Today started with a text from my brother with the sad news that our friend Roxanne cox had died in the night after her battle with Cancer. Byxelkrok at the top of the Island of Orland. Today, for us, just a place to spend a night on our outward journey to Finland. The harbour has only six yachts in tonight as it's still out of season they expect to be busy by the 7 th July when they can have over one hundred in, so glad we are here now, some of the shops and res...

Today's sail, 27 NM toMonsteras Segelubben was lovely, a great down wind sail in the sunshine, the first without warm weather clothing. We are the only visiting yacht tonight. Yena the other British yacht we left with was in last night much to the surprise of the harbour master as he never has British yachts only Dutch and German so 2 in 2 days amused him. I think it is underused because it's 4 miles off the main channel. Before dinner we walked to Okno Island, i...

Today's sail was our best in terms of direction and speed we arrived in Kalmar at 13.00 having averaged 6.8 knots speed over the 41 NM distance. We left with two other yachts but as the wind increased to 20 knots we left them out of sight over the horizon and were tied up in harbour long before they arrived. We were invited on to Yana the English yacht we left with on day one for drinks. We then went out for a nice meal our first in Sweden, quite expensive by UK ...

Only 11 NM from Utklippan we felt the need for a short trip the wind was quite strong 30.5 knots being the largest of the gusts so we sailed only on the Genoa making 9.2 knots at one point. I made a bit of a hash of leaving almost getting blown off with Brenda still ashore with a bit of help from another crew we got away ok ( still got stuff to learn ). Sandhamn was a very friendly Marina not much happening as it's still not in season. The area is the best pike f...

We arrived safely after the 50 NM trip across the ( bay of Swedish biscay ) the seas were very confused making it a somewhat uncomfortable crossing, we had a mix of good sailing and then motoring as the wind died until it returned again, the small outpost that is Utklippan. It's 12 NM off shore and was blasted out of solid rock in the 30s to make a safe haven for local fishermen. It consists of two islands, lighthouse keepers lived here up till 1972 when they we...