Stage 9 : The south coast of Sweden

Wednesday 4 July
We left early, because we had been warned that Swedish marinas are very full in school holidays, so it is as well to get there early. Unfortunately, this meant that there was hardly any wind. Actually, there must have been earlier, because the sea was choppy, so we had the uncomfortable combination of a one metre swell and too little wind to power through it. It is only 17 miles to Skanoer, but you have to cross the main shipping route out of the Baltic past Copenhagen, so we cleared the headland north of Roedvig and turned to go almost parallel to the traffic separation scheme (a sort of dual carriageway for big ships with strict rules for small boats about either keeping clear or crossing at right angles).

The headland consisted of 40m chalk cliffs, with some layering in the chalk which was laid down in two successive geological periods when the area was under water, separated by mass extinction events with attendant layers of clay, and an ice age. It is an area important for geologists according to the leaflet we picked up in Roedvig. The cliffs looked very unlike any of the rest of Denmark.




Some mysterious posts over the horizon turned out to be the Oresund bridge piers, and as we progressed that became clearer. Eventually we reached a line on the chart which showed we'd crossed into Sweden, so we swapped courtesy flags, and almost immediately turned to cross the traffic separation scheme at right angles. AIS showed two ships approaching, but very well clear of us, and we motored into Skanoer. It was already pretty full, so we had to raft up to a German boat.

There is a long beach, quite crowded with Swedish families, an area of marshland behind the harbour which is a nature reserve, and a tiny village.

The houses are a bit bigger and more widely spaced than their Danish equivalents, but the deep reds and yellows of their painted walls, and the one storey design with lots of windows and a chalet style upper floor under the eaves, is very similar.








Thursday 5 July
We wanted to progress eastwards to a small harbour called Gisslovs Lage, but the Swedish guide that we'd been lent in Ebeltoft said that it was very popular with very few places, so we assumed that we'd have to arrive by lunchtime. So we left before the people in the boat next door had surfaced - we think we managed it without waking them, and sailed down the coast. You have to go around a long reef, which has many wrecks - in fact it is so dangerous that a canal has been dug between the Skanoer peninsula and the mainland to allow boats to avoid it. It is well buoyed and we had no trouble keeping in deep water. However, when we rounded the southern end, the sea became choppy and the wind was on the nose, so that we couldn't make decent enough progress, bearing in mind our time constraint. It didn't help that I had measured the distance wrong, and we still had 12 miles to go. So the engine came on again. When we got to the harbour, there were plenty of places. In fact boats were still coming in and finding free boxes in which to moor at 9 pm. Tomorrow's forecast is not good, so we expect to have the bikes out again, particularly since we've been sailing each day for about the past week.

Fishermen's huts in Gisslovs Lage

Friday 6 July
We woke to rain and the whistling of wind in the rigging, again. But the rain didn't last long, and we had already decided to go for a bike ride, so we had a lazy breakfast and set off to the local supermarket to stock up. It turned out to be as poor a shop as we've seen anywhere, even on the small danish islands - rotten fruit and veg was on display, and apart from some newly baked rolls and strawberries, there was nothing we wanted to buy. We then set off to find Sweden's most southerly point, which was about 5 miles away, next to a harbour which we had considered stopping at.

We were glad we hadn't, there was even less there than at Gisslovs lage, and the southern point was a rather grubby breakwater with a signpost telling us that Stockholm was 501 km in one direction and London 991 km in another. It was a good bike ride though and we were able to buy veg at a farmer's stall.





In the afternoon we went to Trelleborg, the nearest big town about 4 miles in the other direction. It is a huge ferry port - ferries to Poland and Germany - and it has a reconstructed Viking fort, which we visited.

The reconstruction was interesting although all the explanations were in Swedish. The detective work to work out how a wooden fort was constructed just from the postholes used several other similar forts in Denmark.

There were various youths dressed as Vikings, who we watched queuing for coffee and doughnuts at the cafe, and then having a discussion, in English, about what to do to impress the tourists. There were also demonstrations of Viking crafts and the inevitable stalls selling "authentic" Viking jewellery etc.





Saturday 7 July
We meant to move on to Ystad, but first there was no wind, and then the fog rolled in, and finally it started to rain, so we stayed put. We found a large, reasonably good supermarket on the outskirts of Trelleborg before the rain started, so there was no longer an urgent need to get somewhere where we could find food.

When, in the middle of the afternoon, the rain and fog cleared, we cycled off to find a couple of old churches in the area, which were both locked, but worth visiting anyway. The churchyards were immaculate with raked gravel paths, tiny box hedges separating the graves, and every one tidy and neat with some quite elaborate gravestones (well, not by Roman Catholic country standards, but quite large and imposing!)

Reconstructions of traditional sailing boats in Gisslovs Lage

Sunday 8 July
No wind, of course, but blue sky and a calm sea greeted us when we got up early. We had to motor all the way to Ystad, but at least we'd had a better passage than those who did the same journey yesterday in the rain! The mist was still around, and at times we could only see half a mile or so, but it is a quiet section of coast, and all we saw were other yachts.

Ystad is a charming town with lots of old buildings, mainly half timbered with the infill of higgledy-piggledy bricks or plaster painted mustard or ochre colours, and tiled roofs.

There is a lovely central square with a large church which has bits from most centuries from the 12th, and a fine tower. While we were exploring the town, the mist rolled in from the sea, and the very warm day became quite chilly.

Unfortunately, it is Sunday, so the delightfully chaotic chandlery can only be seen from the outside.