6/21/03 – To Vännersborg

We left Kummethon Island for Vännersborg – at the south end of Lake Vänern. This is a 40 mile open water sail. It wasn’t currently raining but there were nasty thunderheads approaching. We were sailing along at about 5 knots, when we notice another boat coming up behind us motorsailing. It turned out to be Sigi and Anna on Tjede – the German couple we had seen so many times before. We took pictures of them and they of us and we agreed to meet in Vännersborg. The wind started to die, even though those nasty looking clouds stayed on the horizon, so we decide to start the ol’ iron jenny and motor on.

Arriving in Vännersborg marina, the trick now became where to moor. There was one place on the end of the dock, but fendering the boat would be a problem with the way the piling were placed. We tried to moor in the box next to Sigi & Anna, but we were too big to fit between the pilings. Finally we found a place next to the gas dock.

We invited Sigi & Anna over for dinner before we realized that we really didn’t have anything to serve them. And today was Mid-Summer and most of the stores were closed. Finally we found a quick mart, and were able to buy some bread and sausage. With that, we could whip together some spaghetti.

Sigi & Anna live just south of Cuxhaven, a city on the North Sea at the mouth of the Elbe River. This part of our voyage was likely to be our most challenging, because of the potential of large seas, big wind, large tides and strong currents. We were eager to glean as much information as possible about this crossing. Sigi brought his charts over and we discussed all kinds of strategies for a safe passage. Their local knowledge was especially helpful to us.

We had a great evening and drank too much wine. They planned on taking a two or three days to arrive at Götenborg, we planned on doing it in one day. We were anxious to get back to Ellös and claim our long lost shipment of household goods. We were really looking forward to real dishes, glasses and silverware.

6/22/03 – Trollhatten Canal to Göteburg

Vännersborg is at the beginning of the Göta River[1] which drains Lake Vänern. At Trollhätten, about 10 miles down river from Vännersborg, there used to exist a large waterfall. Now the river has been dammed for hydropower and the river has been canalized with a series of locks. This is known as the Trollhätten Canal and is still very much a working, large ship canal for freighters working there way up from Götenborg to various ports on Lake Vänern. There are only about six locks on the canal, but they are big, with drops between 12 to 15 meters (40 to 50 feet) each. After the last lock, the river slowly ambles another 50 miles to Götenborg.

On one side of each lock the walls are smooth concrete, the other side is just rough hewn rock and not suitable for small boats. With a 50 ft. drop, you also need lines over 100 ft. which is a lot of line to handle. The first lock, caught us unaware because we didn’t realize the magnitude of the drop and only the bow line was of sufficient length. As Jan yelled for help because the line was coming to an end, Steve rushed up and tied more line on. The other boats however, employed a different technique. The lashed themselves on and off bollards that were placed in the walls as the water dropped. This idea was not lost on the present crew, and we quickly adopted the method for the following locks.

We were traversing the lock system with 4 other boats. After the first lock we came to what appeared to be some sort of administrative headquarters. All of the other boats tied up to a dock along side. So we tied up as well. All of the other boats walked over to the administrative building, so Jan did as well. All of the other boats paid their 660 SEK transit fee. Jan only had 640 SEK. Good thing they took credit cards.

As we entered the second lock, it began to rain again. We managed to get on our foully tops, but being quite busy with line handling we didn’t have time to put on the bottoms. Then the third lock came up, then the fourth, fifth and sixth, bang, bang, bang. No time to change. Just sit back and enjoy that soaked feeling.

As we cleared the last lock the sun began to break through the clouds, the rain stopped and we had a lazy motor to Götenborg. We found the guest harbor in the middle of town which just happened to be next to the tall ship Gothenborg III. This 3 masted barque was only finished a couple of weeks ago and was built as a joint project between Götenborg and China. The crew plans to sail it sometime this summer to Shanghai for a world exhibition.

Götenborg turned out to be a very pleasant city with large tree-lined avenues, cute trams and lots of espresso stands. The fact McDonalds was advertising that they had over 33 stores in the city and we passed 3 of them in just one shopping mall, didn’t hit the plus side of the ledger in our book. But this was a small criticism. We quickly found a hotel with a WIFI connection, so we were able to accomplish our internet duties, bought some supplies and a couple of bottles of “cheap” wine for the galley and headed back to the marina. Lots of people in the area and it turned out that there was a Bruce Springstein concert that night, the second one of two nights in a row. Over 100,000 Swedes, and probably a few non-Swedes, heard Bruce in the biggest concert of the year.

Let’s digress for a moment and reflect on wine. We didn’t bring any with us. Why should we, we were going to Europe weren’t we. The French Reds and German Whites are known the world over. It seemed reasonable to assume that excellent wine would readily available. When we were in Ellös taking delivery of Sugilite, there was a German boat, a 34 footer, being delivered at the same time. Where we had one pallet of goods coming (still hadn’t arrived), this boat had four pallets! One pallet was just wine, we noted with interest.

It turns out that the Swedes are a bit conservative when it comes to alcohol. Wine, along with real beer or spirits can only be purchase from government stores. And these seemed not all the convenient for us, i.e., we couldn’t find ‘em. And just to further rub salt into the wound, they had this punitive tax assessed to the point where what we would consider was a $6.00 bottle of cheap wine in the States, resulted in a $20.00 bottle of not-so-cheap cheap wine in Sweden. So during our trip, our wine consumption consisted of a rather little amount of high priced cheap wine. Now we fully comprehend why the German was unloading a pallet of wine into his 34 footer – but where did he put it all we still wonder?

6/23/03 – To Ellös

You have a couple of alternatives when choosing a route between Göteburg and Ellös. One option is the “inside” route which weaves its way in and among several thousand islands. The other option is the “ouside” route, which is a little shorter, but subject to potential significant wave and chop action from the Kattegat. We had been doing a lot of motoring over the past couple of weeks so we opted to try the outside route in order to get some sailing time.

We were trying to find some minor boat and engine parts and some charts of the German Bight, figuring they might be less expensive in the big city. It took us most of the morning to finally find the marine store, but we completely struck out. They didn’t have one part we were looking for, nor any of the charts we were looking for.

Jan bought a really neat placemat of Swedish Fishing village. It looks just like the one we saw in Kalmir. It really captures the essence of all these little Swedish boating houses. Before leaving Göteburg, got Steve a Big Mac and we filled up with wine at the special booze store that was in the mall. It’s tough when you have to grocery shop based on how much you think you can carry – both weight wise and volume wise.

We didn’t get out of the marina until after 1:00 pm. It would be tough to make it to Ellös before dark. And talk about a gray, wet, cold, miserable day – this was it. The seas were up, the rain was coming down. We ducked back “inside” and motored to Ellös. What was interesting about this, is that we now had enough confidence in our abilities to navigate among the rocks, reefs and islands to be quite comfortable picking an ad hoc route.

As described earlier, these islands are rocky and almost barren. There may be some grasses growing in-between the rocks, or maybe an occasional small bushy tree. But the vistas are stark. Ever so often you will come across a small village, or maybe just a couple of little red houses. We found it very engaging and preferred this coast above all.

It was dark by the time we arrive in Ellös. We pulled into the small HR marina and it was full. At the end of the dock however, was 2/3 of the space needed to dock Sugilite. In addition, there was a strong 20 knot wind blowing directly off the dock. We eased the nose up to the dock and Jan exited off the bow to try to see if she could have the boats that were currently there squeeze down a little so we might have enough room to dock.

We had been carrying with us some small two-way radios that we had never gotten around to using. This seemed perfect. Steve would let Jan off with her radio, leave to rig up the docking lines, Jan would get the other boats to move and we would be able to communicate when Steve should return. No-one counted on Jan dropping the radio immediately as she stepped off the boat and have all the batteries fall out. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Anyway, it all worked out. We did a breast line docking maneuver that impressed the locals. The locals turned out to be Todd from Sound Rigging in Seattle. He had been hired by the owner of the next boat over (HR46) to help him sail his boat to England.