The harbour at Möja is very small and we were lucky to get a spot in the inner part which is most sheltered. However it got very crowded. Here we bought some supplies and had a good meal at the restaurant. (This time it was really good food. I had been somewhat disappointed with the food at Blidö and Finnhamn).
Our plan was to leave the next day and sail on to some less crowded place. But this plan did not work. The high pressure centre everybody was talking about for weeks finally was about to hit Scandinavia (we had had a very rainy and quite unusually cold summer this far), and with it there was a lot of moist, warm air coming over a cold Baltic Sea.
We got fog. if you look very carefully you can actually see a sail in the middle of it. The whole day boats were coming into this tiny harbour to wait for better visibility. There where everywhere, anochored out, tied to private docks and to each other.
Here maybe a note is apropriate to our Canadian friends. Well I know, you always sail in this kind of weather. And yes, maybe I am squeamish about this visibility thing.....
However the fog lifted in the early afternoon. We decided to stay the nigh anyway and sail the next day.
With the high pressure being here, now we got it very hot, and very light winds. This would unfortunately stay until the end of the trip. So we planned to sail homeward slowly. At first this worked great. We found an anchorage at Lådna that was almost empty. After a day's sailing in light air and bright sunshine we swam quite a lot and afterwards we agreed that this was one of the best anchorages we found. We will certainly remember this one.
On our way there we saw this nice little boat.
The next moring we really wanted to stay another day, but the winds being so light, we were afraid we would not make it home in time so we proceeded to Gällnö. We still had some wind, so we made the whole trip under sail alone.
Om our way we discovered some cows on the beach. How did they get there?
At Gällnö we got in the middle of some kind of open wooden boat meeting. They only stayed for a late lunch though. Gällnö once again is poweboat country. Here poweboaters can easily drive from town to take a swim and get home in time for the evening news.
At Gällnö there are quite a lot of dragonflies. And some curious duck like birds.
This one is sitting on the tiller.
Now the less successful part of the trip begins. Our plan was to stay two more nights out, first at the marina at Grinda, where we would eat at the restaurant and then at Vaxholm, a small town from where we knew we would make it home in one day whatever the circumstances. But we did not think of it being Friday night. Last year we had stayed at Grinda and liked it very much, but then it was not at week-end. This was horrible. There were so many powerboats from town creating swell in the harbour, leaving and arriving at all times during the night and dragging half drunk girls from the pub to their boat's to "complete the task". We had one such incident in the boat moored next to us, and we heared every word. It was like a TV show. Of course, we did not get any sleep at all.
And the next day we did not get any wind. We motorsailed quite a lot as it was impossible to wait for wind in the horrible powerboat swell. When we approached Vaxholm the wind picked up but we were so tired that we decided to put into the marina anyway. This, too was a mistake. We should have continued all the way home in the light evening breeze, because the next day, there was even lesser wind and we had to motorsail almost all the way back home. However, now I do know that the Honda 2hp 4-stroke works perfectly well indeed.
I did actually take a picture of the Vaxholm castle, but it's at nigh....
Despite the last two days this was a very successful cruise. We now know that we can live onboard Discovery for two whole weeks without any problems at all. Even when it was raining, we could live inside the boat or under the makeskift cockpit tent. We also sailed all the time, except the last two days. At many occasions we sailed out of the anchorage not using the outboard at all, and at one time we sailed in half a gale and got a new speed record.
My wife now has been sailing in moderate open sea swells and liked it. Actutally she liked the open parts best.
We have also learned a few things. Mostly not to leave and come back on a week-end if this could be avoided, and to use the wind that is during high pressure periods. In fact, the day after we arrived home there would have been a perfect wind to sail home from Vaxholm. But being so near home, and so tired after the sleepless night at Grinda, we wanted to get home and did not bother to wait another day for better wind. Also my mother in law who had lived at our place to take care of the cat was leaving.
Finally here is a map of the trip.
