27th July. Abba evening.
- jockhamilton01
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
In the morning a boat had left from one of the berths upwind of us. The space had a dinghy from the boat beside it sitting, with the wind, across the entrance to the gap made by the departing boat. After some faffing we decided to take this space. A plan to move the dinghy with the boat hook seemed as though it might fail so Christine was despatched to the boat to move the dinghy and as she went aboard the skipper appeared and moved it anyway. We let go, moved out and on the second attempt managed to drop the anchor into an appropriate position and slid into the space between a motor boat and 40 ft beneteau. Once secured we had a cup of coffee some bicycles were rented from the bicycle rental shed on the quay and by about 0930 we headed off on them to explore the island. We set off on the gravel track, to the South in amongst mixed woodland. There were some small red timber houses here and there. We passed various signs pointing to things we didn’t understand as they were in Swedish and soon approached the bottom of the island where there was a settlement with perhaps 50 or so houses, again mostly timber and mostly red or ochre with the odd white one. There was a church bell with accompanying church and a little, picturesque harbour with two pilot boats in it and a cafe / pub shop. The cafe wasn’t open yet but appeared to open at 1100 and after we’d examined the museum, a hut with a few old things in it, played a game of knock down the timber posts with tennis balls we walked across the island where there was another, smaller, harbour absolutely stinking and whilst it smelled of sewage a poster assured us it was just rotting seaweed. Up the hill there was an automatic weather monitoring station and having pottered for a bit it was nearly 1100 and time to try the cafe. We looked in the shop for tonic water without success but had some coffees and open prawn sandwiches and a cheese pie which were excellent. It turned out that the pub sold island brewed beer so we thought that we’d visit the lighthouse and return for a beer. A ferry arrived and secured in the harbour disgorging about 35 people so the cafe became quite full. We cycled to the lighthouse and gun emplacement at the bottom of the island, the island itself has a quiet, peaceful, slow feel to it - very pleasant and welcome. The lighthouse had been in place since the 1600s whilst the guns had been placed there during the second world war and two remained looking gun like but no longe usable.
Back at the cafe we had a round of beers with two plates of hot smoked salmon and boiled spuds whilst the ferry started to gather it’s clientele up for a voyage North. We left and cycled back to the boat arriving as the ferry passed in the distance. We had about 30 miles to sail, and we let go, motored upwind, partly to charge the batteries and then hoisted full sail, and were able to hold our course, close hauled on the port tack and had a romping afternoon between 6 and 8. knots with the wind freeing off as we went and increasing enough to make a couple of reefs advantageous. We arrived at the bay at about 1845, well ahead of when I’d thought that we might and found a spot looking likely for mooring. We went into the rock face once, it looked a bit better a little to the left so we went out, dropped the anchor, went in again and didn’t quite make it to the spot intended so Graham tried to get off onto a slippery rock face without sliding into the water but failed. Wet but fine he took lines around a couple of trees and we tightened up the stern anchor. This didn’t go well, the line just kept coming, reminiscent of our first night. The other side of the bay was only about 45 metres away with a boat moored to it but up bay of us and I thought that a line to a tree across the bay would work so we prepared a rope and I swam it across to the tree and that held us overnight in combination with the non setting anchor.
Back on the boat we had gin and tonics and sat in the cockpit chatting. As dinner approached people kept disappearing and reappearing in odd clothes. Abba was on the sound system and I was given an outfit complete with wig. With everyone in Abba outfits we ate and had a little dance and after dinner some singing and recitals kept the evening going, hopefully the Swedes in the bay took it well we certainly did.
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