Carra Tidings

Finally we were ready to set off, albeit later than planned but my mother was safely back in her Care home with a bionic hip, having completed my physio boot camp to get her walking again, the car with the dodgy steering had been replaced with an electric one and my old family home had been cleared, cleaned and put on the market….. no wonder May and June are a blur.

We set off with some in trepidation in our electric car which we had had for just over 2 weeks – we needn’t have. Germany was a dream – and half the price of charging compared to the UK and Sweden – well the car was positively purring being back in her home country (it is a Volvo).

There was a slight delay in the mast going back on, which gave us a bit of down time to visit our favourite cake shop in Vaxholm – a table of cakes to die for, and I got time to go Nordic skiing on my summer Nordic skis – they have wheels. Think bambi on ice with protective gear.

 

It was great to catch up with friends from my Nokia days Pia and Juhana who were visiting Vaxholm in their yacht. We had a great evening with them. Mast up, sails on – all All too soon it was time to say goodbye to Svinninge Marina – Carra’s home for 8 years.

Niklas the rigger and Bjorn gave us a big hug goodbye and we slipped our lines and I will confess I had a tear in my eye as we sailed away –  It felt like our last connection with living in Finland was coming to an end.

We did manage a small amount of sailing but mostly it was motor sailing – past many familiar places, past Abba’s island which always elicits a rendition of Dancing Queen. We arrived in Gällnö, with its bay lined with pretty red wooden houses to see 2 other red ensigns. It is unusual to see other British boats. One, I realised was a Cruising Association member, who had done some work for me over lock down on the sailing app I was working on. So I popped over to invite David and Brenda on board for drinks. Then I thought I should invite the others too, it turned out to be Tom and Ros Cunliffe. We had a lovely evening with them all and we got all the low down on Augustenburg, where we are going this winter as it turns out that both keep their boats there.

An early start meant that we did get some sailing in til we had to motorsail – the wind was freshening and was in exactly the direction we wanted to sail in. We decided to go to Mörtö Brunsön – we had been 2 years ago. It has a rather unique wooden Finnish Romantic Style  house at the south end of the Island and Mags had not seen it before , due to her knee. So this time we both made it, yet other milestone for her recovery as it was on very un even ground and quite a climb. So she felt rightly chuffed for making it there and back.