Boatyard at Oxelosund where we began our holiday |
Our holiday home - moored at Rastaholm, Lake Malaren |
We arrived on one island in the Archipelago, successfully moored onto the rocks and were directed to the facilities which turned out to be a compost toilet, a 10 minute walk away through a swamp. What they didn't tell us was that no-one actually walks there, they all dinghy there, but we naively set off along a very overgrown path, slipping on wet rocks, sinking into bogs and under attack from ecstatic midges. I was badly bitten on my face and hands, the only exposed parts of me, and pretty traumatised. We left shortly afterwards to find a more civilised spot with an easy walk to the facilities and no midges. Mosquitoes though are a perennial problem on the water, particularly the lakes.
Another low was the day we motored across Lake Malaren to Strangnas - a charming lakeside town -starting out in glorious sunshine, anchoring in a quiet bay for my speciality boat lunch of feta cheese and couscous salad only for the skies to turn ominously black by 4pm leaving us motoring through torrential rain, thunder and lightning for two hours before arriving soaked in harbour to find it was full on a wet Wednesday! Luckily they managed to squeeze us in eventually - we are quite small and that can be an advantage - and we had a memorable outdoor supper with new friends Eva and Pieter under canvas at the crowded open-sided harbour restaurant, the rain still tipping down in sheets and running through the streets like a river, still dressed for warmth in our foul weather gear. The glamour of it all!
Strangnas, the morning after the storm |
Anchored at Sackholmen, Stockholm Archipelago |
Sunset at Sackholmen - Archipelago |
Rastaholm having a sunny moment... |
Slandokalve, Lake Malaren |
Gripsholm Castle, Mariefred, Lake Malaren |
Nacka Strand, Stockholm at Sunset |