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.