How was it?

Sweden and Norway

This part of the trip was very social and enjoyable! We greeted many friends on the way and had a great time! Thank you to all of you who so generously welcomed us! 💗

Over the North Sea

It was tough. The weather forecast that promised a fairly pleasant crossing for the 240 nautical miles ahead of us was not very good. Instead of the expected 8-9 second metres, we had 16-17 during a large part of the journey. The wind certainly came from the right direction but the lake was very rough, with 3-4 meter high waves from all directions. Very uncomfortable. Very hard for Ulf as well, who had to take care of almost all the steering himself because it was so difficult to steer and therefore didn't get much sleep. The rest of us learned and were able to relieve more and more. But it was no good with only one skilled helmsman.

British Isles

We visited Shetland, Fair Isle, Orkney, Inverness, went through the Caledonean Canal, towards Oban, Islay, Ballycastle and Bangor/Belfast in Northern Ireland and finally Carlingford and return home from Dublin.

It was fantastically beautiful, the locals were extremely nice and helpful and we met nice sailors on the way! However, I had a preconceived notion that Scots are boisterous pub people and that the streets would be lined with pubs filled with happy sing-alongs in Scotland. It was NOT like that. However, it was so in Ireland. Even the small village of Carlingford where Vita Vera winters is bursting with party-crazy people and Shire-like pubs.

Not much whiskey was bought. We contacted that a bottle of 18-year-old Laphroaig is SEK 300 cheaper at Systembolaget.

We also had our preconceptions about bad British food overturned. We ate quite a lot of local food and it was usually very good. Of course there was a lot of Haggis too. Very good, we think.

The weather

It's clear that we didn't expect any beach weather, we thought it would be something like a really lousy Swedish summer. Well, it was pretty cold. Usually no more than 14-15 degrees, a lot of rain and a lot of wind (in the wrong direction). We had some nice days, but they could be counted on one hand.

Our good guests

We had guests on board that we actually didn't know very well before. Nevertheless, it worked great, despite tight surfaces, cold, rain and wind. We had a really good time together and we all found our roles and contributed what we could.

Economy

We ate out at a restaurant way too much and given the poor exchange rate of the Swedish krona, it was very expensive. An important lesson for the next step is to budget properly.

Then, of course, we ran into mishaps that cost money. But you have to count on that and it's impossible to predict. However, household expenses can be influenced. Homework on that 🙄

Boat work

We actually didn't finish everything we had planned before the departure. It didn't feel good, but we would never have gotten away otherwise. However, we learn some lessons from this: you have to plan working hours and be disciplined. A whole lot of things happen that are more urgent to fix and then it is easy for the original list to remain unprocessed.

Electronics must be installed in good time if something turns out not to work as it should. We had bought new instruments which were installed just days before departure. The plotter broke after a week and needed to be replaced. Of course, all such things become much more complicated when you are not at home. Now we had kind friends at Gottskär outside Gothenburg who drove us around so we could pick up a new plotter. Thanks Ronny! 🙏