We left our home port in Ljungskile on Monday 12 June. The preceding weeks had been filled with work and the week-ends hectic with provisioning and preparations for our summer sail.
After so many years of sailing, we are still surprised by how much stuff and provisions we carry onboard in the spring. One reason is that we like to take onboard provisions for the summer that are either heavy or bulky to carry from the shop or difficult to obtain in some places. This includes toilet paper, canned goods, long-life milk, our special brand of coffee, wine and bear, snacks, bake-off bread and more.
The weather was sunny and warm with light and fickle winds as we sailed, or rather motored, down the coast. Having sailed the same distance several times before, we planned the trip so that we could stay in new anchorages and harbours.
Read about or last time sailing the same route in the blog from 2021.
Our first night was spent on anchor (Styrsö potta) just south of the main fairway to Gothenburg. On the following day we left the archipelago.
Some regard the characteristic island of Nidingen, with its twin old lighthouses, as the southernmost part of the Scandinavian coast with fjords and islands that stretches for well over thousand miles almost all the way up to Kirkenäs, close to the Russian border.
Next stop was Glommen, a small fishing hamlet offering some protection on the open coast.
The third day took us to Öresund and the small island of Ven. This was the only exception from places new to both of us, we were here together some 20 years ago and Hakan stayed here (in rain) in 2021. Ven is a lovely island to cycle and our bikes came out for the first time this year.
We had sunny weather, light and variable winds all along the way and this continued as we sailed on. Our Code 0 gave us some speed when the wind was from the right direction but most of the time, we had to use the engine.
We spent a night in Höllviken at the northern entrance to the Falsterbo Canal (a convenient short cut past the sandy southernmost tip of Sweden).
After the Canal we continued to Ystad where we spent two days with our friends on New Sun. Ystad is a charming old town dating back to when this part of Sweden was Danish.
A long day, mostly motoring (again), took us to Utklippan, a rocky outpost well south of the Blekinge coast and 77 nm from Ystad. A small harbour was blasted in the rocks to provide shelter for fishermen at the time when fishing boats were small and vulnerable. Now, it provides a convenient stop on route on the way to Kalmar sound. A first for us but we will be back.
The last day on this first part of our sail took us 71 nm to Timmernabben and, the winds were finally favourable allowing us to sail most of the way. The following day, we left Sally in the care of our friends while we went to Eva’s family in northern Norway over midsummer.