Blog 7 Lake Vattern 24 June - 2015 Natural harbours Hjortholmen and Grönön. Askersund A few days later and out of the canal for a while into Lake Vattern. After some pretty luxurious facilities in the marinas along the canal and the bustling civilisation at each stop, the peace and beauty of two natural harbours on islands within the lake made a change in pace. Safely protected by the bay within the island, it wraps around in almost a complete circle of...

Blog 6 Ljungsbro to Lake Vattern 20 June - 2015 I meant to tell you how much the canal level is often way above the surrounding land as it winds though the countryside, there are the occasional aquaducts where it crosses a major road but slowly motoring passed houses and farmsteads it is not unusual to be at the level of the roof ridge - shocking to imagine what would happen if the canal bank broke. An overnight stay at Sorby Bridge, a quite rural spot w...

Blog 5 Norsholm (Gota canal) to Ljungsbro 13th June - 2015 Before telling you about the pathways along the Gota Canal - by the way, together with lakes and other waterways it amounts to very roughly 200 miles and an awful lot of locks and some bridges - I should say more about the locks which reach a high point somewhere in the middle of Sweden, then you start going down again. Going up is slower, harder work and more nerve racking than going down because ...

Blog 4 Oxelösund to Norsholm (Gota canal) 5th - 10th June 2015 After such a lumpy sea passage getting to the fishing harbour at Oxelösund on the previous day, the "inside" passage to the start of the Gota Canal with much reduced wind was positively leisurely, winding between islands, rocks and along closely buoyed channels in open water where rocks lurk off piste for the unwary sailor. The smoothly polished rocky islands with birch and conifers are extrem...

Blog 3 Nynäsham- Oxelösund 28th May - 4th June 2015 An interesting little harbour town where the train terminates and a big part of life is fishing - there was supposed to be a major salmon fishing competition today with people from as far away as Croatia - high tech fishing rods everywhere and motor boats bristling with kit, but a Sou-Westerly had blown up a bad sea which nobody was going out in so they stayed in harbour and fished off the pontoons like ch...