We have been in Sweden for a while to celebrate our two daughters who both graduated from University. A moment of joy, happiness and pride.

Emelie had her graduation (Master in Economics) party in Uppsala to which also parents was invited.

Linnea our youngest daughter got her master as Civil engineer in Biotechnology the same week.

A come together with family and close friends, The handsome man in the sofa is my son Kristoffer.

Well enough with family bragging

In Sweden we have a relatively new national day 6 of June, which media and official society want us to celebrate as vivid as they do in Norway on May 17,  in France on July 14 or USA July 4. But the swedes are quite lukewarm to the national day. Many swedes say that they should have chosen Midsummer instead, then we would not have needed any push to celebrate, on the contrary a majority of the swedes are rather happy to party in Midsummer. Pickled herring and snaps are in abundance and already at noon the atmosphere is high, late afternoon it could easily be to high…..

The Swedish national day offered good weather and the streets were not crowded but people enough to create a good atmosphere.

One day we were invited to sail on a friend’s boat and then of course the weather was as it can be in Sweden, cold, rainy and windy but we had a nice sail in his Amel SM named Nipe. Keep look up for him as he will start his journey next year to cruise the seven seas

Niklas a proud owner of an Amel SM his first sailing boat so a lot to learn, but he is a fast learner and next year his dream will commence.

The person below has waited quite some time for his dream to come through

The boat project is total overgrown with large trees

I guess the dream broke decades ago. I found this boat at the same Marina as Nipe was on and I could not resist to take some photos to share with you all

Back in the USA

Since a few days we are back to Yankee Point Marina, Kerpa is still firm on land and the yard are preparing the bottom for copper coat an epoxy based anti-fouling paint that is supposed to last up to 10 years, it’s not cheap so it need to last at least 5 years to break even, and hopefully save some diving to clean the bottom from growth.

Kerpa with two layers of epoxy barrier coat, nest step is to sand to get a good adhesion for the copper coat.

View from Kerpa, close to toilets and showers in the blue building, but we do long until we are in the water again

So what to do?

Well the first day back it was a lobster party the Main way. The owners of the yard are from Main, and once a year the fly in lobster and clams and serve it the Main way.

Modified Main way to cook lobster, originally one dig a pit in which a log fire is lit and on top of the fire one place a bed of seaweed. The lobsters and whatever you want to eat with it is put on top of the seaweed, and then covered with another layer of seaweed to steam cook. It is not a very friendly way to cook lobster, it reminded more of medieval Tudore style torture methods of wrong believers or witches.

Unfortunately we had bad weather with a lot of rain, actually we have had several days with heavy rain and thunder, and we feel like home in Sweden. So the party was held inside instead of outside in this marvelous surrounding.

The result is a lovely red lobster, steamed vegetables, hot dog and egg? all In a bag except the lobster

Kerstin enjoying the lobster together with the other boaters, US boaters are no party animals at all. Despite free beer and live music no one was remotely drunk and at nine o clock most people had gone home. That would never have happened in Sweden, by nine the noise level would have been very high and a few hours later most people who still could stand would be dancing.

Other days we utilize moments with good weather to enjoy the beautiful setting by

Having diner by the sea and a glass of good vine, or we have

Isterband a very Swedish dish, a soured sausage with grain and lard as the main ingredients, taste wonderful

Now it is ready to serve

With stewed carrots and a glass of cold milk, hard to beat

All this in a very nice setting, strange that there are so many free spaces in the marina, someone told me that before the 2007 bank crises the marina was full.

But all is not joy, there are time for work as well

Such as attending rust stain, note the rather severe stain on the deck,

but only a few minutes later it looks very nice indeed, how is it possible?

These two products work as promised or better. Mainly Phosphoric acid I believe and it makes miracle on stainless steel, it become passivated and the gloss remains much longer after treatment with these products compared with cleaner and wax. Highly recommended.

We have ordered a lot of products now when we have an address in the USA, such as

New gas bottles and regulators for the US propane system, Anchor wash pump and many more things.

Interesting regulator for wall mount, one can have two bottles attached with two hoses to one regulator, at the regulator you can then switch over to the next bottle when the other is empty. But you need strong hoses as much higher pressure before the regulator than after.

As always when ordering things there is something wrong…

The locking mechanism for the hose connection to the pump was broken, the pump was also very dusty so I guess it was a display example they put in the box, now we have to see if Defender is as good as fellow Amel cruiser says. It’s when things go wrong you can judge the supplier, let’s hope.

While waiting for things to come and to be complete, we could now travel and plan with the new pilot books covering all the way up to Nova Scotia.

Yesterday I found to my surprise another Amel at the marina an Amel Santorini the little sister of our Super Maramu, They had bought it a few days ago and sailed it up from Florida

It was the owner’s first sailing boat and they plan to go cruising in two years’ time. Unfortunately the boat was in rather bad condition to put it mildly, a lot to fix.