No fresh Milk. It was definitely time to head into port. We weighed anchor from Hasslö on Monday morning and headed north up the narrow channel towards the approaches to Karlskrona. There was no sign of any boats warning us of the perils ahead like when we arrived; A small speedboat had charged towards us while Susie was on the bow looking out for rocks and gesticulated that we should pass to the east of the east cardinal mark. Luckily, neither Susie’s nor my navigation skills had deteriorated to the point that we were planning to pass on the wrong side of one of these. We suspected that the warning was good natured and probably the result of many a foreign WAFI crashing into the underwater obstruction that lay on the other side of the beacon.
There wasn’t much wind so we remembered that George had advised us to run the engine on high revs every so often. I remember when I was at sea and we were patrolling the famous RFA box (a random box drawn on the chart to aimlessly steam around in while waiting for something to happen), every so often the engineer on watch would call the bridge and ask for a “blow through”. This wasn’t a sexual advance but merely a request to increase to full speed so that residues in the funnel would be burnt away. Heeding George’s advice we increased to 3000rpm and achieved 8 kts.
Leo sat up in the cockpit and amused himself with a piece of rope and the beautiful new soft rattle that Maiken, James, Leonardo and Napoleon had given him. After reading my last blog, James contacted Susie to say that he felt my account of the dinghy drifting away was slightly unfair because we hadn’t given him precise instructions not to let go of the boat. In our defence we probably thought that a mariner of his experience might have thought twice placing full faith in a circa 1980s Suzuki 2 stroke.
The approaches to Karlskrona leave you in no doubt that it is a historic naval port. There are forts built on islands - smaller versions of the forts in the Solent, dockyard style architecture on the shore and lots of navigational marks to make it nice and easy for the Navy navigators. You get the impression that Karlskrona really is a city on the sea. Each little island has wooden jetties, houses and other buildings almost down to the shore line. There were plenty of pleasure boats, a tall ship and some classic wooden yachts moored on the quay wall as we approached the marina.
For the first time on our voyage we were welcomed into a marina; The chap was very friendly and gave us some advice on where we might find an electrician and, very importantly, the procedure for booking the washing machines. Unfortunately my attempts to find an electrician failed but I did get through to Garry - the electrician from Largs - who thought the freezer control unit might be the problem. On my way to the camping shop to look for gas bottles, I noticed that you can get “Bastard” burgers in Sweden.
Susie suggested that before tinkering around with the compressor, first we should check the sea water intake. I opened the flange and discovered the remnants of dead jellyfish, seaweed, whitebait and all manner of other ocean detritus. We wondered how the engine and generator were still able to draw any cooling water. Eureka, maybe the cooling water was the problem with the freezer compressor? We used the water hose on the pontoon to blast water through the pipes and, to quote Susie, “all sorts of sh**e came out!” We put the water circulation system back together and, hallelujah, the compressor didn’t cut out after about 5 seconds. By yesterday morning we had a cold freezer with more ice crystals than I’d ever seen since getting the boat 2 years ago.
Feeling a tentative sigh of relief, we went for a walk around Karlskrona and were very impressed by the maritime museum. We could have spent a lot longer there but it was a lovely sunny day so we returned to the boat. The plan was for Susie to finish the laundry and for me to go to Lidl to take on fresh stores. Although my long walk to the chandlery and petrol station had fallen short on the electrical assistance and new gas bottles front respectively, I did notice that the Lidl had a pontoon. Not only that but there was a tunnel under the railway and motorway which connected where the marina was to where Lidl was without having to go around the whole island.
I had visions of 007 speeding through London in The World is not Enough: With the Suzuki 2 stroke topped up with freshly mixed petrol and a vast array of shopping bags, I was off. This was what life was about, going shopping in a boat. I ducked my head to get under the railway lines and the echo of the engine added to the adventurous atmosphere. A jet ski was approaching from the other direction and I felt very satisfied with myself - mixing it with the locals. I was brought back to earth when the wake of the jet ski - even at slow speed - gave me a proper splash.
I tied up on the pontoon just outside Lidl and got some local sailing tips from a local gentleman who’d brought his speedboat from a neighbouring island to do his shopping. He also warned me that the only beer for sale in Swedish supermarkets was 3.5% pilsner which tasted like bilge water. After several references to google translate - especially to check that Leo’s eggs were organic, I had amassed a trolly load which the checkout assistant scanned through at lightening pace that easily outpaced my haphazard packing pace. I decided to make full use of the trolly and took it out of the Lidl car park and across the busy road to the pontoon; there wasn’t even the need to put a coin or token to release the trolly. Perhaps the Swedes are less inclined to nick shopping trollies than the Scots.
When I triumphantly returned to the boat Susie was scrubbing the decks and reported that she couldn’t clean out the bottom of the freezer because all the water had frozen. Success. We stowed the boat, took on water, slipped our moorings and sailed out of Karlskrona to anchor off the island of Aspö. Even without shore power, the compressor buzzed away. Our fingers remain crossed. Our marina stay had only cost 280 krona which is £22.24; we reckoned that we’d have spent more than that on coin operated washing machines and driers in a UK marina. We both thought it was the best value marina we’d ever experienced.
We enjoyed an ice cold beer in the evening sun and prepared Leo some finely chopped strawberries in his “suction” bowl. The idea with this piece of contemporary baby paraphernalia is that it sticks to the surface so a baby can’t grab it and fling the contents everywhere. Nice idea but Leo decided that this bowl that he couldn’t move was very irritating. Rather than daintily eat his lovingly prepared strawberries, he decided to summon all his strength and wrench the bowl off the forward storage box where Susie had stuck it on to. Leo - 1; Suction bowl - 0.
We have decided to try and reach the Stockholm archipelago by the 25th of July. That gives us 12 days to head around the South east tip of Sweden, up the sound of Oland, across to Gotland and then back across to the start of the archipelago. As I finished off the blog in the cockpit this morning I heard the distinctive twang of a Swedish voice saying “Hallå”. I looked up and saw the splash of a paddle right beside the boat. It was the local baker and his son on a paddleboard with a basket of warm bread fresh from the oven. We bought 6 rolls and had them for breakfast with fresh coffee. We thought it was so cool that he’d paddled out with his 3 year old to educate him in the ways of wholesome enterprise.
