Our position is 60:01.927N 20.23.183E

Distance covered 14.7 Nm

We dragged ourselves away from the delights of Kastelholm on Monday with sunshine and a lightish South Easterly, in the company of several other boats also moving on. We were able to sail across Lumparn towards Lumparland (which made us both want to giggle), but then our track took us straight into the wind so we had to motor for the last couple of hours down the passage between the islands and then through the buoyed approach to Degerby on Foglo island.

Leaving Kastelholm

  We hadn’t seen any commercial traffic up to now (apart from ferries) so I suppose it’s only right it should involve trees

It’s amazing how they hold on to bare rock

There are little houses scattered among the trees everywhere and ferries of different sizes moving people between islands

This area was the first place we had seen fish farms as well

The ferry terminal at Langnas and one of the ferries that uses it

The well buoyed approach to Degerby

We were greeted by the ferry coming out

There are two harbours at Degerby, quite close together, and we had intended to take the more Southerly of the two at Lotsudden. However when we got there it was deserted and rather bleak and our attempt to tie up was foiled by the stern buoys being a very long way from the jetty and therefore needing an extremely long warp, so we gave up and went to the other harbour near the ferry terminal. This was from the sublime to the ridiculous as we could have managed with something the length of a sail tie at the back, but we tied up safely and went for a walk ashore.

  Tied up safely

but on the line of the transits (if anyone could see them behind the Duogen)

Degerby is only a small town and apart from the excellent supermarket (where we had to pay our harbour dues), a café and a couple of restaurants that appeared to be closed it didn’t seem to have much to offer. Our walk round to the Lotsudden harbour revealed a boules playing area, although no one was using it and the harbour was still empty. While searching for any tourist information, we went into the library, where the librarian (presumably glad of something to do) tried to be helpful but had no information. Ted thought the café was too expensive -15 euros for what was basically a snack – so we were grateful for the meatballs we still had in the fridge.

The harbour at Lotsudden

The harbour where we went

The ferry was kept very busy going backwards and forwards to the mainland of Aland. Its destination there was only 30 mins away so it had passed us going in and we also met it coming out as we were in the approach channel. The timetable suggested as many as eight passages a day, one of which was after 11 at night, but we experienced no problems from wash. The more annoying bit was the noise it generated and the crashing of the vehicles embarking and leaving.

The ferry was close

and so were other ships sailing by

The next morning we restocked everything at the convenient shop before leaving around midday.