WE arrived at Nykoping (pronounced nuushowping) on Monday 10th
June
Nykoping was our first experience of the dreaded mooring
booms. They consist of five to eight metre poles running from the pontoon
attached to a buoy at the outer end. They are too flimsy to stand on, have a
silly little eye on the end above the buoy, have no fendering on the pole, and
can easily scratch the hull because the boat fenders roll up off them. We managed to put a nice rub mark on the
hull! They are definitely the most unpopular of the many mooring systems used
in Sweden.
You can just make out the dreaded fingers, facilities and restaurant in the background
At Nykoping, after completing some maintenance work for a
couple of days, Pete jumped ship to travel back home to see his Mum while Keren
managed shipboard chores.
Nykoping is a nice little town as you can see from the pictures below:
Keren loves photographing sunsets!
Old warehouses by the harbour turned into cafes
Looking upriver to the town centre
The castle
Peter arrived back on board on Wednesday 21st June with Alan
and Anne Ramsden, and after a rest day to get over the journey we extricated
ourselves from the mooring and sailed down the long sound and through the
islands of the archipelago to Stendorran. A blustery 13 mile motor into a
strong easterly head wind, but very nice because the sun was shining and we
could admire the many scenic islands and sounds.
Typical archipelago pilotage. Attention required!
Stendorran (“stone door”, because of the rocks close
together at the entrance) is a very pretty totally enclosed natural harbour.
The islands are a nature reserve with pathways and a “naturum” (visitor’s
centre) with information on all the flowers, birds and beasts that inhabit the
archipelago.
Here we witnessed first-hand boats mooring bows to the
rocks. The technique is to drop a light stern anchor on a rope line and then motor to the
rocks on the shore where a crew member leaps ashore and secures to bow lines
either to rings provided, a nearby tree or into cracks in the rocks using
little pitons and a hammer. It all looks a bit of a palaver to us especially as
it is dependent on the boat being head to the wind to avoid it slewing
alongside the rocks. - Think we will stick to anchoring!
Swedish style rock mooring
Jomora style anchorage
On Saturday 22nd June we left Stendorran and had
a lovely downwind sail in the sun to Trosa. Quite a windy day with lots of
fairly intricate pilotage around the islands so we sailed with just the genoa,
furling and unfurling it to suit the wind and the need to see the buoys.
Chris and Jan on Wandering Star were at the Rosa marina to meet us and
watch our first mooring using stern buoys and bows to the pontoon. We have
bought a Swedish style mooring buoy hook for this exercise and it all went
according to plan! A lunch of Walenbogare (Swedish veal hamburger with mashed
potatoes), a walk round town, a rest in the afternoon and a boozy session
before dinner rounded of the day.
Starboard hand dunny (toilet)
Trosa
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