Josin’s 2022 Summer Cruise, post #3.

I have given up trying to post the first one, which was written as a page by mistake, (this year’s start-up fumbles), and it is there in the app, but despite my, and kind advisor’s, best efforts, remains seemingly locked there. I see that some of my readers have seen it somehow, so further efforts would seem unproductive.

So, where are we now? Långedrag marina, (57 40.0/011 50.8) just south of, and outside Gothenburg. Over 500 boats, in moorings, (very few available), of the type popular in Sweden, where there are two scratchy, solid wooden poles between which you squeeze you shiny boat, looping lines over both the poles as you go past and hanging on to them so that you don’t bash the bow. Don’t forget to put the engine in reverse-then-neutral at the critical moment and at the same time avoid bumping the neighbours. Quite a lot of things to do all at once for a solo sailor. This procedure obviously needs practice.

Update after post #2: We continued south from Grebbestad, first a short way to a blue buoy at Musöen (58 38.2/011 14.3) in the rain. Next day a splendid sail for three hours to Långöy (58 29.4/ 011 18.0), where a cookoo sounded a welcome. SW wind blew hard during the night, (these blue buoys are safe!), and even the gulls, ducks, geese and swans took shelter somewhere out of sight. (Never saw the cookoo!)

Next day the wind had quietened down a bit, but was even more southerly, so back to motoring inside the islands, and through the Sote canal. And there it was the dreadful fate befell a too-busy-to-see-where-he-was-going captain. No, not that serious, but an interesting lesson none-the-less.

Pictures! Blogs need pictures! Also with me in them! I keep forgetting. But then I remembered that my kind and generous children had given me a selfie-pole, selfie-stick (?). Rummage. Find. Instructions not really necessary. Extend. Mount iPhone. turn on. Click. Pic of distance, not me. Wrong camera. Switch. Ready now? All this before we entered the canal. The canal is generously provided with navigating signs, some the usual red and green pole, and some rather more solid, a sort of tryfid, (three-legged), in thick logs, painted at the top with the right colour, and most of them with a gull nested-sitting broody right on top.

Selfie: Very concentrated. You can see the tryfid we’ve just passed. Took several pics in my enthusiasm, but this was the only printable one. Then BUMP! A (luckily) glancing blow on the next tryfid, enough to wobble Josin and me, but no damage, except to my pride. Moral and lesson: Priorities shall be respected.

Then on to Lysekil, with some sailing when the angle was usable, for: Foodshop, yes. Water, yes. Lunch, yes, fish-and-chips. And diesel, no.

Then the short distance south, motoring, to a blue buoy at Slubbersholmen (name!), (58 03.8/011 27.2), again for another windy but safe night

That’s enough for one post, more later.

Alls well!