Swedish South West
Date: Thursday 27th August to Monday 1st September
Distance : 125 miles
Weather : Fine (except for Monday...).
The couple of days we had in Gothenburg were a shock. After so many villages and small towns, to come to a bustling city was strange. Pat consoled herself with 2 days of retail therapy whilst I (eventually) found a copy of the Sunday Times and discovered I can now get Radio 4 again!
On Thursday we started the trek back to Denmark. As we'd been down the Danish Kattegat coast before, we decided to trail down the Swedish side this time, and had a quiet but pretty sail down through the islands off Gothenburg to Lerkil. The islands on the west coast of Sweden are fairly barren and the archipelago dies about 15 miles south of Gothenburg. Lerkil, however, is a small dormitory marina hiding behind a rocky outcrop. At this time of year the marinas are quiet, and there was only one other visitor. More messing about with booms ensued as they were (yet again) really too small for us, (but only just)
On Friday, we tracked south, mostly motoring the 25 miles to Varberg. Varberg again was something of a surprise as we expected a small town and found quite a large one. The marina, effectively the inner harbour, was limited and rather dirty, but at least it was empty. The town itself has many resturants and shops and we originally planned to stay another day. The weather on Saturday however was fair to cross the Kattegat so we set out on the 40 miles to the Danish island of Anholt.
Anholt is almost smack in the middle of the Kattgat, but is surrounded by sandbanks. My 1999 chart showed a 'short cut' through the sandbanks that would take 10 miles or so off the journey, but my up-to-date electronic charts showed that the bouys were no longer there. Dispirited, and assuming the sandbanks had shallowed, we sailed the long way round, although we (at last) had a pretty good sail into the bargain. It was therefore something of a disapointment on the Sunday to see a bunch of Swedish boats turn straight out of Anholt harbour and make for the short cut. I still don't know if its bouyed or not.
We arrived on Anholt on the last day of the season. Two separate sets of folks invited us to a local restuarant's end of season barbecue, only for us to get thrown out when we arrived as they did not have enough food - so much for Danish Hospitality!
Anholt itself is a very pretty holiday island with crystal clear water and wonderful sandy beaches. There is a small community who appear to live on the island all the year round, but there isn't much traffic!
We had a lazy Sunday on Anholt, just walking the mile or so into the village, then watching a DVD in the evening. On Monday, we made an unpleasant trip over to Grenå on the mainland . Having had a thunderstorm go over us in the night, I think we then sailed through it, only for it to rain on us all again when we got to Grenå. Full wet gear and 6 knots on a reefed main only. It must be fate. The only other time we've been to Grenå, we had a thunderstorm then too!