Carra Tidings

7^th June

With an evening flight to Finland we had an early start on what was our last leg of the journey from Kiel to Stockholm. The wind direction had changed overnight and was now coming in directly through the entrance – so there was a fine chop on the water just to add to the fun.

Our route out was a little more complicated than coming in as it had 2 dog leg in it which thankfully were marked with leading lines. Sorry it was too scary to even think about taking photos!

My “mastery” of Swedish extends to understanding the Swedish weather forecast – which is more than I can say for the Finnish equivalent. I have to give their forecasters the prize for the understatement. The weather forecast was SW to W 18 -24knots with risk of gusts over 20 knots 80%….. given that is was regularly gusting 40 knots meant their forecast was true but not very helpful. But Carra takes these kinds of conditions on with relish – and with 3 reefs in and the staysail we were very comfortable. Mags with her cattle prodder on full belt ( see the post of XX) was able to go down below to produce Bacon butties which were most welcome.

On passing one rock and I mean a rock I thought I saw a chair – Mags got out the binoculars and it was infact a toilet…

Most sailors will recognize the phenomenon that means the wind is always coming from where you need to go. Well on this cruise we have been very lucky is has always been behind us but today the wind was on the bow – but again our luck has held and we have been able to be on one tack all the way up a fjord ( not sure Sweden has fjords).

Exactly a year ago to the day, we had done the reverse of the route with a group of friends from the UK. The narrow canal cut though felt even narrower when a large motor boat decided to overtake us in the middle of it…. I had indicated to him to stay behind us, but as he passed us at the narrowest point I gave a thumbs down sign to the driver – his wife look embarrassed – he just didn’t look at me!

We wound our way through the islands, narrow passages and with the scenery changing from the remote archipelago to banks lined with houses as opposed to summer cottages and then by about 2pm we had the first glimpse of our marina, which is to be our sailing home for the next few years. We had been allocated L62 – but when we arrived it was clear that it was not going to work as the access to the berth was way too narrow for our size of boat and with winds gusting 40 knots it wasn’t wise to try. So we found an alongside berth that was free. It is a club rather than a commercial marina so it doesn’t have visitors places, also the harbour master is only there during the weekdays. So we left them a note explaining why we had had to abandon her there. We checked with near by owners that it was free and we just hoped that we would have left before an irate owner turned up. So after 700 nm we have made it from Kiel to Stockholm.

8th June

A phone call to the office and thankfully they managed to find us a new berth 2 away from the spot were we had abandoned Carra. A great relief!