Back in Sweden

Here is a quick overview of our travels while not cruising on Mantra. Along with our kids, Katya and Matthew, we went on the annual Rodgers Family Beach Vacation, a tradition started about 65 years ago. All 35 members of the clan gathered in Ocean City, Maryland, from July 18-25, to relax, play games, eat too much food and enjoy the beach and the ocean.

Sherri, Matthew, Peter and Katya at the beach

The Rodgers family in Ocean City, Maryland

Sherri and Lori together 

My friend Lori was the only one of her family able to be with us (She and her family have been part of the tradition for a couple decades) and she only had the weekend because she and her husband have just bought a condo in Boca Raton, Florida. 

This was not planned far in advance, and we expected to spend time with her in Washington, D.C. after a pleasant, sun-filled vacation on the shore. Even though she was not home in D.C., we went to stay at her place for a week, enjoying time with her two adult children and the museums and sights of Washington. 

Sherri on a sculpture by Gillie and Marc in the "Wild Race Against Time" installation

Peter enjoying a jazz performance in the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden

On August 2, we flew to Brussels, where we were picked up by our former exchange student Sam who, with his wife Emi, recently became proud parents of Marius. They live near Lìege. We spent a couple days visiting with the three of them as well as Sam's family and Emi's family, whom we have become friends with over the years.

Peter with Bigo and Marius

Peter, Emi, Sam, Marius and Sherri

Next, it was off to London on August 5, where we stayed with our friend Liz and had dinner with Matthew at her place in Wapping. Liz, Peter and I flew the next day to Gibraltar for a weekend of celebration of the marriage of our niece Immie and Miguel. The ceremony on Saturday was lovely, and the meals and parties before and after were amazing. It was nice to be able to spend time with Peter's brothers and sisters-in-law as well as British friends, Immie's family on Susie's side, and Miguel's Spanish family and friends. 

Peter's brother Mike and Peter on the Windsor Bridge, Rock of Gibraltar

Miguel and Immie

Monday, August 10, we returned to London, spent another night with Liz and then flew to Stockholm the next morning. Arriving at our boat at 3 p.m., we just had time to clean, fire up systems and make a run for provisions before 7 p.m., when a new local friend, Johan, stopped by for drinks and conversation.

On the morning of August 11, we motored into the city of Stockholm and docked at Wasahamnen on the island of Djurgården, where we were met on the dock by Peter's cousin Desmond and his partner Cindy, who were with us until noon today. After settling them in on board, the four of us walked the short distance to the Vasa Museum, a place we were told we must visit by nearly everyone we met in Europe when we mentioned we were going to be in Stockholm. The museum houses the recovered warship Vasa, which sunk 1,300 meters (1,400 yards) into her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628. After spending 333 years on the seabed in Stockholm Harbor, she was salvaged in 1961. She has been displayed in the museum since 1990 along with artifacts, reproductions of carvings, preserved skeletons and clothing of some of the people on board who could not escape and other displays. The size of the ship is almost overwhelming; the hull is 156 feet in length and the beam is 38 feet, and her mainmast is estimated to have been 172 feet in height from the keel. Almost 98% of the ship, including the the hull, the four decks, rigging, cabins, and elaborate decorations, is intact.

One of the main features of the Vasa is the customary decorations with sculptures meant to glorify the authority, wisdom and martial prowess of the monarch and deride, taunt and intimidate the enemy. Imagery reflects Greek and Roman mythology as idealized during the Renaissance and Biblical stories and characters. Many of the figures are in Dutch grotesque style, including fantastic and frightening creatures, mermaids, wild men, sea monsters and tritons. All the decorations were painted in vivid, guady colors and accented in gold leaf.

The Vasa was built on the orders of the King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus, who wanted total control of the Baltic, during a war with Poland-Lithuania (1621-29). Designed by the Dutch master shipbuilder Henrik Hybertsson, and built in Stockholm by private contractors in 1626-28, primarily by Dutch shipbuilders, she was armed with 58 bronze cannons and 6 howitzers cast specifically for the ship and richly decorated to show the power and ambition of the Swedish monarch and the nation. A great deal of attention was given to details, but, unfortunately, not as much scrutiny was placed on the seaworthiness of the vessel. She was dangerously unstable, with too much weight in the upper structure and insufficient ballast in the keel, causing her to list and then sink when hit by a light breeze. Contributing to the disaster was the fact that the gun ports were open to allow for a salute to be fired. Two mild gusts caused the ship to heel to port. Righting herself after the first one, she began to take on water through the lower gun ports when the second hit. The incoming, gushing water quickly exceeded the Vasa's minimal righting ability and she sank with up to 30 people perishing on board.

The king was impatient to have her launched and stationed as the flagship of the Swedish navy in the Stockholm Archipelago, and the king's subordinates lacked the political courage to inform him of the instability of the ship and ask for a postponement. With great fanfare and people lining the waterfronts of the islands of Stockholm to see her, the Vasa set off with the only wind being a light breeze from the southwest. She departed from the Royal Palace and sunk 20 minutes later near the bluffs of Tegelviken across from the island Beckholmen, coming to rest in 32 meters of water.

Early efforts to raise the Vasa were unsuccessful. In 1663-65, a team of Swedish and Finnish divers retrieved more than 50 of the guns. Further attempts at salvage were minimal until in 1956, an amateur archaeologist, Anders Franzén, using a home-made, gravity-powered coring probe, located a large wooden object off Beckholmen, leading to the recovery of the ship in 1961. Although thousands of iron bolts  decomposed within a few years of sinking, much of the organic material was preserved in the anaerobic conditions of the Baltic Sea, including wood, cloth, leather and human bones held together by clothing. Many of the sculptures still retain areas of paint and gilding. The preserved materials offer much detail about life in the early 17th century in Sweden. 

Stern decorations

Model of the ship as she would have looked when launched

Model and the actual Vasa

Vasa with only partial mast height

The history of the Vasa and of Sweden at the time is fascinating, and the museum is one of the best we have ever visited. There is much more that I could write about, but it's very late for dinner, so I will add a few photos and write more about our time in the Stockholm Archipelago tomorrow.

Near Saltsjö-Duvnas

On Sunday, June 12, we pulled up anchor at 11:20 a.m. in Varnöfladen. The weather was lovely but the wind was only briefly above 10 knots, so we only sailed a short distance before resorting to the engine. 

Our next destination was Napoleonviken. Surprise! We discovered that it was the destination of dozens of other boats when we steered into the long entrance to the well-protected harbor. We had already determined that the Scandinavian way of dropping a stern anchor and then maneuvering up to the rocks and taking a line to shore would not work for us since we have a plumb bow and a bowsprit. Without really going into the large anchorage area (which, as we found out later while on the paddle board, had lots of space), Peter decided to stop and try Med mooring with modifications. We dropped the bow anchor, then Peter hauled the stern anchor, chain and rode up from the forepeak and back to the swim platform. He attached the line at the beam of the boat and dropped the anchor of the starboard side of the stern. Then he took his paddle board and carried a line to shore and tied it to a tree. The whole process took an hour; just dropping the main anchor would have taken less than 10 minutes!

Although the sun was shining brightly, he had chosen to place us to the east of a tree-covered ridge, so we were in the shade, and I missed the warmth of the sun. He went out to explore on his paddle board while I chose to read a book. When he returned, he suggested we both go on land. I sat on the front of the paddle board while he took us to a tiny cove. We were able to get out on the weed-choked shore and climb up a short distance to see Mantra in her shadowed spot. 

Peter off on his paddle board

Mantra backed into the rocky shore

Sunset glow on the ridge on the opposite shore

This morning, Peter continued splicing a loop into a long line and I cleaned all the fenders. Around noon, we started to free ourselves from out three-point anchoring system. Untying the line to the shore was simple. The stern anchor, which was actually off the starboard side, was more of a challenge. While Peter let out chain on the bow anchor to created slack in the stern anchor line, I labored to pull the line in and free the anchor. A couple times, Peter came to the cockpit and used the winch handle while I tailed the line; finally, the tension eased and he returned to the bow. Still, the anchor would not budge. Peter returned and we struggled together until we could see the anchor--embedded in a 15-20 meter decaying tree trunk! Well, that explained the difficulty we were having. Finally, with me at the wheel, Peter raised the bow anchor and we were off. It only took 45 minutes!

Peter going to the bow to raise the anchor

We then headed north, meandering around the numerous islands and rocks to get to Saltsjö-Duvnas, where I had arranged to leave the boat for four weeks while we make a few journeys by air and car. However, the yacht haven by that name where we stopped was a private marina. We were in the wrong place! And the man with whom I had spoken just the previous day was not answering his phone! And I had not eaten a meal for about 7 hours. It was a desperate situation. Peter remained calm as we cast off and turned back to a small marina we had passed while I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

We were surveying it and wondering where we might berth if this was the correct place when the owner, Pers, returned my anxious calls and directed us into the marina. Peter steered us in and we tied up to a beautiful, brand-new dock at a marina in a relatively remote place. Pers, a very friendly and helpful man, arrived about a half hour later, welcomed us and told us we were on the wrong dock! (Once again, a private dock) But we were in the right marina at least. The wind was up, and we agreed that it would be best to wait for it to diminish before moving to our designated place.

I was starting to lay out clothes and gifts to pack when Peter called down to tell me a man to whom we had been referred by an English expat living along the Göta Canal was coming to visit. He had waved to us as they passed us at the last anchorage. Only a short time later, Johan and his wife Elizabeth arrived. They live nearby and have a large powerboat. They brought us rhubarb pie and we chatted. With their help, and that of Pers, who happened to return to the marina at that time, we brought the bow of Mantra into a Y-dock and tied up alongside a pier. Peter is now working to secure her for four weeks. Pers will return in the morning to review the weekly checks we have requested.

So, we are almost set to fly to the U.S. on July 15. We are staying at a hotel at the Stockholm airport tomorrow night because our flight is at 7:30 a.m. First we will go to Rochester, New York, where our daughter Katya is now living. After a couple days there, the three of us will drive to Ocean City, Maryland, for the annual Rodgers family beach vacation. Matthew is flying on Friday from London to Washington, D.C., and he and our good friend Lori will drive to the beach on Saturday. 

Matthew, Katya, Peter and I will stay at Lori's house in Washington for a couple days after the week's holiday at the beach. Peter and I return to Europe on August 2 and will go to Lìege to see Sam and Emi and their new baby boy Marius as well as there families. Then, we fly to London to meet up with Liz and all fly to Gibraltar for the wedding of our niece Immie (Liz's god-daughter) and her fiancé Miguel. 

On August 11, we return to Mantra, and the blog posts will resume then.

Varnöfladen

It's mid-morning on Sunday, July 12. We are still anchored in the middle of Varnöfladen, having enjoyed a relaxing day here all day yesterday. Peter worked on splicing and repairing lines and on other tasks. For breakfast, I made bread pudding with the sweet bilberries we picked and stale bread, enough to last the two of us a couple days. I also created an colorful and attractive salad for lunch and a couscous with fried vegetables for dinner. We only have a couple more days before we fly to the U.S., so my challenge is to use all the fresh food in the refrigerator and all the fruit, most of which we bought a few days ago in Söderköping.

Fat dragonfly on my shoulder on Friday evening

I also spent some time dangling my feet in the warm water while sitting on the swim platform, fascinated by the slim blue and black dragonflies that darted and danced all around me and sometimes landed on my skin. It was a lovely place for reading a book; it was true vacation mode.

Two dragonflies on my leg

Dragonflies exploring my feet

We blew up the stand-up paddle board later in the day and Peter, like a gondolier, paddled me around this bay. We stopped to say hi to a boat moored Scandinavian style on the shore and invited the man and his two teenage children over to see our boat and talk about the archipelago after dinner. They arrived about 8:30 p.m. First, we showed them around the boat; the man and his 17-year-old son were fascinated by her size, electronics and engine room. Then we looked at some of the charts he had brought over. The archipelago is well-charted and literally offers endless opportunities for exploring, with over 24,000 islands or skerries, few of them inhabited. 

Mantra from the paddle board

There was no breeze yesterday evening which meant that the mosquitoes were everywhere. After our new friends left, we closed ourselves in and spent the next 45 minutes getting ready to go to bed and killing dozens of mosquitoes. Our level of success was so great that we were not annoyed by them at all when our heads sunk into our pillows around 11:30. Once again, it was a late bedtime, which meant that we slept in until around 9 a.m., although Peter woke up around 6 and was reviewing stocks on his phone in bed before succumbing to sleep with the gentle rocking of the boat, like being in a cradle. 

We are off to another anchorage now and will get to our berth in a couple days, where we will leave Mantra for four weeks. We are sad that our schedules did not match up and that we missed seeing Aunt Helen from Cape Town a couple days ago. 

Söderköping, Sweden and the Baltic

Another lock keeper's house converted to a private home

Because we missed the last bridge opening by three minutes as we were traveling east in the Göta Canal on Monday, July 6, we spent a quiet night with no other boats or people around us in Vänneberga. We cast off at 9:20 a.m. on Tuesday, July 7, and the bridge opened for us. Then, we went through to sets of double locks and four single locks. At one of the single locks, we had to tie up on a waiting dock for a westbound passenger ship to come through. This gave us a great opportunity to see one of these boats, specifically designed in width and length to use the locks of the Göta Canal, maneuver in and out of the lock. It's a pretty tight fit. The Wilhelm Tham, like all the others, employs on each side a couple dozen wooden poles as fenders. They look like young pine or birch trunks stripped of their bark. Wood is abundant in this part of Sweden, and rubber or synthetic inflatable fenders could not take the beating in the locks. This was plain to see as the Wilhelm Tham left the lock and passed by us. Some of the fenders were shredded. The captain or a mate tossed one that had been ruined from an upper deck to the shore just before leaving the lock. They must keep a supply of new ones on board.

Wilhelm Tham tightly fitting into a lock

The ship with its port side fenders

Three well-used fenders

The ship in the next lock to the west

At 12:15 pm., we stopped at Söderköping to wait for a storm to pass over and have lunch on shore. This large town is a tourist destination and was more lively than others we have visited on the eastern part of the Göta Canal. Since the weather did not look as if it would improve significantly, we decided to stay the night. 

After lunch, we went to the large supermarket, a 10-minute walk away. Grocery stores of any size had been pretty limited since we departed Gothenburg. We were out of milk and fresh fruit and vegetables as well a Coke Zero! We stocked up and carried six bags of provisions back to the boat on the dock.

Mantra in Söderköping

After that, we walked through part of the town. In the early middle-ages it was the most important port in Sweden at the confluence of the Storån and Lillån rivers, trading mainly with Lubeck, principally in salt, textiles, butter and beer. Silting eventually led to its demise as a trading center. However, the lovely, stone-constrained rivers still flow as unnavigable streams through the older part of the town and are crossed by pretty pedestrian bridges.

Pedestrian bridge over a river in Söderköping

Pedestrian bridge over a river in Söderköping

The former municipal center of town is flanked by three-story masonry buildings, the most impressive being the ochre-colored Rådhuset (Town Hall), built in 1776, which now houses an art gallery. We strolled a bit farther and came to the Hagaparkens, with its gardens created in the mid-19th century. This area wa a market place in the Middle Ages.

Rådhuset and the town square

Fountain by the Hagaparkens

Entrance to Hagaparkens

Flower beds in Hagaparkens

A few blocks away is the St. Lawrence's Church and its unique separate wooden bell tower. The church, built entirely of brick in the Gothic style, was erected in the 13th century as a three-nave basilica. A major fire occurred in 1494; the church was rebuilt as a hall church and then reconsecrated in 1497. The edifice has not protruding apse; both the east and west ends have straight facades the end in crow-stepped gables. The interior, with its vaulted ceilings, is white-washed.

West facade of St. Lawrence's Church

In the 15th century, the blind windows on the exterior were beautifully painted with scenes from the Bible and of saints. During renovations in the 1965, a rune stone dating from the late 10th or early 11th century was found in one of the walls and is now situated outside by one corner of the church.

Viking era rune stone

The 50-meter tall, asymmetrical, black wooden bell tower soars above the lawn beside the church. Built in 1583, it contains four tons of bells. The entire structure is covered in large shingles, matching the shingles on the church roof, and both the whole tower and the church roof are covered with tar on a regular basis for preservation.

Even though we had just purchased food, we decided to have dinner out and were once again lucky to find a place with great carnivore and vegetarian entries. 

In the morning, we took ashort walk along the trails across the canal. A 70-meter cliff wall rises above the town, created by faulting between 400 and 300 million years ago, and features exposed bedrock from the Svecokarelian orogeny, mostly granite, granodiorite, gneiss and amphibolite. The mountain, Ramunderberget, contains deep ravines. The rocky cliff provides a warm, relatively dry environment for plants, including rare species. The cliff is included in the Ramunderberget Nature Reserve, which also features spruce and pine forest, deciduous forests, gullies, marshes, meadows, cultivated fields and flat-rock areas. 

We climbed 318 steps and paths to reach the viewpoint for the town of Söderköping and the surrounding area. Following the trail signs, we walked through forest and descended by a different route to the canal.

The Göta Canal from the viewpoint

Peter at the viewpoint

St. Lawrence Church and Bell Tower from the viewpoint

During our short walk, we had decided that we wanted to do a longer hike. Back at the boat, I made sandwiches, we packed our rain jackets (because precipitation is always a possibility here), binoculars and water in a day pack and set off after fueling up with ice cream for me and a fresh strawberry, pistachio, chocolate and whipped cream concoction for Peter and making a quick detour to St. Lawrence's Church. It had been closed the previous evening and we wanted to see the interior with its high vaulted ceilings, graves at the altar and artwork. Since it was sunny, it was also easier to see the details of the exterior and the bell tower. 

The bell tower

The ornate pulpit

A carved gravestone on the floor at the altar

The interior of the church

We chose the 9-kilometer Borgberget trail, which makes a loop around the reserve and past farm fields. The Swedish "right to roam" practice allows anyone to access public or private land and water, including woods and fields, and it is permitted to pick berries, wildflowers and edible mushrooms and to camp for a short time almost anywhere in nature. 

The trail took us briefly east along the canal and then we ascended to the top of Ramunderberget. From there we headed east along the plateau, came to edge of it on the north side and descended into the large valley stretching to the west, the spring green of the fields contrasting with the darker greens of the deciduous trees, spruce and pine on the land above. We walked north along the east end of the valley and then ascended to another mountain, Borgberget. After going up and down many times into ravines and up to the flat rock areas, sometimes over rocky terrain, we made it to the hill fort, the site of Sweden's largest mainland fortress. The ruins indicate that large, uncut stones were hauled from the surrounding area to form a fairly high wall, but most of the fort has fallen down or been covered with centuries of earth and vegetation.

Peter on the trail

Ferns, lichen, bushes and trees in the forest

Cow wheat flowers on the forest floor

Peter by the hill fort ruins

Continuing on along the ridge of Borgberget, we stopped to eat our sandwiches on some granite boulders. Afterwards, we stopped from time to time to collect bilberries and bog bilberries, which grow in patches together, in one of our empty containers. From the ridge at one point we could spot a pond to the north.

Bilberry bush in front of a bog bilberry bush

Berries free for the picking

Shallow pond through the trees

We then descended into the valley and walked along or through fields of wheat, flax, and broad beans before ascending the west end of Ramunderbergen and into the forest. 

Wheat field

Farm buildings and fields rimmed by wildflowers

This mountain is named, according to legend, for the giant Ramunder, who abducted a young nun named Ragnhild and held her captive on top of the mountain. She converted him to Christianity, he repented taking her and released her. When she returned to the monastery, she was accused of losing her virginity and was sentenced to death by burning at the stake. However, before she could be burned, a spring burst forth and put out the fire. 

Bird song accompanied us during much of our hike, and we heard and were fairly sure we saw the indigenous black woodpecker. We absolutely identified the pretty European greenfinch, another lifer for us. I was intrigued by the reddish-brown, slimy slugs on the paths along the fields. This species, Arion vulgaris, is an invasive agricultural pest, having spread across much of Europe and now into North America since the 1950s, but I thought it was attractive. 

Spanish slug

Luckily, rain did not fall during our hike. Having had little aerobic exercise lately, we were tired and felt we deserved one of the ice cream creations at Smultronstället, which is famous for its fanciful desserts. They are enormous and tasty, and we counted them as dinner! However, we think they are bit over-rated.

Our treats

The next morning, Thursday, July 9, we cast of the dock in Söderköping near 10 a.m., passed by the opened bridge and proceeded through the last three single locks, exiting the Göta Canal at 11 a.m. and entering Slätbaken, a deep bay on the west side of the Baltic Sea. We anchored for lunch near Arkäsund and enjoyed the scenery before. We raised anchor without turning on the engine and set sail on a port tack on a beam reach in 12 knots of wind from the north. Unluckily, the wind dropped to 8 knots after an hour and a half, and the engine had to be fired up. We anchored in a lovely place at nearly 10 p.m. as the twilight started. Other boats were also anchored in the area Scandinavian style, which is where you take the bow right up to bare rock, have someone leap off and secure lines to the shore and drop a stern anchor. This allows you to get to shore without a dinghy, kayak or stand-up paddle board, which most of the boats do not carry.

Ramunderberget from the east

Peter after exiting the last lock

Sunset photo taken at 11:45 p.m., two hours after the sun disappeared

In no particular hurry, we pulled up anchor around 11:00 a.m. this morning and motored (No wind again!) NNE in a meandering way passed the islands of the Stockholm Archipelago, which number over 24,000. The place where we planned to anchor looked crowded when we grew near (We could see 5 masts.), so we changed our route and headed to Varnöfladen, a protected marine area within the Sundby Nature Reserve. The entrance is narrow and quite shallow and we crept in quite timidly, with the depth meter showing 0 meters for a short distance. We dropped anchor in clay just before 6 p.m., with plenty of hours of daylight and sunshine left. There are plenty of water fowl, and the water is rimmed with areas of reeds, bare granite and trees coming down to the edge.

Mantra having made it through the narrow, shallow passage without touching bottom

The showers at the marina facilities at Söderköping had been pathetic, with the water never getting hot enough, the pressure low, and the shower head about 3 meters above the floor. I opened the stern gate to the swim platform and got out our towels, shampoo and soap and was ready to jump into the water. Peter had spotted jellies when he was dropping anchor, so I hesitated and ended up just sitting on the platform with my feet in the water. Near the surface, a multitude of jellies pulsated past, their bells transparent with a rosy rim and center. They did not sting. I even picked some out of the water in my hand to observe them more closely. Peter handed down the novel I am now reading, and I lounged there at the stern, enjoying the warmth of the late afternoon sun before finally standing up and showering.

Peter and I finished our card game, and he took a brief swim and a shower. Now it is time for dinner, late as usual. We plan to relax and enjoy this lovely place all day tomorrow.