Sailing vacation in Stockholm archipelago – part one

We had finally finished the preparations necessary for a summer sail, so it was time to go on our sailing vacation in Stockholm archipelago 🙂 our plan was to sail a little bit more south than we usually go with our ship.

On the map below the first part of our sailing trip can be seen. We will add part two shortly.

Day one

We woke up and finished the final preparations before we set off. The first part we motored towards Fjäderholmarna where we stopped to fill up some diesel and buy a ice cream. It was very little wind but we set sail anyway, the mizzen sail, main sail and the furling genua and then we started tack towards Skurusundet. Since there was almost no wind and since Skurusundet is a pretty narrow strait we took down the sails and continued by motor. After driving a while we arrived to Baggenstäket, a very narrow but beautiful strait.

After we passed through this narrow inlet we had more space in Baggensfjärden and it was time to hoist the sails once more, but there was no wind so we only made 0.5-1 knots, we met some friends who took a picture of us.

Since we had no wind we took the sails down once more and started the engine for a while. The wind later picked up and we started tacking all the way to the island of Kymmendö. We choose to anchor in the bay on the northern side of the island, which had a lot of places to anchor. In Sweden it is common to anchor towards the rock with an anchor in the stern. We have a 10 kg anchor in the stern (and 15 kg in the bow) but no chain for the stern anchor. When we first dropped the anchor it dragged since the line holding the anchor was floating. We then attached a normal rope to it and it stuck but we will buy a short chain for this anchor for our next sailing trip next week.

One good thing that we noticed that we really liked with Anne-Mon is that the sofa is located pretty high (since we have all the tanks and engine below the sofa) and that means that we are able to sit in the sofa with perfect view of the outside. It makes the galley light and you don’t feels as shut in as you might do in other sailboats.

Day Two

We woke up pretty early after a good first night sleep in the boat. We did the dishes on the shoreline since we don’t have either sea water or fresh water connected yet. We also stopped at the shop at Kymmendö to buy some bottles of water and to fill up our water can.

Then we set sail towards Huvudskär. As yesterday it was tacking all the way and we set the mizzen, main and genua. It was pretty little wind so we didn’t go very fast.

Since there was little wind we arrived to Huvudskär pretty late. Huvudskär is a pretty popular island and many of the anchorage spots where already taken, but after a while we got a spot on the main island. We went on a tour to look at the lighthouse and the beautiful red houses on the island.

The sunset at Huvudskär was very beautiful this evening. Also, at 9pm the boats got notified by a trumpet, time to take the flags down. In Sweden it is good manners to take the flag down at sunset or at 9pm if the sun is up longer and then to take it up at sunrise, or 9 am if the sun rises earlier. It is not followed by all but we took down our flag and some other boats got the hint as well. After we enjoyed Auld Lang Syne on trumpet.

Day three

We woke up early once more and took a morning swim at Huvudskär before continuing north. Further sailing south we will do next year when we set sail for the Caribbean (!!). We set sails early after leaving Huvudskär and today it was no need for tacking, it was downwind sailing almost all the way. We tried having the sails wing on wing, which worked okey but will probably work better if we are able to set up a whisker pole.

It was a slow sail, with very little wind. We enjoyed sitting out in the cockpit in the sun. We arrived to the islands close to Biskopsön and spent a while looking for a good spot. Finally we decided on a spot on the northern side of Svartskär. We anchored and went out to explore the island.

Thomas also spent some time in the afternoon to go over the electric system on the boat. Apart from our main electrical panel we have a relay box in the bathroom. It controls all electrical stuff in the front of the boat and in the main mast.

This was the first three days of our little sailing vacation in Stockholm archipelago, part two will be up soon. 🙂

All blog post we have about sailing in Stockholm archipelago can be found under the tag Stockholm archipelago and all blog posts about Northern Europe under the category Northern Europe.