Käringön/Sweden - 07/09/2013 - plus 2 videos!

Only 5 NM from Stocken we reach Kärnigön. The little island is very lively since it has some hotels and restaurants and many summer cottages. Although we prefer more lonely places, we enjoy the atmosphere of this friendly and bustling resort for today.
Hugo was kind of unlucky, since he sniffs a snake crossing our way. The snack takes it as an offense and bites him in the nose :-( It was not a bad wound but he was very appalled by this attack.

Some guys demonstrate their cool skills across the harbor....

In the night the wind is changing it's direction and blowing now from behind us with up to 28 knots. Wolfgang is out almost all night to take care that Madita is not crashing into the pontoon, if the rear line would break. So are all the other skippers on our side. The people on the other side of the pontoon are sleeping soft and sound, since their boats are laying well protected from the wind.

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Stocken/Sweden - 07/08/2013

Today we make our way through the skerries and reach Stocken in the early evening. Before entering the harbor we have the option to go two different ways. Our GPS claims both are deep enough, but when Wolfgang decides for one way, some locals on a small motor vessel start to wave vigorously. Apparently they advice us to take the other way. When Wolfgang later that evening is paddling around with the dinghy and comes to this point, he can see the rocks just underneath the water. A big "Thank you very much" goes to the people who prevented us from grounding!!!! That would have been a very expensive sound if we would have proceeded the first way....
The rest of our stay is uneventful and calm. We buy some fish from a local fisher, who also sells self produced sea salt.
We enjoy a very relaxed and peaceful evening in Stocken.

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Bassholmen/Sweden - 07/07/2013

26 NM from Askerön we reach Bassholmen. On our way we pass the most northern point of our journey this year, when we sail along the north part of the island Orust. The way through the inner skerry garden on Orust's east side is very beautiful and we are amazed by the nature over and over again.

Bassholmen is a little natural harbor within a nature reserve. The way here with little, rocky islands everywhere around is rather exciting.

Formerly ships were built here in a little shipyard. Nowadays it is a museum about boat building. We enjoyed discovering this museum with a lot of beautiful older ships and tools and accessories very much.

The rest of staying in Bassholmen is being in the nature and enjoying it.  The children meet many other children and all together they catch carbs and starfish. We wonder wether these poor things working in shifts rather than being fished out of the water each day anew. Because at the end of the day the children of course set them free again.

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Askerön/Sweden - 07/06/2013

We leave the lovely Bockholmen at noon. The sun is shining and it is a wonderful trip through a landscape of rocks and water.
Depending on what is growing on the different small islands the fragrance in the air is changing, especially pine smells delicate.
We stop in Stenungsund to do some shopping, since the supermarket is directly at the pontoon.
We arrive in Askerön at early evening and make a little excursion in the woods.
Again we enjoy the calm atmosphere, everyone is very happy with the journey.

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Bockholmen/Sweden - 07/05/2013

It is a wonderful day today! The sun is shining and we make our first cruise through the inner skerries. The landscape is breath catching! We find the uninhabited skerry Bockholmen. We let the anchor fall and Wolfgang jumps on land to fix the front mooring line at a bail in the rock. We spent the most wonderful, calm and relaxed afternoon and evening on this little spot of nothing but nature. 

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Öckerö/Sweden - 07/04/2014

20 NM further north we stop in Öckerö. The landscape is definitely changing now. The mostly is mostly used for industrial ships. Not much is going around, but we do some good additional provisioning at the local deli. After the short night yesterday we are early in the berths.

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Lerkil/Sweden - 07/03/2014

Today we go 68.4 NM and reach Lerkil at 23:00 pm. It is a long trip and it rains almost all day. But we want to go further north and reach the skerries behind Göteborg on this vacation, so we have to bring some distance behind us.
Getting further north the water of the baltic sea is becoming clearer. We see schools of fish swimming in front of Madita's bug. The landscape is getting meager and rockier.
While sailing through darkness the only other light are of some lighthouses far away. We feel a little lonely out here in the dark. When seeing the lights of a towboat close to us, we feel much better.
Reaching Lerkil we pass the first real skerries. Lerkil is a rather small place with about 500 inhabitants. Since we arrive late that evening and leave the next morning, we see not much more than the harbor. But still, here we a farer north than we have ever been before with Madita.

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Torekov/Sweden - 07/02/2014

A last view back on Slot Kronborg at the danish side of the Öresund and after a short while we are leaving the Danish straits and enter the Kattegat. Although the wind still blows with moderat 4 Beaufort we feel that it is moving water on a larger area than before. The landscape is changing slightly as well turning in more rocks and leads prominent vegetation. 
30.5 NM later we reach Torekov a famous summer seaside resort. Here we get a real feeling of long relaxed summer days. The place is busy but not crowded and everyone is laid-back.
At a place, which is surrounded by old houses and where the base of an old church can be seen in the ground we learned the story of St. Thora, who gave Torekov it's name.
Thora was a beautiful princess, who was send out at the Baltic Sea on a ship, which her evil stepmother prepared to sink. Thora drowned and was wash on the beach, where the blind fisherman Frenne found her corpse laying next to a stone west of the contemporary harbor. He picked her up and buried her. This act of mercy caused that Frenne got his sight back. Out of gratefulness he build a small chapel, which was later in the early medieval extended into a church. The church unfortunately burned down during a big fire in 1858 and was not rebuild. Only the base was kept for remembrance and the place is now a meeting point for long summer evenings, sitting outside in one of the restaurants around the place or having a delicious ice creme and let the children play there.

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Helsingborg/Sweden - 07/01/2013

Although Malmö was a very decent place, we are not eager to visit a city again. But we need to get some provisions especially fresh fruits and vegetables, before we head further north. And more important, we have no paper sea charts of the west-swedish skerries. In case that the electronic navigation devices breaks down, it would be very important in that area of granite rocks and islands to have the paper charts at hand. So being in Helsinborg is just a provisioning stop and we can not really tell anything about this place which might have nieces spots as well. But we recall our last year's journey when we stopped at the opposite side of the Öresund in Helsingnor and visited Slot Kronborg. We enjoyed our visit of the castel very much. The children were very much impressed by the story how Shakespeare came to write his Hamlet. He never visited Denmark nor the castel. But when it was newly built at that time, the news about its beauty and splendor spread fast and when it reached England, Shakespeare was so impressed and fascinated that he let his stage play of the unhappy danish price take place at the very castel.

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