We were only planning a short sail today, basically out of Valdemarsvik fjord and then find an anchorage. Our primary reason for this was the lack of wind, we hoped that there would be a better breeze in the morning. We decided upon a group of islands just outside the mouth of the fjord, on page 144 of the excellent guide that we are using, the bible for all cruising types in these parts, entitled Landsort – Skanör and published by Nautiska Förlaget. The islands are called Bergholmen, Svedholmen, Långholmen, Grytsholmen and Lindholmen and between them they enclose a natural little harbour that is an excellent anchorage.

As we didn't have far to go and the weather wasn’t all that brilliant, dull and cool, we were in no hurry to leave so it wasn’t until 12:00 that, having said goodbye and our thanks to Anette, we started the engine to manoeuvre ourselves off the pontoon to head out to sea . Despite somewhat ambivalent statements that we’d read and heard, we really enjoyed ourselves here and would recommend Valdemarsvik to anyone.



We tried sailing out to sea and did in fact do so for some time but when the speeds were down to 1.4 – 1.8 knots we gave up and started the engine. The weather in the meantime was improving, we actually had some sun. It was one of those annoying times when there were huge swathes of blue sky but not over us, at least not much of the time.

Ironically, just as we were approaching our chosen anchorage, the breeze kicked in so we could have gone further but as the weather looked like it was deteriorating, we opted to stick to the plan and anchor. We came into the pool from the south, between Bergholmen and Lindholmen without mishap and anchored in 4 metres of water just off Grytsholmen, where the anchor sign is on the chartlet. It is a truly gorgeous spot and a wonderful anchorage, superb holding. Indeed, when we took the anchor up the next day the pointy bit was absolutely covered with a blue clay. There was no way that our anchor would have failed us!

There was not much to do for the rest of the evening boat-wise. In fact it became progressively cooler and the threatening rain happened. We consoled ourselves by watching an episode of Sebastian Bergmann, to get our Scandinavian fix.