The new crew arrived some from London some from Cape Town but all are Surf African’s. They arrived on the same flight from Heathrow but sans 2 people’s bags. Bag hunting has been a constant topic on the Göta (pronounced Jota) and I am not sure what we will talk about if they find their bags. It has been 5 days now and Sharon has been shopping and Aidan has bored us to death with constant mumbling and internet obsessiveness about bags, couriers and stuff. It is not that I am un-empathetic about the loss of the bags but we are missing all that whiskey and biltong that Aidan generously packed in his bag.

The intention was for us all to meet at Mem but when Veronica and I got there the Marina was inside the first lock and the lock keeper said we should just go on to Söderkoping, about 3NM and 3 locks up the canal. This also made the taxi ride shorter for the others. It was good advice from the lock keeper as Sölderkoping was a lively place with a big granite hill and some interesting waterfront bars and the ubiquitous Swedish ice cream stores. The new crew showed up at about 9 pm, two of them without their bags.

We have rigged lines through blocks and back to the primary winches and we had every fender out we own. The locks generally went smoothly and by now we have probably done more than half of the 58 locks on the Göta. There are six more on the Tröllhattan canal after we exit lake Vänern (Europe’s 3rd largest fresh water lake). Everyone slotted into the locking up procedure best epitomised by Berg, which is a flight of 16 locks with a marina in the pool that creates a volume of water between the two major flights. The countryside is beautiful and the landscapes verdant and varied. I left Captain John is charge of the boat on the morning we left Berg Middle marina. I took the canoe, dragged it up the grass next to the locks and paddled 15 km ahead of the boat. It was a fantastic piece of the canal with some viaducts and the most passenger boat traffic yet. I stopped at the boat museum to wait for Timeless Odyssey to catch up and fortuitously witnessed the sight of the oldest and only steam driven passenger boat pass both another passenger boat and our boat in one place, allowing me to get all in the same shot (see gallery).

Locking through has been characterised by gregarious, smiley lock keepers. On occasion, when we have been cocky, we have had the onshore person buy the crew ice creams. Thank you, Aidan for the last round. Ice creams make the winding of winches and handling of ropes more interesting. These locks flood rapidly from the front and the boat is subject to a lot of turbulence with the pulleys straining on the cleats. By now we have the locking procedure wired but now there is a new technique to learn, locking down, hopefully easier? We have generally been in locks with a smaller boat with 2 German Dad’s and their family on it. It is great to see them all working as a team and the kids absolutely enjoying it. We seem to have lost them now but we have tracked each other for 3 days, including not making the last railway bridge opening before Motala and staying in a rather obscure little marina for the night and having to walk (no bad thing) 2.5km into town for supper. At a quarter to nine, we were lucky to find a restaurant kitchen open and had to resort to the Irish pub, which had surprisingly good food and choice.

Yesterday we had a “motorhead” day, quite by accident really, we also had our first sail in ages, on lake Vättern. We cruised through the lock before the railway bridge; the lock keeper’s name was Rebecca, the best-looking lock keeper yet. We put on the Albert Hammond song by the same name and cranked up the volume. It is always humbling to have a major railway dissected in front of your. Veronica had gone ahead on the bicycle and was waiting with open arms and confusing messaging on the quay in Motala. We moored outside the motor museum, which is a little gem. The girls went shopping and we raided the System Bolaget, the state run and only liquor stores. We stocked up on mostly South African wine at quite reasonable prices. The boys overdosed on the motor museum. Possibly the oddest and most lethal thing we saw in there was a motorbike from the 1920’s with a radial engine inside the spokes of the front wheel. This is definitely worth a visit and but the boat museum, less so.

We then headed down the lake to Vadstena, having a comfortable and relaxing sail all the way. This place is surreal; we are moored in a 45-foot yacht in the moat of an absolutely stunning castle. At 11am we will go on the tour, so nothing historical to report now. Pictures speak stronger than words so check out the gallery, that said it may take me a while to get the pictures in there as we have only had internet once on the Göta canal, right now we are pirated into someone’s unsecured network via the boat’s Wi-Fi booster. Last night the motorhead day was completed when just opposite the castle there was a rally of in excess of 200 cars, mostly American classics, most immaculately restored. It was a window into the Swedish culture that you did not expect but I have seen it all over Sweden. There was a British car section, a few Ferraris and Porsches and even an amphibious car chugging around the moat of the castle. Perhaps the most amazing thing to us was that this wild motorhead rally, with boom busting music, live bands and coffee stores was there one moment and gone at 9pm, with not a trace of litter left behind, that is Sweden for you, amazing!

We are now half way across mid-Sweden and 88.5m above sea level. One more lock will get us to 91.8m a.s.l. before our decent to Göteborg. More later.