This morning I woke up with the feeling that it has been quite a while since we last posted something in here. When I opened the blog to check, I was shocked to see, that our last post was made almost three weeks ago! Time has been flying by so quickly that there hasn’t been many moments to sit down and reflect and write something about our experiences.
I just read our friend Twans newest blog posts from his trip in northwest Europe, and he describes how now, towards the end of his travels, he is taking big steps, to earn himself time and flexibility to take smaller steps later on. I think that description fits very well to our approach the last three weeks or so.
From the southern part of the Stockholm archipelago, we sailed about 90 nautical miles towards the south to get to beautiful Gotland in the beginning of the month. We had a lot of nice experiences on Gotland, and it seemed we had gotten there at the perfect time – the weather was still sunny and warm, but the island was much less flooded with tourists compared to peak season. We enjoyed Visby city, found nice cafes, a small cinema and many beautiful views over the city and the ocean. One day we even rented a car and drove around Gotland to explore the special nature on the northern part of the island. See our last post for many pictures. It felt weirdly non-Swedish to be on Gotland, as it in combination with the warm weather almost had a Mediterranean flair to it. The only downside was the swell that reached the harbour in southwestern winds, which we had for the whole time we spent on the island.
Also on Gotland, we met two other German sailboats with young crews that have been sailing around the Baltic Sea for several months just like us. We had a nice time with Elli & Justus from Yavin 4 and Paul & Mieke from Nordwest, so when they left Gotland some days before we felt ready to do so, we had a motivation to again do a longer trip to catch up with them!
And this is exactly what we decided to do. When sailing from Gotland to the main land we had beautiful conditions and quite spontaneously decided to sail through the night towards Kalmar, where we knew that Yavin 4 was staying in the harbour. We had such a wonderful sail, the night sky was completely clear and we could see millions of stars and the Milky Way just above our heads. After long enough time outside, I felt as if my eyes had adjusted so well to the darkness, that the Milky Way seemed sufficient to illuminate the water around us, but honestly it probably also had to do with our navigation lights and instruments on board. Unfortunately the wind died out at around 3 am, and when the sun set some hours later, we were in the closest fog we have experienced on this trip! We could not see further than 30 metres, and the trip under the Öland bridge was quite spooky, as it sounded as if the cars were already very close to us long before we could even see the bridge. We were quite tired when we arrived in Kalmar, after sailing 85 nautical miles through the night and navigating through the dense fog for some hours. After getting a little rest, having breakfast with the others on Yavin 4 really felt like coming home, a feeling that we haven’t felt that much on this trip along unknown coasts. In Kalmar we also met a third boat just like us, Jette & Bene on their 25-foot racer Faye. Paul and I decided to stay in this little group for the next couple of days.
We had some days with very little wind and dense fog now and then, but we used the wind to get to Ekenäs – the first harbour that we are now ‘returning to’ on this trip, as we had already visited this cute little harbour on our way north back in May. It was quite a special feeling navigating Désirée into a harbour that isn’t unknown for us! But also somehow nostalgic, as we know that this means that we are slowly returning home from this big adventure that we have been on.
In the group of 3, sometimes 4, boats we decided to do some bigger distances together, as the wind was again favourable, but we knew that the first heavy winds of autumn were also approaching. We had three days of 40, 55 and 65 miles that we sailed in convoy – I really enjoyed being out there on the open water together with other boats!
For the first bigger storm last week, we managed to make it to Malmö in the Øresund straight, where we were perfectly well-protected and enjoyed city-life for 2-3 days.
This on the other hand also means that we have finally made it far enough to see Denmark in the horizon – the end of our travel seems very unavoidable all of a sudden! With mixed feelings we sailed back into danish waters some days ago now – excited to see family again, to get to known places and to understand the local language without issues – but also sad to have left the northern waters behind us, the many hidden gems that we did not get to discover this time and the friendly people we have met while living onboard for the last months.
But for now, I’ll try to ignore the melancholy and enjoy the next couple of days, where summer is transitioning into autumn and we can enjoy some harbours in full off-season mode ☀️
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