside. The cousins would all head out in the morning and spend the day in such a place as this, exploring the flowers, looking at the insects (there were indeed many dragonflies here), traipsing through the woods looking for berries, lying in the grass watching the clouds and not returning home until their rumbling tummies alerted them that it was time to eat. It sounded so blissful.




Each area had a different mix of flowers, depending on how close to the woods we were. The flowers have a really carefree, friendly quality and I like the way they bring colour and perfume to the environment they live in. We so enjoy walking around and slowly and deeply savouring the fragrance of these meadow flowers. It's a chance to still the busy-ness of our minds and simply listen to twigs cracking under our feet, to the leaves rustling in the breeze and the birds singing.




In the centre of the meadow was a carpet of lovely bluebells. We grew these pretty blooms in our garden when I was a child and I remember that my gran used to tell me that in her local folklore, the bluebell was said to summon the fairies to their meetings. People in her village would not walk through a field of bluebells because they believed it to be a enchanted place and that the fairies would spirit them away – never to be seen by human eye again. Just in case there was an element of truth to the story, I walked around them.




In another section were lots of pretty strawberry clover (my favourite honey is Leabrook Farms Strawberry Clover, so I always love to see these flowers) and daisies looking cheerful in the sun. Daisies also have so many happy childhood memories attached to them. Remember making daisy chains or picking little daisy posies for your mum or for the school teacher? Or doing the "he loves me -he loves me not" thingy?




I sat with Lambi on the rocks by the shore, looking across the water to the next island while Lars-Göran went for a forage in the woods. He has an uncanny sense of where to look for berries and today was no different. He came back with a large amount of these delicious and jewel-like fruits of the forest. He brought me wild strawberries, blueberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants, blackberries and pretty raspberries, glittering like rubies in the sun. We had a great feast on the rocks.




The family who run this farm are typical of those living here in the archipelago. They have had to diversify and be flexible in order to maintain their lifestyle and so now they supplement the ecological farming income by running a guiding company. Visitors can come and stay on the island and take tours in the archipelago and they can also buy the products of the farm like archipelago salami, smoked lamb and fleece from a little shop. The tours are custom-made and dependent on what the visitors want. During these tours, the guide lets the visitors a little about the archipelago and what it is like to live out on an island, both today as well as in former times. How the archipelagos were created, how wind, weather, water and man have helped to form it the way it is today are other issues that are explained. The visitors get to know about the natural and cultural landscape they find themselves in as well as the importance of the agricultural landscape in the archipelago.




When we came back to the boat, I saw that Bruce and Sheila had been entertaining friends in our absence. It was a real bird party on our boat, with the railings full of these cheeky little swallows. I love swallows, they're amazing little birds. It's incredible to watch them fly early in the morning. They do such acrobatics in the air, swooping around catching insects.




We never had swallows in Australia, though I read about them in storybooks. I was instantly enchanted when I saw them for the first time here in Sweden. They are so lively and fearless. I don't even mind that they sit on the boat, chatter incessantly and make something of a mess.




My sister-in-law told me that when the swallows are fly low to the ground (as they are doing today), then it means that it's low pressure system and when they are flying high up, it means it's high pressure. The reasoning behind this is that they fly around grabbing insects from the air. In a low pressure, the insects can't fly as high, so the swallows have to fly lower, and the opposite in a high pressure.

I think they are particularly beautiful little birds, with their sharp colours and those lovely shimmering blue wings.




The swallows were not the only feathered visitors to our boat. We had another tiny little wagtail sitting on the railing and eyeing off the cockatiels' food bowls. I thought about sprinkling a few seeds around for them, but decided that I'd better not, or the word might spread and we'd be covered in birds and bird droppings. This looked like quite a young bird and as is the case with this species, it was very agile, in constant movement and with the characteristic endlessly "wagging tail"




We are thinking of moving on tomorrow if the weather improves. We don't need to move far, as there are dozens of bays within a few nautical miles of here and I've been reading all about these islands in the Stockholm Archipelago Foundation booklet, which has whetted our appetite for long country walks. The Stockholm archipelago is truly one of the reasons why people say that Sweden has wonderful nature and I feel so lucky that I can enjoy it fully.