Elliott, Brendan and Queen's Ransom at anchor off Gotska Sandon, August 2013

It is Autumn. I am starting to get some perspectives on this year's Summer cruise. Currently, I am on an airplane from visiting my mother in Sweden back to London. I am looking back with gratitude to this Summer and of course to my splendid crews and look forward with excitement of having the boat in Stockholm the Autumn and Winter.

What surprised me? I was stunned by how few other boats, we were meeting in the Baltic. It was mainly after the Scandinavian high season due to the late English school holidays.

The Summer cruise was really about Baltic islands. Anders, Sven, Magnus and I visited Rugen, Bornholm and Christianso. Imelda, the children and I visited Oland, Gotland, Aland, Bla Jungsfrun, Faro, Stora Karlso, Gotska Sandon and some of the fantastic islands of the Stockholm archipelago. The stay at Gotska Sandon was magical. Anchored off the long sandy beaches in perfect weather and surrounded by load of seals. We also had a bee as a stow away between Sweden and Aland, and many encounters with amazing birds. Finding mushrooms at Faro also excited Imelda and myself.

We also had nice visits by family and friends onboard. In Holland Oma, Zander, Stephan with partners and children visited, Anders' parents made a visit in Kiel and finally we had Peter and Eva onboard as we had anchored off Taby in Northern Stockholm.

We were pretty lucky with the weather. Not what we have been used to from the tropics! But, we never had to change our planned schedule because of the weather during the whole Summer. Not a mean feat! However, I only had one swim; off the German island of Rugen and the children didn't hit the water even once. But, we enjoyed the Finnish sauna at Mariehamn. It was very different from not only the Caribbean and Central America, but also our previous Summer cruises to Norway.

Funnily enough, one of the best memories was the onset of Autumn. We were lying for anchor at Soderloga in Stockholm's Northern outer archipelago. The shop there had just last weekend closed for the season. It was full moon. We needed to put on the heating on the boat for the first time. It was just so incredible cosy! The new red upholstery an shiny varnish shining in the light of the oil lamp.

Another highlight was Christianso. It was the first moment I felt that we encountered Scandinavian Summer boat life. The jetties were buzzing of people, children... It was very beautiful and indeed a great evening. On top of that, we departed just after night fall. Setting out on an over nighter to Karlskrona. The departure in the tiny harbour was school book perfect in boat handling terms and there was indeed a lack of space; Queenie being the largest boat in this harbour that evening. Everybody else were settling in for the night, we were going out to sea.

It all started this year with Peter Hjelt and myself departing from Gosport. We left late. Had been held up by getting the boat ready. The marine electrician was still onboard the whole evening when we had planned to depart. The toughest sailing during the Summer was that very same day we left. Beating Eastwards in the English Channel made me feel about queasy. No sea legs, after indeed leaving Queenie for one year on her mooring, having completed the Atlantic circuit in July 2012.

The most dangerous event this Summer was Peter and me being surrounded by fog with no working radar and indeed, we soon learned, outdated charts. We were suddenly surrounded by offshore wind turbines turning up in the middle of nowhere. We back tracked our steps to get out to safer waters.

We had a fair amount of breakdowns as we always have! The radar gave up its ghost. Looked like a fish tank was the verdict by the installer in Ijmuiden. We also had the spinnaker boom rail bent off the mast off the Dutch North Sea coast. The other serious breakdown was the battery charger. This meant that we could neither use shore power nor the generator charge the batteries. I manage to get the burgee line to the mast top into the in-mast furling requiring a rigger to scale the mast in Kalmar.

There were a quite a few improvements carried out to Queenie over the last twelve months. She has now had her decks sanded and re-caulked, That was the biggest job on the list. All her upholstery, curtains and mattresses have been changed. Her cabin sole in the main saloon has been revarnished and a lot of new varnish on her wash boards and cockpit tables applied. She is now gleaming! Three years in the tropics had definitely taking its toll and she indeed needed a mini refit. A few leaks around hatches needed to be found and plugged. Various equipment was replaced such as the anchor windlass and anchor chain, amp meter and so on. Her hull had got a very thorough polish and all her canvass and biminis washed and impregnated. A very long list of small items have also been fixed.

The other improvements were a new bigger 9.9 hp outboard engine with its own crane on the aft deck. Princess Ransom is not the slowest dinghy any more, but a racy teenager. That fits her very well! Queenie has got a new radar and chartplotter displays. Raymarine had switched to digital radar so the old scanner could not be easily replaced, hence quite some major expense to replace the old system.

It was very odd that Queen's Ransom III now have a neighbouring yacht at Ingaro Varv called Queenie III. I just wish I could her what these girls are chatting about. Dreams of future cruises?