Our next adventure is a week cruising the Göta Canal. The canal connects the Baltic Sea to the North Sea by connecting various lakes across Sweden. It was designed and led by the British in the 1830’s for the Swedish. It was built so that the Swedish could export to the North Sea without paying the Danish a toll. Unfortunately once the canal was built it was decided it was too narrow and expensive to use. But it makes a great tourist attraction.

We met up with Heidi and Max, friends from home and headed to Sjötorp to join our canal boat. We hired a Delphia 600 canal cruiser, very different to the narrow boats of the UK. We have the front bedroom cabin which has a bed that curves to follow the shape of the bow of the boat, so we have to sleep like bananas, on a curve, while Heidi and Max have the aft cabin that has a headroom of less than 18” above their bed.

There were three boats setting off together in a little flotilla with our own lock keeper because the high season is over and so the locks and bridges don’t have full time keepers. We weren’t sure about travelling in a group, but soon got to know our fellow sailors (Sven & family from Germany; Karina & Markus, Michael & Kirsten from Sweden) and were glad of their company (especially the whisky) and help. Our day’s keeper is Ralph who drives between the locks and bridges and opens them for us. The locks are hydraulically operated and the keeper has a remote control so he simply presses buttons. We thought it’d be an easy relaxing trip, with the lock keepers doing all the work, but soon realised that this wasn’t the case as we still had to jump ashore and tie up/ hold the boats in the locks, which took some effort.. On our first day we travelled 19km along the canal, with a max speed of 5 knots, and through 16 locks. Overnight stops are in marinas with a power supply for the boat and bathroom facilities much like the campsites. The boat has a kitchen and so we can cook onboard or use the various restaurants that are near the marinas.

Our second day included only two locks but also two lakes, one of them 23km wide. Very different to Uk canals. Day three was spent crossing lake Vattern, Sweden’s 2nd largest lake and very deep. The weather was breezy from the south, whilst we travelled east, meaning it was a three hour choppy crossing with lots of rolling & pitching, and not particularly fun with just a 25 hp outboard motor. We were all glad to get to dry land & we moored overnight at Vadstena in the moat of the spectacular castle. This is a lovely place and made the rough crossing worth suffering.

The larger boat in our little flotilla is quite old and took on a lot of water during its crossing of lake Vättern and arrived in Vadstena with quite a list. Made us glad we were in a newer boat. We’re all getting used to the boats and are helping each other with mooring etc. Good thing as we accidentally left Max behind when we moved mooring and the other crews helped us at our new mooring while Max caught up on foot. Sorry Max.

Most days see us set off at about nine and motor for most of the day, mooring up in mid to late afternoon. We have to follow the instructions of the lock keepers (mostly a summer job for students) about when we should reach a certain bridge or lock and where to moor for the night. We enjoyed a good mix of cooking onboard and eating out at various restaurants. The meals were all good.

Our boat has a bow thruster to help us manoeuvre, it turns the front of the boat when you push a button for left or right (port or starboard for the sailors among you). Unfortunately ours developed a bit of a mind of its own and didn’t stop when you released the button meaning we spun round in the canal rather than turned. All good fun. The only maintenance we have to carry out is to top up with petrol and fresh water and pump out the “black water” (the “heads” for the sailors) The black water is sucked out of the tank by a pump at the marinas, you need to be careful with the pipes to ensure no spillages.

In total we covered 284 km, crossed 6 lakes and were lifted or dropped by 53 locks in 5 days of cruising. It sounds a lot but it was generally relaxing, apart from crossing lake Vattern! We completed a couple of stacks of locks (5 or 6 together) which attracted an audience, and coaches had parked up to watch the spectacle (Craig did try putting his hat out but was unsuccessful in getting any tips). Vanda & Heidi had to use their muscles to stop & hold the boat into the side, but none of the spectators offered to help, and were often in the way!

We enjoyed the tranquility of sailing past farmland and through tree lined canals and visiting historic towns. We also checked out the company’s new 10 berth electric boat that they’re launching - Sweden isn’t far behind Norway in introducing electric vehicles (just hope it doesn’t run out of power in the middle of Lake Vattern).

We ended our cruise at the medieval town of Söderköping and it was soon time to transfer our gear from the boat to Connie the four of us to set off for the capital, Stockholm. The capital is built on several islands and Sally sent us a route that included a surprise ferry crossing. We arrived at our rented cottage that was previously part of the Drottinghom palace estate, just north of the city and since the weather was hot, spent the afternoon in the garden and had a bbq for dinner. The cottage is a traditional red wooden bungalow and has everything we need including a washing machine that we made good use of, and a bbq. It also has sky tv but we preferred to watch Jeeves and Wooster (the Steven Fry and Hugh Laurie series) on Max’s iPad each evening, we managed to watch almost three series.

We had a great couple of days in Stockholm and the weather was stunning with temperatures of 29 degrees. We went on an excellent walking tour with a South African (how does that work?) who told us a lot about the history of the major events in its history and tips on what to do while we’re here. We really enjoyed Gamla Stan which is the oldest part of the city and visited the German church and the excellent Vasa museum. The vasa was a medieval war ship, not dissimilar to the Mary Rose, which also sank on its maiden voyage. The Vasa sank in brackish water which meant that neither fresh water nor saltwater organisms attacked her wooden structure. She was recovered in the 1970’s and is 98% complete and original. The Black Pearl in the Pirates of the Caribbean films is based on her and she really does look amazing. There are over 300 carved statues and symbols and she was incredibly ostentatious and huge!. She sank because she was top heavy and unstable. A great museum. We also visited the Drottingholm palace, which was just over the road from our cottage, which has great reviews as a must see but for us didn’t live up to expectations, perhaps we have seen too many Scandinavian palaces and castles. We spent a lovely couple of hours wandering around the grounds & enjoyed a nice lunch though.

Heidi and Max have returned to Blighty while we wait for spares to repair a fault with Connie. Once she’s fixed we will be heading south to Germany.

Cx Vx.