That is the one and only consolation that I can think of as the dismal summer weather continues. We've been out for nearly three weeks and have not really had a decent summer day yet. While the photos may suggest otherwise, it has generally been cold and rainy. We don't tend to take photos under those conditions, but wait for the patches of sun that appear. What a contrast to Australia at the moment, suffering under a terrible drought and with a surfeit of sunshine. I wish we could do some kind of international swap - I'll send you a big serving of rain and you could reciprocate with precious SUNSHINE. But not too much....




I ought to stop whining, as the sun has actually peeped out today, albeit very shyly. The notoriously unreliable Swedish weather forecast says that it will rain again tomorrow. Boy am I quickly tiring of that particular forecast. The other worrying bit of news is that they are forecasting extremely strong westerly winds, possibly up to a strong gale, in this region over the next few days. This is most unusual for the time of year, as in summer we often get light winds in the archipelago. This sustained period of quite strong, gusty conditions is a little out of the ordinary. But the scenery is still lovely.




A decent bout of summer is really important in this relatively dark, cold country. I used to be highly amused by the Swedish adoration of sun and light and the enthusiasm with which they greet the onset of summer. Having lived most of my life in "the sunburnt country" I was pretty blasé about sunshine. It was something one expected to appear almost daily, so no cause for a big deal. I have changed quite a lot now that I've experienced the winter darkness, those weeks and weeks where everything is grey and the world is cold, silent, monochrome and lifeless. Unless you have experienced it, you cannot know how bleak that can be. If you live in a land of sunshine and evergreen trees, you can't know how depressing the sight of bare, skeletal trees in a monochrome landscape can be. And how much one can long for warmth, sunshine and light.




Anyway, enough about that. We had to move the boat at about 3am because we were moving closer and closer to that little skerry we had tied the boat to. It was too tight to reset the anchor - really this cute little bay at Örnklubbarna is only suitable in stable, calm weather. If we had been smarter we would have moved the boat as soon as we heard the weather forecast in the afternoon. But we were in denial. Fortunately, while it was windy, it was a clear, moonlight morning and it was a quick job to shift her a couple of nautical miles to the north to Griskär.




It is the same group of islands where we spent midsummer. We had thought about going a little further north to the next group of islands but decided that this one would be less crowded and an ideal place to wait out any wild weather, protected as we are in a roomy pond surrounded by land on all sides. The wind can blow from and direction and we will still be fine.




When the sun made an appearance, we went on a tour with the dinghy around the islets. It is really beautiful here, even on an overcast day. It was quite a complicated labyrinth, but we found a perfect spot out of the wind to set up our picnic on a rock overlooking the pretty flowers and the water. This area is part of the Stendörren Nature Reserve, which was established in order to preserve the area’s great natural environment. Set in a landscape of seacoast and archipelago, the reserve offers a variety of undisturbed natural ecosystems and habitats, including everything from fertile shoreline meadows and dense spruce woods to rocky terrain with dwarf pines and reindeer moss. The old farmstead at Griskär includes both small plots of cropland as well as wooded pasture. The agricultural landscape is kept open by grazing sheep, which we heard bleating piteously, but never actually saw. Perhaps it was a tape recording. Or a new breed of invisible sheep. :)




You can see quite clearly that the whole landscape is greatly influenced by the adjacent Baltic Sea, which is seldom more than a stone’s throw away. At various times in its history, the waters of the Baltic have alternated between fresh and salt. At present, it is a brackish mixture of both and is also experiencing problems caused by over-fertilisation and the dumping of toxic substances. but here, things still look healthy and pristine and there is an astonishing variety of plant like flourishing here.




In the woods you can see marsh tea, wild berries and several different species of sphagnum moss. Among the numerous pines in these rocky areas grow crustose lichen, wavy hair grass as well as several species of the foamy grey-green lichen known as reindeer moss. We collect this at Christmas time to put around our advent candles.

Growing closer to the shoreline are common centaury, strawberry clover and silverweed. A little closer to the water’s edge, one may encounter saltwort and common valerian, while out on the bare rock ledges can be found chives, yellow
stonecrop, wild pansy and sheep’s sorrel. Some area look like an amazing sort of cottage garden. Very, very pretty.




Sadly the rain came again and we scurried back to the boat. I rearranged some of our provisions while Lars-Göran did a few minor repairs here and there. The long range forecast for the next week does not look like being much better than this. Is it going to be like this all of summer?

It seems that Sweden is at the crossroad of a low pressure superhighway, with low systems and cold fronts sweeping at us from all directions. They are literally queued up waiting to have a go at us. There is rain and storms sweeping in across the Atlantic from Iceland, another frontal storm system off the Irish Sea heading our way, cold, dry arctic air traversing Siberia and making its way to Sweden and a deep low pressure system lying still over the region of Southern Sweden/Poland/Germany bringing drenching rain over that region.

While it is nice to be on board, we are both feeling restless and want to sail. We are tired of waiting out wet weather and foul winds in bays and are keen to feel the breeze in our hair and watch the islands float by. We need a glimmer of light and most of all the prevailing south-west winds to help us. I hope tomorrow is more promising.

And you will notice that this is posted at seven minutes past seven on the seventh of the seventh in the year two thousand and seven. Yep, 07:07, 07/07/07. Why? Well, because I can....