What a contrast to yesterday evening! It was a simply gorgeous morning, there was hardly a ripple on the water at least initially and the only sound, apart from the gentle lapping of the water on the hull, was the cries of numerous species of birds, eg Canada geese, cormorants, arctic terns, common gulls and who knows what songbirds in the trees and bushes. It was simply idyllic.

To make the morning perfect, we decided to treat ourselves to a bacon & egg breakfast . The bacon hereabouts is similar to American bacon ie it is cut thinly and goes very crisp, it's rather good. Once we’d enjoyed it, we decided to make the most of the warm sun and the lack of breeze and we spent the remainder of the morning sunbathing. The temperature was just right, not too hot but pleasantly warm, a real treat.



All good things and so on and after lunch, we unhooked ourselves with some difficulty, the clay was really quite something, and at 13:30, set off to our next chosen spot, the island of Bondekrok, all of 11 miles away. Now the quickest way to get to the fairway was to exit through a narrow channel between a rock and yes, a hard place, namely the island of Grytsholmen. The pilot said that with care it was OK, so Julie was sent to act as rock-watcher and we proceeded out, safely thankfully.

Once in the fairway, we were able to stop the engine and sail in the SW F3 winds, a real pleasure . At this leisurely speed, about 5mph, you can enjoy the passing scenery and be quite relaxed and of course, the sunshine helped. However, it looked like this particular ingredient was about to become limited as the clouds were gathering and looked quite threatening.

The anchorage is described in the pilot as follows 'Bondekrok /Ängholmen’ (the smaller island that makes the sound between the two islands an anchorage)’is not an ideal natural harbour’ (ie you can’t easily moor by throwing out a stern anchor then approach the rocks with the bow and then tie it off)’but it deserves to be mentioned because of the pleasant, genuine environment with old boat houses and fishing huts’ – and that is why we chose it, lots of room for us to swing at anchor. It was about 1.5 miles off the fairway but in 40m+ water so we were quietly confident that we wouldn’t find an uncharted rock and this confidence this time was proved to be well founded, and we dropped the anchor at 16:30, with the rain staring 5 minutes later. Not bad timing!

After dinner of chilli, we spent a considerable part of the rest of the evening familiarising ourselves with the charts (we need to buy some more) and the pilot book that covers the islands and harbours that we will encounter during the next 11 days as we approach Stockholm.