During the middle of the night, both Julie and I were awake and were privileged to see a wonderful sight, the moon in all her splendour shining onto the calm water in the sound between the islands. I don't know whether it’s the clarity of the air or what it is, but it looked particularly clear and near, quite lovely.

The morning brought us clear skies, no wind and bright sun . It was so nice that by 09:30 we were sunbathing with our books – the air is still chilly but the sun’s rays are so pleasantly warming that they more than compensate. We enthusiastically decided that it would be nice to stay the whole day in this pleasant spot and so the decision was made.

By 11:30 our plans had changed. The wind picked up, clouds gathered and it was far too chilly to sit in the cockpit reading. We decided to give it till after lunch to see if it reverted to the early morning’s weather but sadly it didn’t, so at 13:45 we started the engine and after a brief struggle with the well-embedded anchor, we set off to Loftahammar, a small town a few miles away. After a 15 minutes we were able to sail as the wind was favourable, so under genoa we glided along at about 4 knots, weaving our way past the hidden rocks and staying 100% in the buoyed channel. It was really beautiful, trees coming right down to the water with pinkish granite rocks and blue water, all interspersed with immaculate houses and cabins dotted about, mostly painted a rufousy/sienna colour (I can’t tell you how long, with a poor internet signal, it took me to have a stab at that!) – anyway, it was beautiful and a real taster of what was to come over the next few weeks, we hope . The only sad thing about it is that it is well-nigh impossible to capture the scenery in a photograph. I include two but all they really show is trees and water – they do no justice for the overwhelming sense of 'unspoilt nature’ that one feels by being here, it really is lovely and it grows you.

By 16:30 we were in the harbour at Lofthammar, and the first thing we wanted was fuel. Now the fuel dock was down a narrowish channel with boats both sides, immediately downwind and with 16 knots blowing. I decided that the best approach was to turn the boat sideways on to the wind and with the aid of the bowthruster and the use of short bursts of forward and reverse, we could allow the wind to blow us down to the pumps, hitting the dockside very gently, broadside on. This we accomplished and once refuelled, we used the bowthruster again to force the nose round through the wind so we could get back out to find a berth, which we did, settling alongside in between lots of mooring buoys.

Once we were settled, I spent some time chatting to an elderly gentleman ‘Pete’ and his friend Lars, who had a 15m cabin cruiser and who seemed to have been everywhere, they had just come from Stockholm and were off to Copenhagen and then Norway. Pete was obviously wealthy, he was getting used to his ‘little’ boat as he was bored with having the worries of crew etc , which is why he’d traded down. He also told me that he had just turned down an invitation from Prince Philip to come to the jubilee celebrations ‘as he drinks too much’ (!). You never know who you might meet when sailing! I also chatted to a Dutch couple who were enthusiastic over the higher regions of the Baltic, whetting our appetite for going there.

Later on, I struggled mightily with the blog site – for some reason it won’t accept photos but after 90 minutes and only 4 photos posted, I gave up. Hopefully it will be fixed in the morning.