So at 1030 I put a reef in the main and hoisted the small jib and off we went. It was a bit scary in the beginning, but we soon learned that the boat handled it very well and that there was almost no powerboats to be seen! We also hit a new speed record of 6.1 knots and that with a reef in and the small jib...
The sailing was too exciting, so we forgot to take any pictures. In the afternoon, we arrived at the very sheltered anchorage at Finnhamn (called The Paradise). There were already a lot of boats here waiting for better weather.
We did not get a very good spot, not wanting to anchor out with all the others, but with a spring line to shore and an extra anchor out aft, the first night everything worked well. It turned out that the strong winds stayed for one more day, so we stayed too, resting.
The next day we also got some rain.
On Saturday winsd finally got weaker. It was still blowing from the north though, so we stayed with the plan to go east to the outer parts of the archipelago. We picked a small island called Tistronskäret as a starting point for the eventual jump across open water to Björkskär.
This was perfect sailing. A beam reach over quite open water in perfect weather.
And here were almost no other boats! Below is the view from the other side of the little island (facing north...)
The one bad thing with having the open sea to the east and north is that I never will be able to take these beautiful sunset pics....this is the closest I can get. This is my wife looking at the sea.
The weather was to stay quite stable with northerly winds, so we decided to sail to Björkskär the next day.
With a few days of half a gale from the north, there was quite some swell left, but of course nothing an Alacrity even would blink at.... In fact we sailed out with full main and genoa, but had to take down the genoa after an hour or so, as the wind increased. I did not bother to put up the jib as we still made 5 knots with main alone.
Landfall at Björkskär. It's really not that far out, but it is open water sailing, the same as it would be to sail to Finland or Estonia, only that would take much longer...
The entrance to the anchorage at Björkskär. There is only one house on the whole island. But there is a small harbour which of course, an Alacrity can use. Here of all places we were approached by a guy who recognized our boat and told us that he was sailing here with an Alacrity 30 years ago. He also took his wife along and they came aboard Discovery and got this special look in their eyes remembering former days of simpler sailing. They once sailed their Alacrity over the Baltic to Åland and found it easily done. They even had to tack the whole way back, which took them 15 hours...
Discovery at Björkskär. There was a lot of wildlife here, frogs, the usual mosquitoes and an amazingly great amount of swallows! They even sat on our spreaders and docklines!
We sailed back the next day as the forecast talked about a rain front coming in. But we did not catch any rain at all. And the sea was much calmer...
There is no fresh water to be had on Björkskär and we were now somewhat low on supplies. So we decided to head back to civilisation. This time it would be the small fishing port of Möja.