Our position is 57:55.452N 11:35.329E

Distance covered 21.7 Nm

The morning was overcast after the heavy overnight rain but there was no wind so we were motoring. North of Goteberg the coast is characterised by an archipelago of rocks and islands like the Swedish east coast and Finland. Safe passages through these are marked on the charts with lines so all we have to do is navigate along these lines, which is helpful but requires a lot of attention to pilotage. Unlike the east coast, these rocks are not all covered with pine trees but are mainly barren.

  Leaving Styrso

  Styrso has a wooden boat festival later in the year but I liked the house built out over the water

  It made a change from gulls

  We couldn’t work out the purpose of the gantries on the navigation marks

Our passage took us between many islands with yacht harbours, serviced by many ferries

  Not sure where this old boat was finding his wind

  There may be no trees but there was some beautiful heather

Our track took us under a bridge with 18m clearance, always a nerve racking experience as you wonder if you can really get under. We were just lining ourselves up, as we needed to be sure of transiting under the apex, when a small boat came round the bend just the other side of the bridge pulling a long raft behind it. Discretion is the better part of valour so we turned round and waited until he was through and indicated he would like us to continue. He was towing what looked like two marina pontoons, which certainly took up some space when turning.

  First sight of the bridge

Closer but someone coming the other way

   The long tow

Shortly afterwards we were tied up in the interesting harbour on the island of Astol. Again we had chosen the first alongside space we came to, but later we moved further in as strong westerlies were forecast and we wanted better shelter. It was just as well we moved because later a huge yacht came into the space we had vacated and there wouldn’t have been room there for both of us.

  Huge yacht (registered in Malta)

  A more suitable space for Moorglade

We had a longish walk all round the harbour to the harbourmaster’s office, expecting to find a payment machine but were disappointed. Neither was there a harbourmaster but there was a helpful lady cleaning her boat and she telephoned him and he came over specially, which enabled us to get the wifi code as well as pay. On subsequent evenings he cycled round the harbour with his card machine and receipt printer in his basket.

Astol is a small island and the harbour just about cuts it in half. It has a permanent population of around 200 but more in holiday periods and there are many houses occupying every available space on the land. It amazes me how they manage to build on such rocky terrain and from a distance it looks as if the houses are built on top of each other.

   Astol from a distance