Position: 58°58.70’N, 18°32.91’E

Sunrise underway from Huvudskar to Fjardlang.

Position: 58°59.07’N, 18°32.01’E

We’ve so far not had to make water since leaving Amsterdam, but don’t expect to be in a marina for at least a couple of weeks so we’re making water when underway. When we purchased the boat, we specified that system control panels be in the pilot house. It’s kind of an obvious choice, but we’ve seen watermakers that are only controllable from the lazarette. This works, but is certainly less convenient.

Position: 58°59.86’N, 18°31.56’E

When leaving the anchorage and heading out through a narrow entrance, an alarm sounded and the boat turned sharply left. James shifted into reverse and spun the wheel to the right but the boat continued left towards the nearby rocks as it slowed. He hesitated for another five precious seconds before shutting off the autopilot follow-up lever which returned control to the wheel.

We stayed off the rocks but it was much closer than it should have been. This is a very similar issue to that experienced on the recent 737 Max accidents where the MCAS system got a bad sensor input and essentially ran the plane into the ground. Here, we experienced a bad rudder position sensor and the autopilot just kept turning to the left. Fortunately, things happen more slowly at 7 kts but the lesson here is we need to be quick at turning off anything automatic when things aren’t right.

On a related point, we were once on a boat where the owner had decided not to install a steering wheel at all since, like us, he never uses it. Admittedly, we have only used ours twice in 9 1/2 years but in both incidents, we REALLY needed to have that manual backup. We’ll be faster in switching off the autopilot follow-up lever next time and we’ll stop using that autopilot until we have a chance to repair or replace the bad sensor. It’s sure nice to have redundancy.

Position: 59°1.91’N, 18°32.22’E

Cruising in wonderfully calm conditions in the channel southeast of Fjardlang.

Position: 59°3.27’N, 18°31.39’E

A trash compactor is standard equipment on the Nordhavn 52. It isn’t something we would have specified ourselves, but we’d definitely get one again if we bought another boat. We mainly put plastics and anything else not recyclable or biodegradable in the trash compactor, and don’t put anything in there that can smell. We can go at least three weeks without emptying the compactor, and can stow forward two of the cubes that it compacts down to, allowing us to go at least two months without getting rid of any garbage.

When we’ll be in marinas frequently enough to dispose of the garbage, we don’t compact and instead split the compactor in half with a standard kitchen garbage bag for waste and another bag for recyclables. This is what we’ve been doing so far since leaving Amsterdam. But since we will be anchoring out for at least another couple of weeks, we’re compacting the existing garbage and stowing the recyclables forward.

Position: 59°3.27’N, 18°31.38’E

Cleaning a light salt spray off the windows.

Position: 59°3.27’N, 18°31.37’E

One of the plastic hooks that secures the cover on our gasoline deck tanks broke, so we replaced it with a small carabiner.

Position: 59°3.18’N, 18°31.21’E

Our first Swedish picnic, overlooking the beautiful anchorage at the north end of Fjardlang. The weather certainly has been spectacular for most of this trip and the temperature is now up to 53°F (11.7°C)

Position: 59°3.22’N, 18°31.12’E

Fjardlang is one of forty nature reserves that the Archipelago Foundation manages in the Stockholm Archipelago. Here we are walking one of their trails on Fjardlang.

Position: 59°3.25’N, 18°31.04’E

This massive anthill on Fjardlang was teeming with millions of ants. There was so much traffic to and from the hill that the ants had actually worn a path through the vegetation—we’ve not seen that before.

Position: 59°3.30’N, 18°30.90’E

One of several Archipelago Foundation docks and huts on Fjardlang. These are common throughout the archipelago.

Position: 59°2.63’N, 18°30.71’E

Sailboat bow-tied into a sheltered nook in a cove along the west side of Fjardlang.

Position: 59°2.10’N, 18°30.71’E

A large boat house and dock near the ferry dock at the southwest corner of Fjardlang.

Position: 59°1.93’N, 18°31.87’E

Lovely cabin and deck on the east side of Fjardlang.

Position: 59°3.03’N, 18°32.85’E

Touring through the islets off Langholmen, east of Fjardlang, also part of the nature reserve.

Position: 59°3.48’N, 18°33.13’E

The first kayaker we’ve seen underway in Sweden.

Position: 59°3.33’N, 18°31.25’E

The view to our anchorage at Fjardlang from the west shore.

Position: 59°3.29’N, 18°31.38’E

We’ve gone through a fair bit of gasoline fuel in the past few days, so time to fill up. Getting the big 29-gallons deck fuel tanks out is a bit of a hassle, so we instead keep five 1.5-gallon and one five-gallon tank filled and use them to top up the tender as needed. Here James is filling the five-gallon tank with one of the 29-gallon deck tanks suspended from the crane to gravity feed the fuel.

Position: 59°3.29’N, 18°31.37’E

The evening sun lighting up the shore to the east of our anchorage at Fjardlang.