20th to Stockholm

I set off after a better fried breakfast as I had bread to make toast with that wasn’t all mouldy. Once out of the lake we were in a waterway with various routes around islets and islands, I had the gps do an auto guidance route as there were so many waypoints to put in. Almost as soon as we were in the channel there were houses appearing along the shore. The route is fairly narrow in places and a motor boat wasn’t brave enough to overtake me for some time but eventually managed it. We wended our way along the channel  with the shores getting busier, many non housed areas being recreational and as it was a weekend there were people starting to appear too. One house had a brilliant shoot  from half way up the bank down into the water.

House with Shoot into water

Things got busier, we passed various marinas but only two are mentioned in all of the books as being central and available for visitors with one of them being all for visitors, just take any space available and the other one having berths marked for visitors or not. I was due to arrive at about 1200 which I judged late enough that most people would have left, if going, and prior to most people arriving looking for somewhere. There were several bridges tall enough for us to go under without worrying about the mast and a few which had to be opened. As we got to the lock which had a bridge after it and was the entry back into the Baltic from the lake, there were a few boats milling about which is always a good sign and soon we made our way into the lock. The lock keepers were available to help with lines but it was well set up with shore polyprop ropes every couple of metres anyway to hang onto and a rail along the top of the lock at shoulder height to pass lines around. We had to pay for the lock and a card machine on a stick was lowered down for this. Once through we were told to not hang about as the next bridge was opening in 20 minutes and not then opening again for another hour so we all went along close to keeping the 5 knot speed limit. The next bridge didn’t in fact open for about 45 minutes so we then all had to hang around. There were available spaces on the quayside but signs saying ‘mooring forbidden’. Eventually the bridge opened and we went through, the first marina - Navishamnen, was straight across from here, it was the one I had the highest hopes for as it was supposedly all available for visitors, just find an empty berth, and was mooring bow to the pontoon with the stern on a buoy. I’d had visions of trying to get a line through the buoy and finding it difficult so had various plans, one being to ignore the buoy and go in between two boats, secure the bow and then take a line to the buoy after, another one was threading the buoy with a gizmo I have aboard called a ‘happy hooker’ which threads a short plastic bar through the eye with a light line attached to it, I had rigged this to a more substantial line all taped up to make it work smoothly. Arriving at the marina the buoys all had 2 metre poles on them coming out of the top and a big eye so I quickly end for ended the line I had attached to the happy hooker as it wasn’t needed and had the potential to stuff things up. There appeared to be various berths available and I chose one in between two other boats, lined up with the buoy on the port side and slowly crept in, with the buoy amidships I threaded the line through,  tied a bowline and threw it clear, I’d already made a couple of turns on a winch to hand in the cockpit so as not to let the rope become fodder for the hungry propeller, we slid nicely into position, I tensioned the stern line, went slowly ahead and we were in, the chap on the boat next door kindly took my bow line and  that was it. We were in, what had I been worried about. I understood too that once in I could get a 3 for 2 night deal so having adjusted lines a bit I went to see about paying. At the office there was the gloomy sign saying all berths private, all bookings through dockspot.com I had forgotten to bring my glasses so went back to the boat grabbed my glasses and ipad and a note book, returned to the office and tried to book on dockspot. I was not too happy as I thought that the chances of me  having arbitrarily chosen a free berth were slim. I found that there were in fact no berths available at all which was a blow. I thought I’d better get to the next marina quickly and try to find a berth there, the next one was called Wasahamnen and just around the corner, smaller and half for visitors half for locals. I let go, we slid out quietly (light E’ly winds) and went out of the berth and out of the marina and around the corner past a big funfair and found the next marina was also a bloody dockspot.com marina. I tried for 3 nights but there was nothing available but there was one berth for one night from tomorrow, which is when all the crew from Cuba are joining so I booked that, looking at it my berth was currently empty and it’s a reasonable chance that it wasn’t booked as it was by now about 1330 and no same day bookings are allowed after 1000. Anyway I didn’t want to risk tying up and being thrown off later in the day so pottered about Stockholm, completely failing to take any pictures, sorry, and went to a little bay about 7 miles away which was fairly sheltered and a lovely spot. A Bavaria was in the prime location so I anchored further offshore in 15 metres and had lunch during which time he pushed off so I took the best spot just afterwards and spent the rest of the afternoon here. The rocks and beach were covered in people there was a via ferata kind of thing on the rocks opposite where a line of wire is clipped to rocks and one can climb safely with a harness along the face of rocks,    lots of little boats  initially fishing and swimming but latterly just arriving with young people for beers and swimming came and went and by 2100 I was by myself eating a sausage stir fry. I’m going to try gettting to the marina early and hope my berth, or a similar one is free before 1200, ever the optimist.

Gloomy sign!

Anchorage 7 miles ish from city centre.