We have decided to head north fairly quickly to pick up our next crew from Nyköping rather than the original plan of Västervik. So we left Loftahammar fairly promptly at 8am heading north. This being archipelago though, it meant that sometimes we headed north, sometimes east and even a little bit of west occasionally – all necessitated by the archipelago activity of rock avoidance. Running north(ish) is a buoyed channel and for a while we followed this, but I had decided to take a slightly more challenging route in from the south to Harstena, so after about 20 miles we turned to the east and started weaving. Weaving means concentrating and bits were very narrow, but very beautiful. With the sun out we got some close views of some of the rocks! One in particular intrigued us firstly because there were some wierd moaning noises coming from, but secondly because the rock seemed to be moving …. As we got closer we realised that the rock was absolutely covered with seals. As well as the seals on the rocks, there were an equivalent number in the water, most of whom turned to watch us as we went past. A beautiful sight.
From there we headed on to Harstena – a lovely anchorage. A Finnish and Swedish boat had beaten us to the prime spots, but there was still plenty of space to anchor and we enjoyed a lovely evening just watching the world go by. A lovely way to finish the day after a 35.5 mile trip through a beautiful part of this section of coast – a coast which the Swedes call the Blå kusten – the Blue Coast. This encompasses the various archipelagos from Figeholm in the south to Norrköping in the north.
