Posts In The “Sweden” Category
The 5,000-acre (2,000 hectare) Moja nature reserve is a busy boating destination in the summer season, with complex channels ideal for exploration by tender or kayak and many sheltered anchorages. After departing Sandhamn, we spent two nights at Moja while a weather system passed through, catching up on some boat projects and taking a tour…
The Royal Swedish Yacht Club, formed in 1830, is one of the oldest yacht clubs in the world and an active competitive sailing organization. Represented by Artemis Racing, they competed in the 2013 and 2017 America’s Cup events. The club has had an outpost at Sandhamn for more than a century and currently maintains several…
Biskopson and Namdo, in the south-central Stockholm Archipelago, are nature reserves managed by the Archipelago Foundation and are popular boating destinations. The lookout tower on Namdo is a particular draw, with its sweeping views of the area. From Fjardlang we made two short hops first to Biskopson and then to Namdo, spending one night at…
Fjardlang is one of forty nature reserves the Archipelago Foundation manages in the Stockholm Archipelago. The island has excellent trails throughout and several sheltered anchorages. The weather continued to be clear and calm as we proceeded north from Huvudskar. From near-freezing a few days earlier, the temperature had risen to 53°F (11.7°C) when we reached…
Huvudskar is a fabulous anchorage on the outer edge of the Stockholm Archipelago. We’d so far seen only one pleasure craft underway since arriving in Sweden, let alone shared an anchorage, and had the place to ourselves for the first two nights. But despite its remoteness, Huvudskar is popular enough that as the weekend arrived,…
During the Cold War, Sweden invested heavily in defense against a possible Soviet attack. One of the more ambitious projects was the Musko Naval Base, an underground base and shipyards on the island of Musko with docks designed for submarines and destroyers. To reach the island from the mainland, the navy built the 1.9-mile (3…
The island of Nattaro was our first anchorage in the famed Stockholm Archipelago cruising ground after our trip to Visby. The island is full of walking trials and beaches, particularly Storsand, the largest beach in the Stockholm archipelago and one of the nicest places to swim. With raw water freezing on the deck that mid-April…
Visby, on the island of Gotland, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995 for it’s well-preserved medieval structures, include a mostly intact 2.1m (3.4 km) 12th-century wall and a number of church ruins, the majority dating to the 12th century. Walking around the main town, packed on steep, narrow and winding streets within…
Nynashamn lies on the Swedish mainland at the southern end of the Stockholm Archipelago and is a gateway to the renowned cruising ground. The huge guest harbour there can accommodate over 300 boats and is packed in the summer, but in early April we shared the dock with only a few other boats. Adjacent to…
Stendorren Nature Reserve is part of EU’s Natura 2000, the largest coordinated network of protected areas in the world comprising over 18% of the EU’s land area. Stendorren includes 185 hectares of land with marked hiking trails throughout and suspension bridges connecting several of the offlying islands to the mainland. It’s a popular place, with…
A beacon has stood on Gubbo Kupa since medieval times, historians surmise, as part of a warning system of incoming enemy vessels. The cairn there today has been in place as a navigation mark since 1826. Like most hilltop navigation marks, the site offers sweeping views of the area. From the island of Hasselo, we…
The island of Hasselo is home to the exclusive pub “The Thirsty Winterswan“. It’s only open in the fall, winter and spring, and only for 3 hours a week: on Saturdays from 4pm to 7pm. The concept appealed to us greatly and we tried not to get our hopes up too much in case it…
Sweden monitors its coast closely and has even reinstated EU-internal border controls in places. So we weren’t surprised when a Swedish Coast Guard vessel made a beeline for Dirona when we came into view while anchored in the Misterhult Archipelago just north of Kalmar. Their visit was brief and friendly, and we otherwise spent two…
Kalmar was one of Sweden’s most important cities between the 13th and 17th centuries and its city seal, dating from the mid-1200s, is the oldest known in Scandinavia. Prominent when approaching by water is Kalmar Castle, one of Sweden’s best preserved renaissance castles. The castle was involved in a number of conflicts, and played a…
Oland is the second largest island in Sweden and has a history of settlement dating back to at least 8000 BC. The island is famous for it’s beaches—one guide lists 55 around the island—and Swedes flock there in the summer. But Oland also has a wide array of other attractions including Iron Age ring forts,…
After Karlskrona, we spent a couple of nights anchored at the Hastholmen-Ytteron Nature Reserve at the eastern edge of the Karlskrona Archipelago. Much of the area we’d travelled through was a restricted military zone until 1997. Just west of where we anchored is the island of Torumskar, where an international incident occurred in 1981 when…
Two Swedish submarines “escorted” us in from sea as we approached Karlskrona from Utklippan. The Swedish Navy is renowned for its submarine technology, particularly in building extremely quiet vessels that are difficult to detect. Over two years of war games with the US in 2005-2006, the Swedish submarine HSMS Gotland made repeated undetected attack runs…
We were the first visitors of the season when we made Swedish landfall at Utklippan on March 27th. We were excited to finally reach Sweden and were looking forward to some fabulous cruising. Utklippan itself is an incredibly beautiful island full of migrating shorebirds, lots of history to see, and a lighthouse. It’s a wild…