The rain had passed and it looked like being a better day, albeit the wind was now blowing quite strongly back in its' usual direction, the SSW, which meant that it was engine on time, as we headed down the channel between the islands, to our next destination, only 10 miles away, the harbour on the island of Furusund. We were off and away by 09:00 and arrived, to put fuel in the boat, by 11:30 and soon afterwards, reversed into a berth and settled down for a cup of coffee in, wait for it, the hot sunshine!

The gap between Furusund and its neighbouring island Yxlan is quite narrow but the water is deep, and it is the fairway for all the large ships that frequently pass . Indeed, the name Furusund probably dates back to old Swedish, as the name for fairway was 'fur’. Furusund has quite a long history and one of its’ early important visitors was the Danish king, Christian I, who’s fleet anchored here on their way to Finland & Russia. Whilst they were here, they carved a compass rose in a rock on the water line and it remains to this day, from when it was carved in July 1463. The only difference is, it is now at least 2.5 metres above the water due to the land rising hereabouts, according to a ‘Coast’ programme I watched it can be as much as 1cm a year.

In the 1880’s, the island came up for auction and it was bought by the jeweller to the king, one Christian Hammer, who then proceeded to turn it into a fashionable spa resort and many fine houses were built during this period. Another famous visitor here around then was the author August Strindberg who spent quite some time here.

After lunch, two other famous visitors set off to explore a little . It’s funny stepping back on shore after a few days on the boat, the land can feel wobbly and just a little alien. We soon got over it however, and enjoyed our walk along flower-studded lanes with attractive houses as a backdrop and behind them, the sparkling blue of the sound. Quite lovely. Again, we were taken by the sense of order and peace and the utter quiet, it really is a very , very pleasant part of the world, especially when the sun shines. We were delighted to have, over our heads, another eagle, gliding its way to who-knows-where. Super.

We were unsuccessful in finding the compass rose but the charming staff at the marina soon put us right, it was only 75 metres away! Photo taken, (you can see how high it now sits), we went back to the boat for a while then went to the local petrol station –come supermarket for supplies. I’m sure it is a great place for petrol but as a supermarket, it didn’t rate. No bread, at all (tomorrow sometime after 11:00) no meat (tomorrow, sometime….) but it did have frozen prawns and some nice vegetables, so we bought the latter and elected to come back tomorrow for the prawns, I feel another Thai curry coming on.. They also sold ice and we decided to spoil ourselves and spend the £3.50 or so on a bag, so that we could have proper gin & tonics with a glass full of ice, well it was Sunday after all. Actually, no it was Monday but who cares?

As we’re in Sweden, I now have my dongle back, so internet access is less of a problem and I downloaded part 2 of ‘Wallander’ which we can get depressed to in another beautiful anchorage sometime in the future.