As Julie was in the shower and I was awaiting my turn, I heard a hail and, popping my head up through the front hatch, I saw that it was the Cattells bidding us farewell. Intrepid pair to leave so early!



We were somewhat later in leaving, managing to up-anchor at 09:45 . The wind was forecast to be 100% on the nose for our approach to Stockholm so we had no preconceptions of being able to sail and indeed that proved to be the case. On the way there, I called the marina that had been recommended to us, namely Navishamn, which is on the island of Djurgården, right in the city centre. The one that is slightly further in, Wasahamn, was deemed to be crowded and noisy so we followed our advice. The trouble is, it was the day after mid-summer's eve and Rasmus, the poor chap that finally answered the phone, had forgotten to switch the call through to his opposite number Omar, who was actually on duty. The point of this little aside is that I have never, ever, heard someone on the phone who so didn’t want to have been woken up, boy was he suffering!

One of the good bits about the route that we had opted for, for getting to Stockholm, apart from being the shortest, is that it takes you through a very narrow little canal at the top end of the wide Baggensfjärden and just north of Saltsjöbarden, called the Baggenststäket . This is so narrow that sections are covered by sound signals, to enable one to wait for a vessel to pass in a wider passing place. This, together with depths of only 3 metres and that’s in the middle of the channel, make it fun to navigate. In our case, we were lucky in that we didn’t have any altercations with approaching vessels – in fact had we been 5 minutes later, we would have really been squeezed to one side as a touristy old 1920’s day trip boat of about 200 tons turned in to the canal, just as we were exiting. She really would have entirely filled the channel!

Once clear, it was a further few miles down a steep sided gorge called Skurusundet and then, just round the corner as we entered the main shipping channel, was Stockholm in all its’ glory! What a cracking way to enter a city, it simply couldn’t be bettered!

We found Navishamn with no difficulty and Omar was there to help us with his lines. Coincidentally, the boat we were moored next to was the Moody 45 Deck Saloon that we have seen on several occasions and belonging to a really nice German couple, Paul and Brigit and of course, we invited them for a drink later. It was then that Paul told me that he was a mechanical engineer from the university of Aachen and that his design for a hybrid engine was being trialled on the boat. Basically it is a diesel-electric engine ie a conventional Yanmar marine engine that can either be used to drive the boat or it can top up banks of batteries or of course both. The novel thing is that the batteries, via an electric motor and drive belt attached to the main prop shaft, can independently drive the boat, so that if there is engine failure, one can have several hours’ worth of propulsion from the batteries. Also, if one just wants to use the prop for a brief time or in silence, one can just use the batteries. A novel idea and I wish him well.