Being the thoughts and writings of one Gustaf Erikson; father, homeowner, technologist.

This category contains posts about everything and nothing, or, in other words, I couldn't be bothered to find a category for them

Saturday, 2024-10-23

October cruise

The alumni gathering went to sea this weekend when we were invited onto Johan’s 32-footer based in Värmdö. We set off into a chill (around 10C) but sunny archipelago and set course for Sandhamn. The crew was Johan as captain, David and Calle as able seamen, and Jonas and yours truly as ballast.

After one and a half hours leisurly cruise we docked at Sandhamn and had lunch in the cockpit. After a coffee in the yacht club bar Jonas left us to go back to town, while the rest of the gang headed east, out to open sea.

The wind being more or less aft, we decided to hoist the spinnaker. This bumped our speed up to around 6 knots, but when we turned up into the wind to make the return leg to our planned overnight anchorage we had to take it in.

The route to the west was strewn with those reefs and boulders that make the Stockholm archipelago such an interesting place to sail in, but we managed by dint of having 3 lookouts and a GPS. With the sun setting we thought of checking the coming weather, which of course we did by visiting SHMI with a mobile phone. Based on this information we decided to lie in a bay facing south, as the wind was going to be northerly.

After some backing and filling we managed to find an anchorage. Calle made the first course, asparagus wrapped in proscuitto with mozarella. After we’d eaten this, Johan and David ascended a steep cliff with the help of a rope to barbecue the steaks. We ate them with rice and a sallad of ruccola and tomatoes. The dessert was pear halves with dark chocolate and some nice cheeses.

Replete with food and three bottles of wine, there wasn’t much else to do except go to bed. Despite the cold, we slept well.

Morning was early, cold, and full of dishes. But we managed to get underway quite soon and made good time make to the harbour.

All in all a very nice experience. Maybe a yearly tradition in the future?

Update 2024-10-18: pics are online at Mr.X.

Posted at 17:01, in the alt category. Comments [0]

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