Visitors
With a week to go until Bryony and Chris arrived we set out to explore the Stockholm archipelago. The wind was NW and due to stay that way so I identified some nice anchorages sheltered from this direction and ideal to try and perfect our Swedish rock mooring technique ready for when they arrived. Two nights in a row we were perfectly moored in the approved style with the wind nicely blowing us off the rock , when at 1700 the wind dropped , and started to blow from the SE , ie onshore!
I have seen the Swedes happily stay put in this position , but the thought of even the tiniest bit of dragging leading to us head butting a rock led to us hastily backing out and anchoring conventionally in the bay , leaving a stern anchor and rode plus sundry warps to tidy away , all the while looking a bit foolish . I think that this was some sort of very late sea breeze as the wind was always back in the NW by the morning.
We did get better at choosing our rocks and by the time Bryony and Chris arrived felt confident enough to try it for their first night. We soon learned the whole process is a lot easier with 4 on board , in fact the whole week was a treat as Lynda and I could relax whilst the two of them did all the work. It was quite a challenging week weather wise , with a 30 knot squall on the second day , and one day washed out by a very wet NE gale , but we still managed to cover most of the archipelago and took advantage of the gale to go for a wet walk and get introduced to the strange art of very hot sauna and very cold sea swimming. As for the experiment of sharing our cruise , it was great fun and most enjoyable, which augers well for the rest of the summer.