Today we were heading back to civilization, namely the small town of Arkösund, about 20 miles away. The weather looked very promising, with a gentle F3 blowing from the SW, which meant that given our wind direction with luck, we could sail all of the way. At 09:15 then we had the engine on and by 09:30 we were on our way, under sail and with the anchor (not so muddy this time) safely stowed away. It was a beautiful sunny day with some cotton wool clouds in the sky and we settled down to enjoy the scenery.

When you have all day to get somewhere, it matters not what speed you do and as we were only managing 3 miles an hour, it's just as well that we had the time! There’s really not much to add to the journey, time passed most pleasantly and we arrived in the picturesque and almost deserted harbour of Arkösund by around 14:30 . As usual, we were welcomed by pleasant English-speaking staff who made us very welcome.

Our main reason for coming into harbour was to get some supplies and for the weekly laundry. Here in Sweden, there seems to be almost a monopoly in the larger harbours, in that they are all run by Pro-Marina. Their offer for Cruising Association members helps ie 10% discount , reducing the nightly fee to 250SEK but it is all inclusive, including the laundry facilities (just as in Vastervik)(but no swimming pool here). The local shop however, was something of a disappointment, there wasn’t much variety so we decided to try another harbour on Friday night, in Oxelösund. Another disappointment here was that again, the wifi didn’t work, at least it did in and around the office but the work to set up the repeating stations on the pontoons hadn’t been completed. That meant that I had to sit outside the office to get a signal and then it wasn’t all that good, so Skyping was kept to a minimum but I did manage a Holby download for Julie and also the last few episodes of the Archers so that we could keep up with the goings on in Ambridge. Very important!