Steve came back to the boat yesterday with his wife, Anne, fior the next stage of this leisurely journey up the Swedish coast. Lysekil was a nice little town, but it was time to move on.

 

We had a brief sail in the bay outside Lysekil on Sunday, to take advantage of a nice afternoon, and introduce Anne to the boat, and then off to Hunnebostrand ( 58:26.5N, 011:17.8E) on a glorious sunny Monday.We started in little wind and motorsailed out, and just to show off put up our motoring cone....I am sure we were the only yacht in the whole area flying one as we motorsailed...very proper !

 

 As soon as we got out a little closer to the open sea the wind picked up to a nice F3/4, still with a sunny cloudless sky....fantastic sailing, tacking back and forth using the self tacking jib. This probably cost us half a knot or so compared with using the genoa, but meant that there were no ropes to mess with.....when we wanted to tack Anne ( our new helm) just pushed the tiller and the sails sorted themselves out....why work hard pulling bits of string ?

 

We had some great sailing just messing about in a big island studded bay ; we were in the real archipelago now. It was easy to avoid hitting  the islands, but it was interesting to see how many 'awash rocks' there were with no markers....just some surf giving away their location. This was definitely a time to be thankful for gps to confirm our position. Eventually , as we approached Kungshamn we had to drop the sails and motor, and the rest of ther trip was to be an exercise in very close quarters pilotage along narrow channels in the archipelago.

 

We crept around very close to the shore by Kungshamn, and then through various marked channels to the Sota Canal, which makes life interesting by having a swing road bridge. The sailing directions told us to radio the bridge before entering the canal...no response. So we went along anyway and then hung around waiting for the bridge to open, being sure to let a Norwegian yacht pass us first so that he could blaze the trail and risk his mast. In the end of course there was no problem, and it was certainly different to suddenly be in a canal for a few miles, with pasture land and sheep grazing along the banks.

 

As soon as we exited the canal we were in a bay leading to Hunnebostrand, and what a place! I have attached a few pics of the red wooden houses on the water, and the sunset, but they do not do justice. This was very similar to the Lofoten Island fishing villages, and it even had some outdoor fish drying racks. If you are ever In Gothenberg with time to kill, take the 2 hr bus ride to Hunnebostrand on a nice summers day.

 

So, we did just 20 miles today, but could quite easily go back and do it again....

 

The pics include a few shots of the yellow houses in Lysekil, our sail today and the view from Moondog in the harbour in Hunnebostrand.