Blog 16 up to Nyköping

It is at this point that the North South sailing highway begins. You can either weave your way along with everyone else between rocks and islands along a narrow proven and buoyed route with lots to look at or you can set out to open sea and take a longer route - which we did and regretted that it was so boring but relatively rock free. Fyrudden has seen some changes, from an old fishing village to a pleasant leisure centre with a small marina and holiday makers. There must be some reason why men with hairy chests and gold chains around their necks and wrists like jet-skis or power boats, the noisier the better - well there were a few around on this day but thankfully they always disappear by bed time leaving the countless thousands of young fish to swarm beneath the pontoons in peace - and me.

The heat continued the next day - the day we ran "the highway." It looks pretty intimidating on the chart but is very well buoyed - there are usually always yachts dead ahead or dead astern following the highway as well so that is a clue if you should wander or wonder. The funny thing is when the route goes through apparently open sea - it isn't, the rocks are just out of sight - there are lines of yachts as if strung together, all following the same invisible path and not one boat to be seen anywhere else. Our destination at Tyrrisot was tiny and almost full, only space on the harbour wall where together with a Swedish boat we bounced mercilessly up and down as every motor boat sped past. Our stop there lasted 30 minutes during which time the charming young woman on the other boat said "go to a nature harbour like us - there are hundreds - it is so easy." So we did, finding Missjö only a mile away, one of two small sausage shaped islands side by side with a 50 Mtr gap between. Hundreds of these natural harbours are clearly mapped and described in a series of Swedish sailing reference books which luckily for us are also printed in English. Either anchor and swing or stern anchor and tie to a rock to get in close - like 1 Mtr from the rock! We tried the later but didn't get it tight enough for safety so pulled it all up, plus grey mud, and used the main anchor.

It had been hot enough to convince me to swim - I got into my bathers and started off down the ladder with goggles and all ( not greased though ) but by the time the water had come up to my expectations Jane said I was being silly and come out at once - heart attack etc. I didn't need a further excuse but the following morning three young women from a boat a few hundred mtrs away dived in and swam past like mermaids at top speed doing about half a mile in all and chatting all the way - fit or what. Jane said one of them had nothing on but my eyes aren't what they once were.

One of the surprising facilities provided on most of these uninhabited island pull-ins are quaint wooden dry toilets built among the trees - serviced with the all essentials by some mysterious unseen beings of the woods and I imagine all very ecological.

On with nature - but what should we see on our way from the island to Arkosund but a Smooth Snake swimming about half a mile off shore. He stopped to look at us in passing then flopped lazily onwards, thick dark body, flat head and a poor swimmer. A reasonably rare sighting and no doubt on identification - a first for both of us. Incidentally, before I forget, two days later we still hear cuckoos and this the second week of July. The bikes came out at Arkosund. A town up a long fjord with many lovely painted houses peeping through the trees, I love that tendency to avoid spoiling nature by clearing a plot down to the water but let the house dissolve into the natural forest.

Sorry, more nature, on our 16 Km round trip an Apollo butterfly followed us for a while and finally settled on some clover - now he is rare - on the red endangered list, living in only a few Scandinavian countries and the Alps. What a fine fellow he makes himself up to be.

I cannot imagine why I should find it so surprising to see a fishing boat crammed to the gunwhales with sheep. How else do they get them from island to island, and cows too, but powering out of the harbour one morning was a floating flock, all smiling that they were off to pastures new. You would have laughed.

I am still not allowed to forget that I had a go at the harbour staff at Nyköping where in spite of being situated at an international canoeing centre, the "bathroom" facilities were minimal, there was no hot water in the showers and the electricity sockets were old - some did not work. Well, that being the first complaint in over seven weeks - not bad. At one time, this was the capital of Sweden and a major port until rising land levels made the access commercially untenable when the 5 mile winding river levels became too shallow. It required a team of pilots to navigate a safe passage in those days with a charming faded green wooden Pilot House still standing on the quay where I sat and sketched - now a restaurant where we ate that night. That evening the harbour-side thronged with crowds - Wednesday night is come out to play night in Nyköping with this weeks treat - a vintage car rally. Everything from an Austin A35 to what looked like one of every car Volvo and Saab ever made and I don't know why but we were the most unusual in not having a tattoo or our bodies pierced. Even our sweet little waitress had a nut and bolt through her tongue - J said she could take it out - why would I put it in I ask myself.

Now to a really super nature harbour at Ringsön, an island shaped like a 2 mile long number "3" with seven little island in the middle. So protected, so beautiful and so much room, there were about 80 boats the day we were there and room enough to be in isolation if that is what you wanted. A great barbecue on the rocks and - dare I mention it - the same number of loos in the trees as that marina which I told you had wound me up but these even had magazines to read ( Swedish of course. ) The woodland creatures had done well.