Monthly Archives: July 2018

Monday July 2nd: After the dubious delights of yesterday’s crossing it was such a pleasure to wake up to the fragrant air of a picture perfect summer’s day in Sweden.

The coffee and muesli tasted especially good to us both after the exertions of the day before, and we slipped our linesd around 8am for an easy motor to Vaxholm, the historic fortress which is considered either the gateway to Stockholm or to the archipelago, depending on which way you are headed. First 90 minutes was gorgeous – good air and flat water meant we could have sailed but we were still fried from our crossing so we kept the motor on and the sails furled, even after we entered the main passenger ferry channel with the wind on our quarter at about 8 kts. Broad reaching under jib alone would have been perfect for the conditions but the channel was quite tight in places and there was a lot of traffic coming from the other direction, including ferries, and neither of us wanted to be jibing continually to avoid them. So after an uneventful 20nm we pulled into the main harbor at Vaxholm around noon. Tied up in gusty winds with help from a couple of harbor assistants and quickly got chatting to a pleasant Irish couple (William and Karen) on Melodrama, a Dehler 38 who recognized Arcturus and knew Andy and Mia from the Arc 1500. J and I were happy to go our separate ways for a few hours, for me that meant hitting the systembolaget for wine and the Co-Op supermarket for provisions. J spent his time over at the fortress scoring some more drone footage. After a quick meal I ambled across the harbor to a local bar to watch Belgium play Japan. I must say it felt SO good to be back in civilization….

Sunday: July 1st: Sitting in the quiet boatyard at Alsvik on the Swedish side of the Baltic at 10pm as the sun makes its leisurely way to the horizon, the world looks a peaceful and unthreatening place.  What a difference a few hours make!

     This was toughest day’s sailing by far. Leaving Björkör we knew there was a new front forecast to start building around noon so we slipped our lines at 6am and laid a course WSW to our destination of Fejan about 32 miles away. We figured we could average 5 knots, even with a few deviations for shoals, and so we’d be only an hour away by the time the wind came up. As always the best laid plans of mice and men….

 We made good early progress under genoa and full main and the conditions stayed calm – mostly in the 6-8kt range. We both wanted to explore the capabilities of the boat’s Cap Horn windvane and felt this was really the first time we had enough open water to use it. We tinkered with Sune (as Andy and Mia had dubbed her) for a few hours and got her to work intermittently but sadly we dallied a little too long. Still, the Swedish coastline looked barely 10nm away when the wind started to build but as can always be the case in sailing, things deteriorated quickly. As we started to get overpowered with gusts to the mid-20s and a growing swell from the north east I pondered my options: send myself up to the bucking foredeck (with no bow pulpit) to swap out the genoa for the 100% jib, or simply drop the main and go jib and jigger. I had wanted to try the fore-and-aft configuration for a while and this seemed like the ideal time. Although the boat immediately got back on her feet beating to weather was a lot of work and I knew there were plenty of inviting harbors further south west, so I decided to run before the wind on jib alone. Unfortunately the wind had other ideas, it both continued to build and move steadily westwards and then to the south, forcing me more and more to the south west while flying along at speeds of 6.5-7kts with the wind on our quarter. With plenty of shallow water approaching this was turning into a very nervous ride for us both. We tried to seek shelter at a place J found on Navionics named Rodlöga, but this turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. It featured a tiny channel facing north east, the direction the wind was now coming from, and led down to a small hamlet with a concrete pier and three feet of water. The idea leaving Arcturus to the tender mercies of a relentless swell and a concrete pier was a non-starter, so we motored back up against the chop and decided to cross west towards Blidö. J was fairly beat and went below at this time, leaving me to either handle the tacking single-handed and beat up to the north end of Blidö, or instead put the boat on a reach to the south end, where we could at least rely on a sheltered channel for the north. Another tiring three hours went by before I looked for an east-west alternative to the prevailing wind and found the sheltered Alsvik Marina, where we pulled into a pontoon berth. Cue beer, bread and cheese and a quick look around. It was now 7pm and our 32 mile, six hour jaunt had turned into an exhausting, 52nm, 13 hour passage in very challenging conditions. But we madeit home safely. We both slept very well that night.

     However the difficulty of what should have been a simple passage taught me a few lessons I was determined to take on board. For all the ease of boarding, I really wanted a bow pulpit to make it safer switching out headsails. I determined that I would have one fabricated, open at the front in the Swedish fashion, from my existing pulpit, over the winter. I also decided that the old saw about reefing as soon as you start to think about it, would be incorporated into my sailing habits immediately. And when it comes to testing out new gear – like the windvane – I vowed never to do it ahead of a big front coming in. All just common sense really, but sometimes you need a kick in the ass to do the obvious thing. I know I did.

Gothic horror – almost – on Björkör

With the boat sitting serenely at the dock I spent a couple of hours catnapping before cleaning and tidying the boat and grabbing some breakfast (my usual staple of yogurt and granola with honey). James had gone exploring and returned to tell me about a little ‘leprechaun’ he had met named Kaj (pronounced “Kai”). Turned out Kaj was the custodian of the island and lived here alone, five days a week from February to November. Kaj invited us to tour the small museum/house he maintained  which I had spied earlier, just five minutes from the harbor. Turns out it is a perfectly preserved Åland island house from the late 19th century.

     Let me immediately say that this turned out to be a fascinating and macabre experience. Kaj was a small man in his mid-50s clad in thick waterproof work pants and a tank top. He sported the requisite fisherman’s cap and a hearing aid and his personal hygiene left much to be desired. But given the few visitors to his island perhaps he had no need of smelling good. Kaj spoke broken English in a sing-song Scandinavian accent which was almost a parody of itself. His own cabin consisted of a cozy kitchen with wood fire stove, a kitchen table with a logbook on which he recorded every boat which visited the island and pair of amazing sealskin clogs he used in wintertime. He took us over to the perfectly preserved island house just a few steps away and that is where the horror movie vibes began to come thick and fast. The place was faded and spotlessly clean, but looked as though it had just been vacated by a Victorian era Finnish family. The ground floor was dominated by a large living room/kitchen with a woodfire stove complete with pots, pans, grinders and supplies from the era. In the corner were two small bunk beds, clearly for children, while from the ceiling hung a dozen polished antique rifles, ostensibly for shooting seals. But Kaj got a gleam in his eye as he explained that the former patriarch of the house, whose stern portrait hunger over the fireplace, was an angry and irrational man who had been known to hunt ‘strangers and friends’, and who would often take his spyglass (also displayed on a sidetable) to the top of the nearby lookout to see any approaching boats. Unwary visitors were often shot at. This news caused the beginning of some anxiety in me. But there was much more to come.

     In the parlour next to the main living space was a curiosity room containing some stuffed ducks, preserved eggs and a spinning wheel. In another corner was an antique phonograph and a stack of 78s. Kaj got an odd look in his eye as he began to turn the turntable by hand – and a strange disembodied sound of a 1930s Swedish singer, intoning mournfully at half speed, began to issue from the speaker. I looked at James nervously….this was straight out of modern horror movie. Kaj invited us upstairs where more macabre artifacts awaited. One room had a collection of old jackets and dresses, plus shoes and more sealskin boots from the 19th century. He pointed out a faded dress and encouraged me, (only half jokingly?), to put it on. My eyes flashed to the shoes and wondered if a visitor in years to come might find the LLBean hiking boots I was currently wearing among them, the only remaining artifact of an American sailor who was long forgotten after disappearing on a sailing trip in 2018. Next door to this was a claustrophic room for a small child, containing just an old crib and some strangely stained wallpaper. Was the stain blood? This was getting creepier by the second.

     Finally Kaj, with more than hint of mischief in his eyes, encouraged us to take a peek at ‘the secret room’, which opened via a hidden door onto a tiny, narrow passage full of dusty and rusty farm implements. Before I crossed the threshold I made sure there was a window in the room, just so we could escape in the event of the hidden door being slammed behind us. I eyeballed James. He was clearly thinking the same thing. We left hurriedly but we sure to be polite. As I hurried down the mowed grass path back to my boat I already had half a horror movie written in my head. This was not an experience I will soon forget. But I will bring back future guests, so they can experience this Finnish gothic moment and give me their take. For me, the warmth of the sun and my boat’s cozy cabin have rarely been as welcome.

Saturday June 30th: The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Nowhere are those words of scripture more keenly felt than on a sailboat. After an idyllic first few days we had been confronted by a very nasty front and decided to cast off our mooring lines shortly after midnight to ensure we didn’t leave on a Friday. We put a single reef in the main and opted for 100% jib to be conservative. Given the sudden Venturi effect that can cause vicious gusts between islands, we figured it was the sensible choice. Sailing in these parts can be quite anxiety-inducing, so I wasn’t crazy about a passage in the dark, but of course we didn’t have one, since at this time of year the sun goes down about 11pm, lingers just below the horizon for about three hours then rises again – giving us a perpetual twilight in which it is quite easy to see obstacles and adjust accordingly.

     Björkör lies almost directly due west of Kökar but as is always the case here, you can’t follow the rhumbline. Avoiding a large patch of skerries and shoals meant tacking back and forth a couple of times under motor with the main up the entire way to ensure arriving before the winds kicked up. We arrived shortly after 5.30am in a dead calm at what was possibly the best landfall of the summer. The island’s south-facing harbor didn’t look promising at first but as it hove more clearly into view we knew we had a real find on our hands. The harbor is perhaps 300m wide with low water from the center across to starboard. But to port is an old wooden jetty, covered in lichen, with nary another boat to spoil the solitude. Just a falu red boat house and an aluminum motorboat for the island’s caretaker (of whom more later). The island is a nature reserve and as we tied we were greeted by the unmistakable sound of bleating goats. Walking to the end of the jetty I found the island to be a mix of marsh and meadow with lichen-covered shore rocks, and as an added bonus for mariners, a clean and capacious vault toilet 90 seconds from the boat. Just down the footpath there is a large observation tower to climb up and view the island. While I explored J got some more terrific drone footage in the still air. In short order I found a large group sauna that looked like it had been there since Victorian times, and just beyond, on the island’s north side, two imposing and well-preserved Victorian houses. It looked like a very promising spot, and one from which we felt we had at least a day’s respite from the winds. Our spirits were great greatly restored. This is sailing, down one day, up the next! Time for a four-hour nap!

Thursday June 28: I had used the layday of Thursday to catch up on work and get out the latest edition of my newspaper. Engrossed in work for ten hours in the harbor’s kitchen I hadn’t really taken must notice of what the other boats were doing. Which was clearing out en masse. I also hadn’t read the weather forecast…..call it a rookie mistake if you must but I would have stayed in situ even if I’d known a big cold weather system was coming. I had to get my paper to the printers and if it meant kicking our heels in the harbor for a few days then so be it.

    The wind started to rise about 10pm and six hours later I was awoken by a clanging halyard that I went topsides to fix in just my skivvies. There was a swell from the north driving straight into the harbor. Mooring lines were straining and it felt 15 degrees colder than when I had turned in. There followed a few more hours of restless kip before waking at 7am to a full-on hooley, as the Irish so poetically put it. The skies were grey and full of mischief and the air was frigid. After coffee and bread and jam I checked the mooring lines and then headed for the kitchen where I worked morning and afternoon while keeping a weather eye out for the boat, which was now just one of two remaining in the harbor. The wind continued to build to around 30 knots which had Arcturus ducking and diving at her mooring lines, one of which finally gave up the ghost and snapped. We replaced it with the heaviest line we had and ran two extra spring lines. The boat continued to buck and rock but at least she stayed off the dock. The forecast suggested the winds would ease by midnight, then we would get hit by another another northerly front barely 12 hours later. We had planned to head to the north side of the archipelago for some anchoring out in Lansmansgrund, which Andy and Mia had recommended, but that was out of the question. After some debate and checking Navionics we found a small island due east with a south facing harbor that looked completely sheltered from notherlies. We decided to chance our arm with an overnight sail leaving at 12.01am The ferocity of the winds here made me doubt I will return this summer. The Finnish side of the water – at least the Aland area – is really WILD with much less shelter and seems tremendously exposed to northern winds howling down from the northern Baltic. The anxiety that is always in the back of my mind while sailing was very much front and center on this day, and I began to think longingly of the calm and shelter of the Stockholm archipelago. A front like this really tests your resolution and I at least was out of my comfort zone by a long, long way…..

Wed. June 27th:  When I told friends I was planning on taking a ten week sailing vacation this year the response was predictable: you’re doing what? For how long? How can possibly leave work for so long? Full disclosure, it’s not completely a vacation. I’ve been publishing my newspaper every week while I’ve been gone, leaving the admin and phones to my trusty assistant in Los Angeles. What this means is that I need to be near good wifi every Thursday, which has constrained my choice of harbors and anchorages a little, but not much. Both Finland and Sweden are blessed with world-class connectivity and it seems every harbor, coffee shop and bar have good free internet. I also bought a cheap surfing package at Arlanda airport with my sim card – about 25GB for $30, so provided I have a couple of bars of signal I can also hotspot off my mobile – not great but okay in a pinch.

     Which brings me to Kokar Sandvik. I read in the Åland crusing guide I had picked up in Mariehamn that this harbor had good wi, hot saunas, and even a café where I could watch the World Cup. Result! The harbor is located a 22nm sail south east of Banö Ön through a series of tight channels which the low-res map above does not really do justice. As soon as we left the sheltered harbor we had all the wind we could handle using our big jib and full main.  With 12kts gusting to about 18 we had to keep dumping the mainsail, which given its old fashioned configuration – no traveler – was quite a chore. But it was a lively day’s sailing under dazzling blue skies where we were frequently just on the edge of being overpowered – and not for the last time I pondered the dilemma of no bow pulpits and erring on the side of a bigger sail plan because of all the lulls. It was however a lively and challenging sail in near-perfect conditions. We almost went the wrong way here and there but we sailed almost the whole way, finally deciding to drop the canvas and motor as we made our final approach to a passage which looked barely 100m wide. As we approached what I thought was the fairway J spied a very large, barely submerged rock jut ahead of us, prompting me to quickly turn around and double check our Navionics. Not a moment too soon! The real entrance was one rock over (so to speak), and the harbor certainly didn’t look promising – just a working wharf abutting an small and ugly port. As so often local knowledge came to our aid, with two Finnish sailboats motoring confidently past us at 5kts, so of course we followed them. The real port was just around the corner to port and turned out to be just the ticket. Big enough for 30 boats and dominated by a large, sloping granite rock that would make a perfect launching ramp for a boat. We clipped onto a stern buoy and J hopped off at the jetty.

     The harbor control hut was located at the end of the dock and featured not just good local produce but also handmade artisanal woolen socks made by the asistant’s mother over the winter. Priced at only 15 euros – we had gone into the euro zone – I grabbed three. The nearby café served unremarkable food – the cheapest dish was fish and chips at 8 euros which were clearly frozen before being dunked in hot oil. But the beer was cheap at 6e and they had the football on. Even better, Germany were getting knocked out of the tournament by South Korea…as an Englishman that brought a warm glow to the cockles of my heart.

But enough of old rivalries, Kokar Sandvik also has a campsite and excellent facilities, including three saunas and a well-equipped kitchen where you can prepare your own food and large tables to interact with fellow travelers and perhaps do some work. We met some interesting folks – including one from Poland who had come by bicycle with his teenage son. The place also has good showers, a clean WC and a free washer/dryer. And if you fancy a little hike down the road, the island boasts a wonderful sailors’ chapel where you can ponder the almighty and speak your celestial therapist. But back to the harbor: the excellent sauna costs 20 euros (more than the 15e dock fee) but it was one of the best I’ve ever experienced, very hot, wood fired and steps from the dock. The calm of twilight was enjoyed with a glass or two of white wine and it was idyllic…although things were to change very shortly.

Tues. June 26th: Christian Juslin at Rodhamn had recommended a deserted bows-to anchorage just north of the island of  Banö Ön about 20nm to the north east of Rodhamn and we were eager to cast off and check it out.

The day dawned overcast with not much wind, but we persevered with the sails up  for perhaps an hour during the six hour passage, finally giving up due to too much shallow water and too many tight channels. It’s one thing to move slowly, it’s quite another to get backwinded just as you’re tacking out of 8ft of water in a bottleneck. But our disappointment at having to motor evaporated when we arrived at this heavenly anchorage. Banö Ön is a large bay, perhaps one mile deep and three quarters of a mile wide. There was just one other boat in residence, lying at anchor on the other side of the bay. We headed to the north west corner and spied a promising spot. We did a couple of slow drive-bys, decided on our preferred spot and talked through the plan. J had never done a bows-to mooring before so it was important he was clear on the procedure. I also put him on helm since the bowman has the most important job. It went astonishingly smoothly as we motored in at minimum revs, dropped the stern anchor three boat lengths out, put her in neutral two boat lengths out and whispered forward, adding a little reverse perhaps six feet out so the boat came to a stop right in front of a large granite rock, allowing me to step off easily and run the line to an imposing pine tree to windward and a large rock to leeward.

  J can be a brooding fellow at times but his mood was positively giddy as we trimmed the lines. He had clearly been nervous about pointing the boat towards a granite rock, but the ease with which we moored released a mood in him which was half relief and half amazement at the location. While I went for a swim in the cool but still-comfortable water, J scored some more great drone footage, which you can see below. The evening was calm and idyllic and we enjoyed a peaceful dinner in the cockpit before turning in around 11pm. By now we were almost over our jet lag, mooring in a gorgeous spot in the middle of nowhere. Honestly, what’s not to like?

Monday June 25th: Rodhamn is a cozy guest harbor located less than 10nm south east of Mariehamn. I had first heard about it, and the couple who run it, Christian and Annette Kull from Andy and Mia’s 59-North podcast a few years ago. Not only does the place offer sheltered slips in a gorgeous bay, but the Kulls also run a cozy little café serving terrific coffee and homemade pastries, and for a small fee they will deliver fresh-baked bread to your boat each morning. Arcturus was returning to one of her former haunts and we were thrilled to visit a place which had been so evocatively described on the podcast.

After two nights at Mariehamn the day dawned bright and clear with 8-10 knots of wind from the south east. This allowed us to untie our lines and run the engine for barely five minutes before turning to port and hoisting our 135% genoa for a pleasant reach all the way to Rodhamn. The route is all inside channels with no Baltic swell to negotiate. The only real challenges are dealing with frequent gusts and shallow water, but we safely dealt with both and within less than two hours we were snapping our rear lines onto a mooring ball and hopping off at the jetty.

The harbor is framed with the usual granite rocks onto which sturdy wooden jetties are attached, forming a walkway to the café and harbor control office. The place can handle about 50 boats but when we visited there were perhaps 15-20. The landscape is dotted with half a dozen traditional ‘falu’ red buildings, including the café and office, the sauna, the garbage hut and the vault toilets. We quickly said hello to Christine and enjoyed a pastry and coffee while meeting other sailors. I recommend the sauna in particular, which you reach by following the ‘red road’ (ask Christine) round the corner a traditional two-room hut right on the water, boasting a wood-fired stove with the most enormous pile of firewood next door. Suitably refreshed, we repaired to the cockpit of Arcturus for a vegetarian Thai curry and a chat about what a wonderful experience our sailing had been thus far – but not before J scored some nifty drone footage, which can be seen below.

But as always, the highlight of the visit was meeting other sailors, most notably Christian Juslin, a gregarious and charming Åland native and operatic tenor who sings around the world but loves sailing in his own back yard better than just about anything. And who can blame him? Christian came to visit us on Arcuturus and give us some tips for anchoring in the area. His suggestions were like gold to us.
You can find Rodhamn at their own website here or find them on Facebook.

Sat. June 23rd: I’d always looked on the prospect of crossing the Baltic as daunting. The images that came to mind were of spume-flecked rolling seas, driving rain and howling winds, with nothing but dark and frigid depths awaiting the unwary. To attempt this passage surely it was not enough to sport a salty beard and a woolly sweater, you also needed to be true water man, horny of hand and unshakeable of temperament, in a well-found ship and ideally, aided by an experienced and imperturbable crew.

But of course the reality is nothing like that. The sail from Marina del Rey to the Isthmus of Catalina, a run I’ve done dozens of time at home, is longer and more challenging, and within four hours of leaving Blidö’s cozy harbor and heading north east, the last outlying islands at the eastern end of the Swedish seaboard were receding in our wake, leaving us with nothing more formidable to contemplate than a glassy sea and countless two-story high channel markers demarking the busy shipping and passenger ferry lanes. Arcturus’s 16hp Beta Marine engine hummed along happily as we made an uneventful traverse of what Australians would call a strait but which locals usually call a sea. It was sunny and in the low 70s and was quite a dull passage, until we reached the first outcroppings of the Åland Islands, which are technically Finnish but mainly Swedish speaking. This archipelago is autonomous, demilitarized and was the subject of numerous disputes between the two countries until the matter was settled by the League of Nations in the 1920s. Åland consists of 6,5000 skerries and islands to the east which stretch almost to the Finnish mainland. For a sailor,  this place is paradise – provided you like nature harbors and quiet anchorages, have a tolerance for tight passages and shallow water, and have provisioned and watered carefully ahead of time.

We were greeted by something of a lunar landscape, otherworldly and stark with little vegetation on the grey granite outcroppings, and it made for quite a maze was we were led east then north through the main shipping channel – where we dodged perhaps a dozen large ferries in less than an hour, to the main town of Mariehamn. We had left Blidö about noon but it still came as a surprise that it wasn’t until shortly after midnight that we pulled in to Mariehamn West harbor, just past the main ferry terminal, and tied up in a bright twilight, in the shadow of the Pommern, the only four-masted merchant sailing ship in the world still in its original state. Built 1903 in Scotland and bought by the Åland shipowner Gustaf Erikson in 1923. Pommern has carried timber from Scandinavia, saltpeter from Chile and grain from Australia. Her last commercial voyage was done in 1939 and since 1952 she has been a museum ship, owned by the Town of Mariehamn, but managed by the Åland Maritime Museum Trust. She certainly makes for an impressive site as she stands sentinel over the buoys and pontoons of the ASS (Åland Sailing Society) Marina.

After securing the boat we grabbed a quick bite and then set off for a 1am walk around the town, which is quiet and residential on its western side, with 19th century architecture reminiscent of a provincial French town, but on its eastern side were surprised to be greeted by the sounds of a disco, a casino, and dozens of young locals looking to mingle, bingle and schmingle with the opposite sex.

Mariehamn has a long and proud tradition of Cape Horners (sailors traversing the southern tip of South America in the days before the Panama Canal) and the town boasts a fascinating maritime museum. The marina is very well equipped with a shop and harbor office, sauna and showers and several restaurants. They also keep the local kids engaged in sailing with a large sabot fleet and a working wooden sailboat from 1900 which they use for sail training. For crew planning to arrive in Stockholm, it’s an easy and picturesque five-hour ferry ride from the Swedish capital, (tickets cost $16-$20 at time of writing) with several daily departures. All this makes Mariehamn an ideal spot to stop for repairs, provisioning or picking up crew, and makes a great gateway for a deeper dive into the Åland archipelago. 

Which was just what we planned to do.