There are very few leisure activities that quite compare to sailing. Taking out your yacht can be a gentle and relaxing outing, just moseying along quietly with the only real noise you hear being the wind in the sails and the water lapping against the hull. It can also be a white knuckled, fast paced experience, where a sudden gust of strong wind catches the sail, driving your boat forward with a turn of acceleration which you wouldn’t have believed possible. Both kinds of sailing have their pros and cons, but regardless of that, sailing gives you a real sense of being at one with nature. Though of course, in an instant this can turn to a duel, with you wrestling frantically in an attempt to control and harness those very forces of nature whose virtues you were extolling not five minutes before. Such is life.

We had that sort of morning when we left Lundarna and made our way along the coast outside of Arkösund. We got caught in a narrow, busy channel with some nasty cross seas and too little wind, followed by sudden strong gusts in the tightest spots, so we decided not to fight and instead we motor sailed until we came to quieter waters heading southwards. At least you know you are alive while you are out on a sailing boat. Heart thumping, adrenaline pumping - well, it's one way of living I guess.

Travelling along the islands on the main route around Kejsaren proved a bit tedious, so we turned to the west slightly and chose to weave through the rocks again, navigating ourselves rather than simply slavishly following the buoyed channel. It's always much more interesting to go a little off the beaten track and you see things that you may have missed otherwise.




The scenery here is quite arresting, with the mixture of different types of islands, the variety of plant and bird life and the sense of wilderness you get when you gaze at the horizon. Yes, there are small fishing cottages and summer cottages dotted here and there, but they only add to the scene, not detract from it. The silence is palpable and the feeling that I never want to leave is really strong. Though a couple of the names of the bays were quite off-putting. Care to tie up at Kolerakyrkogården (The Cholera Cemetery) for example? It's not really an inviting prospect, is it?

As we passed one of the islands, appropriately called Lammskär (Lamb Skerry) we could hear bleating and a careful look between the trees on to the fields showed some of the new spring lambs romping around on the grass. They are so cute!




On yet another island, we saw some cows out enjoying the sun and chewing the cud. There is something very relaxing, unhurried and friendly about cows. They seem to simply amble along at their own pace, following their own agenda and just being. Perhaps it isn't as laid back as they make it seem, but I envy them every time I see them. Although I'm fairly sure that in the end there's not much to celebrate about being a farm animal. I know that my dog and birds think it's much nicer being a pet.




Though not everything I saw today could be described as a joy. A revelation, certainly...

You see, I was looking through my binoculars at the various islands, trying to see if there was a bay where we could shelter for the night. I was also admiring the scenery, the little cottages, the cute sheep and cows around the place. As I scanned the horizon, I stopped and looked at a naked guy on the cliff. You get used to public nudity after living here for a while. When I first moved to Sweden I found it a bit confronting, but it seems to be such a non-issue here that you quickly tire of pointing and saying "Look, there's a nudie!" In warm weather Lars-Göran has even been known to sail in the nude. Not me, I hasten to add as I consider it far too cold for that sort of exposure. And vast expanses of my white, naked flesh is not a sight for anyone to see.

So today, it wasn't so much that he was in his birthday suit that caught my attention, but his pose. He had his back to me, knees bent and seemed to be slightly leaning forward. It looked really uncomfortable, but I passed on and checked out the rest of the island. When I looked at Lars-Göran, he had his binoculars trained on the same spot.

"Can you see that guy up there?" I asked. "What's he doing? I mean it must be so uncomfortable to stand like that."

Lars-Göran grinned and said "Don't you mean THEY? He has a woman there with him." And he gave me a really raunchy wink.

Now, I put it down to the excruciating pain of my badly injured shoulder (that by the way my husband refuses to take seriously even though I remind him 100 times a day!) but I must be a bit slow today. I looked at him confused. Okay, I only saw one person, but so what. I just wondered why he was standing like that. And I made the mistake of saying just that to Lars-Göran who laughed his head off, gave me the most sleazy salacious grin, started raising and lowering his eyebrows like a demented Groucho Marx, thrusting his pelvis like ... well, Elvis, I guess and singing

let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel

I know, I know. I'm ashamed to say this, but I STILL didn't get it. I looked at him as though perhaps there were even more kangaroos loose in his top paddock than normal and said tentatively "Are you saying they are Bloodhound Gang fans? Is that at all relevant?" (God, this is SO humiliating...) So he spelled out in the raw vernacular, complete with graphics exactly what those two were doing on the cliff, for all the world to see. Okay, so it was just us and we were a good mile away. And I suppose they weren't to know that we had high powered binoculars trained on their act of consummation.

So the penny finally dropped with an almighty clang. I was at a loss for words. A first for me, just so you know.

"You mean they were doing IT. Sort of ....mutter mutter (something about "doggie" and maybe "style" etc". I think I need a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down after that. I know it's what my gran would recommend.




For a while, the scenery passed in a bit of a blur. But I soon laughed it off and concentrated on the beautiful archipelago around me. We were at the northern end of the beginning of Missjöarkipelagan, where we had never ventured before. It's really a paradise out here - a natural paradise, that is. All around me the scene was full of life – with birds in the air and the animals and trees on the ground, but still all was so very calm and quiet. Apart from the distant putt-putt of a small fishing boat engine and the sight of the occasional red and white summer cottages peeping out from the forests on the surrounding islands, there were no signs of anyone else being around at all. Somehow it seemed as if the whole scene was being played out just for me, that the world had stopped whatever it was doing and decided to sit back and enjoy things for a while. It's a fantastic feeling.




We didn't venture into the narrow sound southwards as I don't really like staying in sounds, so we thought we'd try our luck at finding a place to stay in this northern section, around - The Eagle Rocks! No, not the ones we stayed at a few weeks back (see what I mean about the Swedes having no imagination and just naming hundreds of places with the same name - so confusing), but I was sure we were meant to stay here.

The narrow sound between Små Viskären and Långa Missjö seemed to be the most popular choice and there were already several boats tied up there. We kept going as we saw that a couple of the boats had several kids onboard as well as an inflatable dinghy with engine. A certain recipe for irritation as the kids all hoon around the area in these dinghies making a nuisance of themselves. I've see signs in some nature harbours for the first time this year asking that people not do this, so I'm hoping that they heyday for being a total pratt in this fashion has passed and we may get to enjoy our bays in peace once again.

We then came to a pretty but tight little bay - far too tight to anchor a boat the size of Fiona. I felt a prick of disappointment, but put on a brave face and was about to suggest that we go back to the sound when Lars-Göran reached for some rope and said "Why don't we be Swedish for a change?" I instantly thought back to the couple this afternoon and blushed a very unfetching shade of cerise. But it seems he wasn't thinking of that, but of dropping the aft anchor and tying up the boat to land!




In a flash we were moored in our own private little bay on a small rock called Grannklabben. With room for only ONE boat as it was too shallow around us for anything else. We were just in the nick of time, too, as several boats came by looking pointedly at our spot and the chart trying to see if they could join us. But they all had to go back to the sound.

I sat here in the sunshine utterly entranced by nature yet again. On a neighbouring island (Östra Örholmen) I watched an agile osprey (fiskgjuse) came in and deftly land on its nest at the top of a pine tree. I wondered if there were perhaps some chicks in the nest? I looked carefully, but the view was interrupted by another pine tree and I couldn't see properly. A few minutes later a flock of those sleek but unloved birds, the cormorants, passed over us in a perfect V-formation. They looked just like a small black aerial display team - a mini version of The Roulettes. In front of me, just at the water's edge a mink emerged warily from the reeds, sniffed the air for a few seconds, was startled by the flutter of a dragonfly and disappeared from view. I also caught a glimpse of a very large bird of prey as it flew into view from behind the trees on the island to the south of us. It took another few minutes of patient waiting before I was rewarded with a the view of a magnificent Golden Eagle (kungsörn) gliding and circling lazily just 20 metres or so above me before heading off to the horizon to try new hunting grounds. No camera on hand - I was too taken with the moment.

One sight that did disturb the equilibrium of a perfect afternoon was the flocks of geese I saw HEADING SOUTH!




I called out to them that it was only early August, we hadn't had summer yet, the warm weather was surely on its way and that they better get their tail feathers right back here this instant! All to no avail. They continued on their journey to warmer lands, and this year, who can blame them? Perhaps they know something that I don't and depressingly enough it wouldn't be the first time I've been outsmarted by a bird (looking significantly at Brucie).




We both agreed that our mooring site was perfect - it was an optimal location to both catch the sun as well as to shelter from the wind. As an added bonus, we had a lovely and very private island to walk on and even a small cove should we want a swim.

It also offered a view of one of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen this year and the promise of a good day tomorrow.

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson