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From: Martyn Morris
Date: 10 July 2015 12:35:44 CEST
To: Home Martyn

Baltic B-Log 7 to 9 July (Kalmar into the Wilderness and a crossing to Gotland)



I started a new album in the pictures section of the blog called “East Sweden, north of 57º N…….until the next album”, check it out and the new pictures I added from our stay in Kalmar, which are south of the said point and hence in the previous album.



Well 57ºN, that is about parallel with Aberdeen in Scotland, it has not felt that way, as we have been blessed with summer, well that was until yesterday and especially this morning, as I write this blog. Outside driving drizzle and wall to wall grey sky, as I stare at the giant “Destination Gotland” high-speed ferry across the dock.



On Tuesday the 7th we had a restful day off in Kalmar. Some boat maintenance; I replaced a blown port Nav light and spent more time than budgeted, working on the yet to be patented Mart the Fart, rear anchor launching swing bar. A cunning and stunning mechanism that dual purposes the ubiquitous Swedish Rear Buoy hooking bar as a fulcrum to swing the rear anchor clear of the back of the boat before the short length of chain starts paying out. The chain is housed in the Clas Olsen half size plastic bucket (about 50p), which is secured with a C O sourced strap ( less than 50p) and a couple of heavy duty cable ties (very much less than 50p). There are a few Hout Bay Handyman pulleys (I kid you not, they still have the Rand price on them) that allow lowering off the back arch. I nearly forgot to mention another critical element, the Carol and Ali (Just Chilling) buoy (a kind donation from our Portsmouth berth neighbours that has hitherto been looking for a use), rigged to prevent “oh shit” moments when the arm crashes against the hull. It worked in the harbour but is, as yet, to be used in anger, whence I am rather hoping I will not have to remove the ‘cunning’ from the description.



While this was going on some younger crewmembers were exploring town and the castle and an arguably more important task was being undertaken, the laundry by Veronica. I was eventually forced to join her and undertake the arduous task of sitting in the café opposite the laundrette and drinking my one beer I am allowing myself a day, while waiting for the last load to finish.



Veronica and I then went for a walk around the outside of the castle and through the immaculately kept gardens and old graveyard. We went into the old city and the square for supper. There was a big happening there a Swedish Euro-vision finalist was playing. They will never forget ABBA and the 1970s. She was very good, jazzy mellow stuff, daughter of a musician and I can’t remember her name. We sat outside a restaurant on the edge of the crowded square but the rain came and eventually stopped play. We had to move over to another table with an umbrella to avoid the downpour. This forced us into the company of a salt of the earth local couple, already well-oiled. We had a fun night, taking lessons in broken but good English on local culture but also on pronunciation, specifically our second lesson about å, ä and ö, which are ooooh, argh and errrr. So that long island that we have been calling O-land is actually Errrr-land. This lesson cost us a beer and a glass of wine; well actually it didn’t because fun was had by all. The brats in the meantime were somewhere across the square in an Italian restaurant doing their own thing. We came back to find a German boat, impressively equipped, rafted against us.



The next morning we departed at about 08h30 for Solberganaset, 09 in the Martin Edge book. The friendly crewmember and the grumpy German boat owner had left, early. They were clearly on a mission, a 10 pm arrival and a 7 am departure. We exited under the 34m-clearance bridge that joins Eeer-land to the mainland and broad reach northwards the entire morning with several other boats always in sight. It was easy sailing albeit with a reefed main. The last 10NM to the destination required us to turn left and we took another reef and went to the wind, making the point of the start of the final approach on a single tack. This was where the rock dodging started, so sails down and keel up to 1.5m draft. The charts in the plotter are very good and as a back up we are using the Swedish Raster charts on the iPad. I have included a picture of the Solberganaset page from the Edge book in the photos. It was, as described, tranquil and quiet. We went ashore in the dingy (rowing) and had a very nice walk around the luscious, leafy, lichen drenched forest. Stumbling upon a granite quarry that had ceased operation at the turn of the 19th century and was now overgrown. We continued walking past some Swedish summerhouses buried deep in the forest, complete with their own jetties, very nice.



An option had been to stay there and do nought for a day, in the depths of nature but a review of the weather and the GRIB file suggested that Thursday was the better day for the 70 NM-er across to Gotland. We departed 06h30 and after extracting ourselves from the rocky crags and cleaning copious quantities of thick black organic ooze from the anchor and anchor chain, we set course for a point just abeam of the top of Errr-Land (Öland). We had one reef in and for a while ran wing on wing with the Solent poled out. The wind was building and eventually we were just on the reefed main doing 6.5 knots. After 20NM of running dead off the wind we reached the top of the long island and turned slightly right. We made a waypoint at the Visby harbour entrance and sailed 65ish NM in a straight line to it. Of course when we do this, to avoid any Vestus Wind type incidents we check this out on the raster charts but also at a high zoom level, slide along the red navigation line checking for any nasties on the route. The 65NM turned out to be a lively sail. The 20 knots predicted turned out to be 25 gusting 30 knots and as we cleared Öland, we were open to the full fetch of the Baltic south toward Germany. The sea was abaft with capping crests at times. Surprisingly, it was not too uncomfortable. Half way across as the wind built to consistently above 20 we took a second reef and set a small triangle of staysail just to stabilize the boat as we surfed down the wind swell, probably 2-2.5 meters but very short with the occasional double up that made for a bit more excitement. The last 7 NM towards Visby the wind built to 28NM and about 4NM out it was take a 3rd reef or motor, we choose the latter. The marina was a tight crowded affair with zero turning room, so that was an easy decision, we are not going in there in what was now 20 knots in the confines of the harbour. We went around into the other basin where there were several yachts bows to on stern buoys and several with gaps between them on a wall with tyres. Stern buoys in a 20-knot crosswind would have been challenging, so the tyre wall it was. A bit of a tyre bounce that will require some soap to get some black marks off the boat with but line on first time and no harm done. At the harbour office the stereotypical Swedish girl with a smile and the most remarkable blue eyes greeted us. There was WIFI, showers, and a sauna, a car you could put your name down for, and borrow for free for an hour, electric 2 man cars. There were also scooters to hire. Despite the weather, we have arrived in civilization it seems. Edge would be disparaging with a comment like the last sentence in the Solberganaset, write-up, (see photo) but we have to cater for our crews and keep them happy sailors, so we will do the mix. I am rather looking forward to going back to some of his remote rocks and tying up. The berthing master showed up just as I had finished paying. He said…aaarh (that must be easy for a Swedish linguist); you are the aluminium boat that was circling outside, good choice to go where you did, there has been some carnage inside here this afternoon. I felt vindicated. Dinner was superb, curry with a delicious smoked pork fillet side dish. Showers were had by all, although some complained that the 5 minutes that one electronic swipe gave you was not enough to wash your hair (clearly these are not Atlantic crossing candidates?) and that there were no doors on the showers. Perhaps that because they went to the family showers instead of the private cubicle and that there has been a lack of cultural awareness that public nudity is a bit of a Swedish and German thing.



Weather is still wild outside and it looks like it might be museums, city walls and maybe even a movies day (that would be a first for me). I cannot see that setting sail down the backcountry roads of Gotland on a scooter or an open electric car is much of an option right now. Tra….la……laa… Plan is to camp here for 3 nights before either going north on Gotland and then jumping back to the mainland or just doing the jump back to the mainland direct. I suspect the weather will help us decide which of those we choose but that is not a problem for today.