We woke up to a lovely day. Again I found myself thinking 'is this it?', are we now in summer at last? To be fair, the weather, certainly when compared to the UK, hasn’t been at all bad so far, it’s just frustrating that when you get lovely blue skies, the air stream is so cool that it takes the edge off one’s enjoyment. But having said that, it may not be as hot as Greece but it certainly isn’t as crowded either! How often in Greece or many other parts of the world, do you wake up to a solitary anchorage (the other boats had gone) and to lovely blue skies, with bird song all around and apart from that – silence. Wonderful.

We enjoyed it so much here that it was with reluctance that we started the engine at 11:00 and were off by 11:15 – this anchorage was so nice that it didn’t even muddy the anchor! Our destination today was another natural harbour, off the island of Nåttarö, a bay facing northwards and called Östermarsfladen, 13 miles away .

One of the joys of having all the time in the world and small distances to cover is that provided there is at least a zephyr of breeze (and of course it is in an acceptable direction) then one can sail and today, it was a Force 2 – 3 and from the south and we could – and we did. It was lovely. It took a while to get there but who cares? Östermarsfladen, according to the pilot, ‘is not very attractive as a harbour’ – by that he means there aren’t many areas you can tie the nose to a rock. As an anchorage, it is brilliant, it could happily and comfortably allow at least 100 yachts to anchor, safe from winds in any direction. The entrance was a little challenging, or at least care was needed to be taken as there was a hidden rock but once inside the pool, there were masses of options to choose from to anchor, which we did and by 14:30, we were there and sunbathing. Not much else to add to the day, apart from the fact that I tried to make Swedish meatballs (apparently we’d not bought the best make) tasty. I O.D’d on chilli and the balance of herbs in the tomato sauce wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t poison, it just wasn’t as good as it might have been. Next iteration will be more traditional, with onion gravy etc and if that doesn’t work, we’ll strike meatballs off the menu!