S/Y Kerpa

From Grenada we sailed north to Ronde Island it was a quite rolly anchorage, so we put out our Floppy Stopper, and then the stay became rather pleasant. It was our wedding day, 34 year of marriage not too bad.

Cava and caviar together with good friends at a nice anchorage can’t be much better. The day after, the trip continued to Tyrrell bay, Carriacou, where  we meet Camilla and Robin from Alba

There is a hurricane hole there in a mangrove “swamp”, we took the dinghies there, but unfortunately my photos from there seems to have vanished, or did I forgot to take photos? Often one take to many photos but some days/weeks I forgot to take photos!

Anyhow on Union Island we took some photos, first we anchored in Clifton bay, did not look that nice from distance but it had some charm.

Next day we proceeded to Chatham Bay, and had Langouster on the beach, but I think it was overpriced.

But the most important thing, the ladies aboard appreciated it much more.

Tobago Cays

Tobago Cays on the other hand was well appreciated by all aboard

We stayed two days and really enjoyed the time especially the nice snorkeling

But not too bad above the water either

After Tobago Cays we continued to Bequia, but again I forgot to take photos, maybe I start to get dementia, hope not, probably just a bit old.

Rodney Bay

Rodney Bay is also a classic stop, not only a huge anchorage but very cheap diesel as well, so we topped up our diesel tank, and all jerry cans with gasoline.

We took a half day tour with one of the Taxis there, the driver took us to a few places, the most memorable was the mud bath and a very nice local restaurant in Soufriere. Made a short YouTube video, hope you like to have a look.

On the way from Bequie up to St Lucia I wanted to stop at Chateaubelair bay, St Vincent, but I got some protest from my crew as they felt a bit unsure about the safety. A day after, we heard about a catamaran Simplicity which we are sure we have seen several times. They were bordered in Grenada and later murdered aboard their catamaran, which was found just outside Chateaubelair bay. A very sad and scary story fortunately the criminals were found very quickly in St Vincent. In general I think safety is not a big issue when out cruising, this time it was very bad luck, which could happen anywhere.

St Anne Martinique

our crew mustered off in St Anne, and we had dinner at the very special hole in the wall restaurant with probably no name on Rue Captaine Romain, just a few steps from La Dunette. They only serve two dishes’ Fish or shrimp croquettes, which taste great, to that we had white vine and you get a very small (one glass) bottle of vine. We strongly recommend you to visit the place, it got charm, cruisers, local people, good food and very reasonable prices, they open at 17:30 be prompt as it fills up very fast, but turnover is rather high so one do not need to wait to long to get a place.

Hear we get some tip from a local lady.

In St Anne we spend a few weeks due to waiting for a new flow meter to our water maker. During that time, we meet some old friends and made new friends.

Here we have a dingy meet with OCC cruisers.

Practise to fly the drone overt the huge anchorage

And finally bush craft fixing the water make.

Old flow meter, the new had a different thread for the tap to test the water, so piece of fuel hose, a piece of water hose and self amalgamating tape fixed it.

We stayed too long in St Anne, but had a nice time, always a pleasure to be in St Anne.

Our chain was very fouled.

Our new Anchor-wash pump got to work.

We have had problem with our Yamaha outboard, it was the carburettor who needed cleaning, I took it of and cleaned in maybe a half a dozen times, but still it did not run well at all. In Forte de France they have a Yamaha workshop with spare parts I thought we needed new gaskets and membranes for the carburettor. So we anchored in Anse de Mittan just opposite in the bay, rented a car and made a trip to the Yamaha place. They had what we were looking for.

And a very large outboard engine 450 hk!!!

Well I took of the carburettor, cleaned it again, put in new gaskets and pump membrane, but it did not helped, so off again, very very thorough cleaning AGAIN!!, now it works but still a bit grumpy on idel throttle. Before we transit the Panama canal I will make sure we have a spare carburettor, and a few other spares for the Yamaha, one is extremely dependant of the dinghy especially at remote places it’s a disaster if it does not work.

Next Stop Portsmouth, Dominica, where we attended the PAYS barbeque evening. Rather nice, talking to sailor,s having food, drinks, and finally dancing. We were one of the last to leave, very pleasant, but again very few photos.

Dingy dock Portsmouth

I can assure you that we took very many more photos on our next destination, Los Roques, Venezuela, which will be in our next blog.

If you like the blog, please hit the like button below. Appreciates comments as well.

Lagos and Portimão

Before heading for the Canary Islands, we had a few things to fix on Kerpa, and as we live in Lagos Portugal when not sailing, we had a stop in Lagos. There we had the rubber bushings in the Vetus flexi coupling replaced.

And when we were at it we also replaced the damping plate

It was a small thing for the mechanic to take off the gear box, and he found that the springs on the damping plate was more or less warn-out.

The cooler was also rather corroded, so we replaced it with a proper bronze cooler

The mechanic also supplied us with a set of gaskets, including head gasket. As well as a spare starter motor. Now I think we have most things in order with our old VP TMD 22 from 1999, with just short of 5000 engine hours. Before last season we had the injectors and high-pressure pump serviced at Bosh, as well as replaced the timing belt and the freshwater circulation pump.

But it was not only work, I had my 66 birthday which we celebrated with friends, and Kerstin made me a small but traditional birthday cake.

We needed one more thing and that was a new cockpit enclosure, the current is 8 years now and started to deteriorate, and it was severely stained of mould, not nice at all.

We headed for Portimão to have that done just 7 Nm east of Lagos, we had been recommended a canvas man there by several other local sailors.

This is the old cover, looks really nasty, this is a part of the top, so this time we went with an alternative fabric, with vinyl on the inside, which should be much easier to keep clean.

Working on the new cover.

Kerstin happily enjoying a glas o wine under the new cockpit enclosure

Which she did last time as well (photo October 2015)

To be honest we are not super happy with the new enclosure. The craftmanship on the old one we had done in Turkey was better. A second matter that annoyed us was  delaye in the delivery for more than two weeks. In Turkey they had it done in a few days, and now they had the old one as model and should at least have it done in similar time. Due to that we missed a good weather window to sail over to the Canaries and also the opportunity to cross over with some new friends while we were in Lagos/Portimão, the crew on Corisco and Cool. We had some nice time with them, had planed to sail over with them, but at least we meet them later in Las Palmas.

Canary Islands

Beautiful evenings on our way to the Canaries

And occasionally good sailing

Arriving at night

We anchored at Papagayo, Lanzarote

At Isla de Lobos we got the opportunity to try our new Davis rocker stopper

The Davis rocker stopper, we have two strings of 5 that we deploy from our ballooner booms.

We become very wide with both the pools out so we have a light on the end of each pool to prevent someone from hitting them if they manoeuvres the anchorage at night.

They stack and stow rather easily and do not require that much space.

We can recommend them.

Las Palmas

In Las Palmas we had a very unpleasant discovery, our water had been contaminated, we had severe bacteria growth. We have always had very good water and no need to buy bottled water for drinking, but suddenly the water started to taste very metallic and earthy. We opened the only easily raceable hatch to the water tank, and this is what we found.

A grey and slimy coating of the whole tank, by the way the tank is in the keel pocket and can carry 1000 l of water.

What to do? We decided to shock treat with chloride. We found a pool store and bought Chlor powder from them. A shock treatment of 100 ppm, to stand overnight, purge al l outlets and then empty the tank, with our submersible emergency 220 v pump.

We rinsed the tank a few times, replaced the charcoal filter as well the Seagull drinking water filter. To make a long story short, now we have good water from the seagull filter, but from the tap it still tastes a bit earthy.

Another job was that one of the sheeves in the car to control the boom position was missing some parts of the edge, I tried to find a new one but did not succeed, so filing it down to a smooth surface and now work smothly.

On the ballooner boom there is a cavity to hold the sheet, and the locking mechanism was broken.

This is how it should look.

Fixed it with some webbing.

A quick fix and it work rather good.

Emergency tiller

We wanted to test the emergency tiller, to see that all things work properly, Last timer we crossed with a rally that Jimmy Cornell arranged the Barbados 50 rally, one of the boat lost their steering, so it is better to try it beforehand.

The rudder quadrant is under the bunk in the after cabin, and going up through the after cabin roof.

Tiller in place.

Kerstin trying the emergency tiller with a smile on her face, doubt she would have that smile if we really had to use it.

Propvisoning

Provisioning is a big and important task when going away for a bit longer, Kerstin have done it a few times now and has become very good at it.

This is just one of the round of shopping, I think they brought 25 of that boxes down to Kerpa.

Christmas and New Year in Stockholm

During Christmas and New Year, we were in Stockholm to meet family.

Christmas eve at our daughter Emelie, all of our kids were there, a real delight to meet them at such a traditional event.

Our granddaughter Ingrid

And our grandson Alexander

Emelie even wanted to have New-Years eve with us, who could believe that when she was a teenager!

We also had the time to visit our family summer cottage where my interest for sailing originate from.

It looks much more attractive during summer but is not too bad during winter either.

Back to Las Palmas

Back in Las Palmas it was time for last preparation.

Beja one of our crew cleaning the fruits and vegetables before we take them aboard, He and his partner Kia was to crew with us over the Atlantic and a few week in the Caribbean.

We left with the rally Viking Explorer together with 25 other boats, a small low-key rally.

The wind was not very strong so it became a lot of motoring, but now and then we could sail, in total ca 60 % of the distance was under sail.

One scary thing on our way to Mindelo was the first night, we had a tug boat who tug a big platform the total length was almost 1Nm long, and no light or AIS on the platform, fortunately I had seen it in the distance just before it got dark. Then in the very dark night I saw the tug both on AIS and its navigation lights was due to pas just in front of us. I called him up on VHF ans asked how long he was and why he did not had any navigation lights on the platform. They only answer I got that stay more than a mile from him and then he turned on a very strong fllod-light towards the towed platform. Very irresponsible way to navigate at night, could easily resulted in an accident.

The hydrogenator gave good energy to our batteries.

Halfway over to Mindelo was celebrated with Cava, and the following evening was very beautiful.

And when approaching Mindelo we were greeted by dolphins

Arriving Mindelo

In Mindelo it was a few social events very pleasant.

More maintenance, our electrical motor for our water maker did not worked, it was the relay that was broken. Then one is very happy to have Beja onboard, he is a MacGyver, and he can fixe the most issues with whatever spares and tools that are aboard. He had to solder a tiny, tiny short wire that was broken, but he fixed it easily.

Happy and exited crew ready to depart.

Over the Atlantic

I have made a short YouTube video about our crossing hope you like it.

But I have some photos as well.

In the beginning some boats are relatively close even as we not started at the same time, we delayed our start to the afternoon as Kerstin had an upset stomach, but she recovered very quickly so we decided to cast off at about 15:00, rough weather was promised so about half the fleet decided to postpone the departure a few days.

But only 24 h later there was none within sight.

To pas time we baked coffee bread not only ordinary bread

Bread with cinnamon and cardamom, does not look much, but it tasted good.

We make bread in an Air fryer, works great.

We got one fish

Mahi Mahi, one of the tastiest one can get.

Celebrating half way—-

——-with Cava

Looking for squalls on the radar, luckily we did not have many and no violent one.

We rather often get the question, “don’t you get bored being at sea that long, the day must be very long?”

The answer is definitely NO, The days pas rather quickly. We start with breakfast, have a talk about something, maybe rest a bit, then some snacks, and soon it is time for lunch, then maybe some snack, tea or coffee again, some talk, and suddenly it is time for dinner, then it is time to have a look at the sunset, and short after that it is dark. The day passes very quickly. The night are rather long when crossing to the Caribbean, close to 12 h, but as we are 4 aboard, each watch is only 2 h during the night, so the watch is not very long, but as a watch is only 2 h, one of us has the two dark watches one in the evening and one in the very early morning. so every 4 days that occurred and the crew found them to be the least attractive.

Then we broke a few tings,

The hydro-generator, I must admit it was a handling issue

Ripped the clew of our down-wind ballooner.

Code sail halyard broke, it fell down in the water in the middle of the night, so quickly “all man on deck” but it was not to difficult to retrieve the Code sail, Kerstin and I have done it alone a few times during worse conditions. But no down-wind sails the last days.

But we were not the worst affected of break downs, One of the participants had to turned back after Autopilot failure, another had the connonction between the quadrant and autopilot broken, he manage to fix it, but it required daily maintenance. Another participants had a severe leak through one of the portholes and bailing in substantial amount of water before it was fixed. But the worst was two injuries due to being caught by the main sheet inside the cockpit, one was just a “minor” thing when he barefoot had his fot on the main sheet track and when the car went over and severely damaged his toes. The real serious accident was one participants who got the mainsheet coming over him and he fell and broke his arm so badly so that the bone pipe stuck out close to the elbow. He was a tough guy, he squeezed in the broken pipe into his arm again. He was one of three but the only one with sufficient sailing experience so he declined to be evacuated from his boat, one of the buddy boat a large motor sailer offered to turn back and evacuate him to his more comfortable boat, but as said he declined and stayed abord. Eventually they reached Barbados after more than a week in that condition, he got surgery and I understand he will be fully recoved.

On top of that an American Amel owner I have had FB contact with came aboard Kerpa in Mindelo, we had a nice chat aboard Kerpa about his around world trip and this was the last stretch for him to complete his circum navigation. He departed one day before us, and he broke both his mast about 5 days out from Mindelo. Starlink is a great tool being out on the ocean, a WhatsApp group was formed handled by the coastguard of Martinique, at first we was the closest boat, they were about 130 nM ahead of us, so we put the course towards them, a bit later the coastguard got contact with a large catamaran who was closer, they transferred ca 200 l of diesel to Aquarius (the name of the Amel boat), they then motored all the way to Martinique. Aquarius is a Youtuber so if you like to have more information about their ordeal https://youtu.be/LmVlhvc3Xg0?si=jwq2wlxZR4Ksofoe

So a few things did happened on the way.

But after ca 13 days and 6 hours we arrived in Granada-

Of course we celebrated.

We enjoyed the time in Grenada

Being on the beach.

Had a guided tour on The Mayan Queen a 96m yacht. Crew Kia had a relative who work as head steward on the yacht, it is like a major hotel with very many features all of outmost quality.

And enjoying the local sorunding.

And of course, a farewell party with all the participants.

Fixing a leaking water-maker, the flow meter glass was broken, so MacGyver went to work again as usual.

From Brest we continued south, and came to the fantastic out post Ile De Sein. A place definitely worth to visit, but you need good weather as the place is very exposed to the fierce Atlantic waves when the wind is strong and there are few places to find shelter close by.

View from the light house

The main anchorage

We got some delicious dinner as well, together with brother Thomas and Brita

Next step was Audiere where Thomas and Brita left, so now we were alone

Audiere is a nice stop, and they had a nice market.

Ile De Glenan magic beauty

On our way to Ile De Houat we had company with Eric on Abayomi another Amel Super Maramu, we meet him first time on Jersey.

We took the oportunity to try some new combination of sails as we could compare the speed with Abayomi, Gues who was the fastest?

We arrive to the west side of the Ile De Houat, to a very crowded but nice anchorage

The evening was very beautiful

The same anchorage the day after seen from land

When the wind turned, we moved to the east side of Ile De Houat

And had a nice stroll on the beach

Just south you have Ile De Hoedic

All these islands are very crowded, we were there in August the main holiday month, but even though we thought it was marvellous islands to visit. So if you plan to go south from northern Europe, you should definitely allocate time to visit these islands, but try to avoid being there in August. except for Ile De Sein, you will easily find shelter as good anchorage around the islands, so you should find shelter whatever direction of the wind.

Next stop was La Rochelle, the place where Amel boats are built. We had looked forward  to see the place and had planned to have a few things done and buy some spare parts, but due to holiday there where very few people there, so it become a bit of an anticlimax. We did not stay long, instead we crossed the Bay of Biscay from there towards Gion. We had a very quick and pleasant crossing. We can’t say that about our next leg from Gion to Ribadeo further west on the Spanish Atlantic coast. Very strong head wind and heavy rain.

Fortunately, the weather calmed down when reaching Ribadeo

Ribadeo is a suitable place to stay on your way west along the Spanish Atlantic coast, not very expensive and they have the nesseasary facilities.

Next stop on aur way west before turning south was A Coruna.

Coruna is always nice to visit, it became a short stop, but we had time to try some of the delicious food that Galicia can offer.

Kerstin and I are enjoying seafood

And to our delight we by change got a very good wine, made from for us unknown grape, Albarino, which we learned was a common grape in Galicien and northern Portugal

We went around several shops and bought several bottles of white wine made of Abarino grapes and most of them were excellent.

We strongly recommend to try if you have not yet tasted white wine made of Abarino grapes, cost is a bit higher they start at 10 euro

In Coruna we decided to team up with a few other boats to pas the worst part of the Atlantic coast when it comes to Orca attacks. It had recently been frequent attacks around Finisterre and the surrounding area.

Here we have a great time in Muxia, it was some kind of Carnevale.

Lunch together with the crew from Wind of Gothenburg, and the Norwegian couple on Paloma (if I remember right, we meet first time in Amsterdam).

They served all kind of food both from the sea and from farms, and people were partying on the street.

And so did we.

Kerstin with a happy face as she just got a mega large Caipirinha!

Muxia from above, it was a nice area to walk as well, so not only partying.

Finisterre

Finisterre is an epic point to pass, not only for sailors, but also for pilgrim walkers as it is the end point of the Camino Finisterre, Ancient Pilgrims though Finisterre was the end of the world Finisterre means the end of the world in Latin

Rounding Cabe De Finisterre. Luckily without any encounter any Orcas. For you who are not familiar with the Orca issue, the coast from Gibraltar up to Galicien and occasionally as far north as Brest, frequent boats has been attacked by Orcas. They attack the rudder often resulting in totally damage rudder and help has been needed for being towed into nearest safe harbor. a handfull of boat has been sunken. Must be a scary experience.

And of course we had to take a walk to the light house, it was many people on pilgrim walks along the trail.

The surrounding area is very beautiful, definitely worth a stop.

We have sailed the Spanish and Portuguese west coast a few times, and we do like to anchor at Anse de Barra, a very protected anchorage with nice walks, a nice beach and a few bars. This time we enjoyed the beach and the bars only

Peniche

Peniche in Portugal is also worth a stop for a day or two, it has some amazing cliff formation’s

If you do not think the cliff formations are worth to stop for, I recommend at least to stop/take a trip out to the island Ilha Da Berlanga just outside Pernich, also an outpost, if to rough to anchor, one can take day trips from Peniche. Highly recommended.

I stop there next blog will be about our time in Lagos, Portimão and the Canary Islands.

Hello!

Long time since I updated our blog, so this will be a comprehensive post to be able to catch up a bit to get closer to where we are now.

Holland

Last blog we were in Helgoland, and we set sail towards Holland, first stop were at the Frisian Island Terschelling. What strike us when we got there was how good the Dutch are to take care of their old traditional boats.

A real beauty

Next stop was Harlingen and on the way, we saw this beautiful boat

As you can see the weather is a bit gloomy, and unfortunately it was Gloomy for most of the time we were in Holland.

Of that reason we came to stay close to a week in Harlingen

It was stormy over a big part of Holland and the Schiphol airport was closed for almost a full day.

But sometimes the sun showed up and we enjoyed the street life

And of course, admire the skilful skippers of the old traditional Dutch vessels manoeuvring in close quarters.

We saw many examples of very skilled skippers, Dutch people are obviously good seamen.

But we do not saw that when entering the Kornwerdarzand Lock  into the lake Ijsselmeer.

When we came to the lock, it was plenty of boats waiting to pass, and as soon the green light was lit, everybody just hurried in towards the lock and it became a bit of a commotion. It was not the only time we saw that behaviour it was unfortunately very common as soon a bridge or a lock was opened, it looked as it was a race to be the first in.

On our way to Medemblik we saw these lowly old ships sailing.

In Medemblik we collected our Starlink kit which was delivered to an Amel friend, Herman Govers, Heman and Hella are preparing their Amel for live aboard cruising so we had a lot to talk about

Starlink at its temporarily place, very easy just plug and play a real game changer for communication with friends and family when fare away from home.

Next stop was Urk.

Urk is also a very nice village with a lot of maritime history, some of it showing the harsh life for people having the sea as their main source for income.

A wife and/or a mother looking for their loved one if they will came home. The text you see on the rocks in the back ground is name of the perish sea men and fishermen over the years.

1868 was difficult year with many persons lost at sea, age from 11 to 68, Life was tough at that time.

More cheerful history is watching and listening to an old engine

We also stopped in Amsterdam and moored at Sixhaven, again we saw the chaos when no one waiting for other to leave ore come. No everybody at the same time.

The marina was packed with boats during the night, and in the morning when mosty of them left at the same time, others was entering. Strange that they did not hit each other.

It was much calmer at the botanical garden

Other reflection from our time in Holland, nice that old smaller boats (24 fot and above) was very common and larger boats 35 feet and above was rather uncommon, and a lot of young people was sailing, nowadays most people that sail has had grey hair for long.

Biking is very common in Holland and several Swedish politicians wants Sweden to follow the path of Holland, but I hope not because there is a lot of chaos especially in Amsterdam, either there are no traffic rules or they are not followed, it is the same behaviour as in the marinas everybody try to get first!

For a Swede it is a bit shocking that no one has a helmet, not even on the infant they have back on the bike!!

Belgium

In Amsterdam my son Kristoffer with family came to visit us. After they have had a short tour of  Amsterdam we set sail towards Zeebrugge, unfortunately the weather gods was not on our side, head wind +/- 20 kn and  shoppy sea, made the female crew very sea sick, and about 1 hour before reaching Zeebrugge the halyard for the head sail broke so that might have been a bit scary for the crew as well, not the best start of a holiday.

Broken halyard

It was not too difficult to pas a pilot line from the top down to the exit for the head sail halyard. I had no spare, so I turned the old one in reverse the top part down so the part with the tension is the old part that has not been under tension.

From Zeebrugge we took a daytrip to Brugge a very nice and historical town

Kerstin enjoining Moules, one of her favourites

France

When sailing on the English channel, one has to take the tide very carefully in consideration. Our next step was for Boulogne Sur Mer, and for that we had to plane carefully not to get into very strong conter current when rounding the Cap Gris-Nez, as a Sweed we are not used to deal with tide, so it was with great satisfaction we manage to time the departure and arrival almost perfectly, it took away some of the anxiety we have had for the strong tidal current in the English channel.

I hope these two pictures from the Marina in Boulogne Sur Mer illustrate the difference in sea level due to the tide.

This boat came in when we were there and they had collided with a big freighter vessel

Must have been a very frightening experience.

Can’t say that the harbour is particularly nice, but other parts are very nice.

Our plan was to have a stop in Cherbourg, but the marina was closed due to a sailing race, so we took a trip of 180 Nm to St Helier on Jersey, (The crew had booked flight tickets from Jersey and the weather was not the best so we took a decent weather window to be sure we get there)

On our way to Jersey, we were overtaken by this a bit faster boat than us

Else the passage became rather pleasant.

The tide in Jersey is up to 12 meters, very amazing, and it must be very difficult to have a boat and plan sailing. Not only weather but the tide put constraints on when to use your boat

Mont Orgueil Castle

We managed to get at least on good day for sightseeing in Jersey, other days it was very windy and rainy.

In Jersey we shifted crew, my brother Thomas with partner Brita came to visit us.

We took a trip out to the Elizabeth  Castle

The castle is in the background of Thomas and Kerstin

It was a very strange vehicle who took out the tourist to the castle, we opted to walked in the mud and water instead.

Leaving Jersey, towards Brest became a very rough trip, and Brita became extremely seasick and was totally out for most of the trip.

In Brest we meet our friends Anika and Kent who were there with their boat.

We had a  very nice lunch together and Kerstin got her favourite dishes again moules!

New update to come soon.

Last year we left Kerpa in Västerås in lake Mälarten about 100 km west of Stockholm.

The plan now is to sail south and cross the Atlantic with Viking Explorer scheduled start is January 6 2024, so we have plenty of time, aim to be on Grand Canaria end of November.

We left Lagos 19 of April and arrived in a beautiful sunny Stockholm, excellent weather for commission a boat.

Especially for those with old classic wooden boats.

Unfortunately the weather turned to be very cold and rainy, while we worked on Kerpa at the yard in Västerås.

But at least the sun came on launch day May 3. And on our two days trip to Stockholm we had a wonderful morning at anchor outside Rastaholm

Later that day we passed the lock out to the Baltic and our daughter took some photos when we passed the area where she lives.

Very cold but no rain

Kerpa in central Stockholm

Kerpa at Wasahamnen in Stockholm, we can strongly recommend to moor at Wasahamnen if you plan to sail to Stockholm, very central, walking distance to downtown Stockholm and the surrounding is the green and very large park called Djurgården.

Storholmen

Next visit was Storholmen the family summer cottage just outside Stockholm. It was here my dream started about sailing the oceans.

My first sailboat, a very small dingy made for rowing, if you look carefully, you can see the swords on the sides, like a Dutch tjalk, sail was sewed from an old bed linen. Not fast but it worked.

Now Kerpa at the same spot, would have liked my mother to see Kerpa at Storholmen, but she is not with us any longer.

It was a delight to see some of our grandchildren playing where I played as a toddler.

They also came a long weekend to sail on Kerpa, really nice and we were lucky with the weather as well, May can be very nice in Stockholm, the archipelago is extra beautiful as the air is very crisp and clear, you can see very far.

But now it was time to head south,

Nåttarö

Nåttarö

Kerpa at anchor

Full activity aboard Kerpa, baking bread and trying to fix one of the fridges.

I have had problem with one of the cooling units, it was leaking cooling water and I thought it was the pump, so ordered two new ones, to have one as spare, but it showed to be the cooling coil which is integrated with the compressor. So probably need a new unit.

Håskö

Another stop we made were at Håskö, a very lovely place ca 80 nM south of Stockholm.

One of the few places we can Med moor at.

Nice to see the cows from the boat.

A very beautiful island

They have an old sawmill, which is still used for own need.

Ålö another fantastic island

It sometimes feels strange to leave Sweden as it has one of the most beautiful sailing areas in the world, add to that no tide and no gale (at least very rare) during the summer months an ideal area for cruising, but the season is rather short, and the weather can be both good and bad. I can strongly recommend sailing the Swedish east coast from North of Öland all the way up North to “Höga Kusten” ca 350 Nm.

Ålö anchorage

Most building are from the late 1800 and very well preserved.

Old type of foundation simple but durable, timber probably 150 years old and still strong.

Kalmar

When arriving Kalmar our bowthruster lost its propeller, not fun at all, it looks as the Bowthruster is my Sisyphus task, it never ends.

I start to get routine on retrieving the Bowtheuster when Kerpa is in the water.

Missing the propeller

The difficult part is usually to get the BT shaft into the motor, but this time it whent rather smoothly, the problem this time was that the new propeller did not fit well on the propeller hub so some time was spent on that issue, which should not be necessary, there Amel has some improvement to do on that spare part.

I also got a new compressor for the fridge, the Isotherm agent in Sweden is in Kalmar, I sent the old unit to them without the pump, they took the old electronic unit from my old compressor and sold a new unit including the pump! at a very fair price, delivered it to the marina, very good service, now I have three spare pumps to the two water cold units!

Kalmar is an old town with a lot of History.

And a very nice Castle

Leaving Sweden

We left Kalmar to sail to Warnemunde outside Rostock (215 Nm)

We had a splendid sailing

Just by chance we ended up with pooled out genoa and the code sail on the other side.

We made + 7 kn with apparent wind between 3-5 kn, never done that before.

7,6 kn speed over ground and only 3 kn of apparent wind!

Warnemunde beach,

It was a lot of tourists in Warnemunde, even if it is early in the season, however not many at the beach.

Besides touristing I mounted the new compressor, so now we have two fridges again it feels good.

It was to much gas in the system, so I had to bleed some out, I hope it is good now, at least no frost on the return line to the compressor.

Kiel

Next stop was Kiel, we found out that we arrived the first day of Kielerwoche so no space in the marinas, but we found a good place to anchor, from where we could enjoy the scenery from the regatta.

Transiting the Nordostsea canal was rather straight forward, some red signals that did not make sense, that we passed without stopping, right or wrong? I do not know. Moored at Rendsburg about half way.

A small but rather nice place for a day or two.

The next stop was Brunsbuttel at the end of the channel.

The marina is just at the lock and one can see the big ships going through the lock.

We went up very early the next day to get out of the lock at high tide (05:20) and set course towards Helgoland ca 53 Nm away, this time we were right about the tide and we went out of River Elbe at very high speed.

Helgoland

Helgoland is known for tax free shopping and a lot of birds, we took advantage of both, our diesel tank was almost empty, the stock of wine and beer was low, now it’s better

We could get very close to te Gannets.

Gannet

Gannets with chick

We left Helgoland for a 130 Nm long trip to Terchelling, Holland, we had to motor all the way as no wind at all, but that was the window for us, as strong westerly were to be expected and as it showed also end of good weather, more about that next time.