2009-07-20 - 24 Rolling home

Finally Neptune showed us mercy and Monday the 20th a weather window materialized with fair southwesterly winds and an almost clear sky. We motored the first few miles south past Bressay and then we sat a south easterly course and hoisted the genacker. I took a well deserved (at least in my opinion) relaxing rest on top of the ding on the fore deck. Life is good again.

Passing the oil rigs again. The guard vessels are making sure that we are keeping a safe distance.

During the first night the wind unfortunately started veered southeast again and increased in the early morning to a small gale. We decided to make a stop over in Egersund and wait until the next day as this was supposed to be temporary, and the wind should veer back to south west again.

After a day and night in Egersund which is a very nice town, with good shopping and cheap tax free diesel, we took off again on Thursday morning. We motored in a south breeze towards Lista and as soon as we passed the lighthouse we could set sail again and continue on a south easterly course. We passed Lindesnäs with a glorious sunset behind us and left the North Sea for Skagerack. The genacker went up again in a light westerly breeze we trotted in to the night.

Kajsa killing time with soducko.

The following morning we made good speed in an increasing south westerly. We were yet again lucky with good wind and this fishing boat seemed to be lucky with the fishing.

The wind increased slowly but surely during the day and reached 20 - 25 knots. It was time for the genacker to come down. We managed to get the main up in full speed down wind. When the main was up the genacker came down behind the main and then the furling genoa came out in full glory. We continued eastwards and passed Skagen doing 7 - 8 knots. When we started out from Egersund we had calculated with two nights at sea but if we continued in this pace we would be make it to Sweden before nightfall. And indeed we did. We just kept racing on and at around 2300 hours we made it in to a completely packed Marstrand. With no marina berths available we decided to drop the anchor just north of Albrechtsunds canal together with two other sailing yachts. We made 3 attempts to get good holding ground as there was a gale warning for the night and following day. That was well spent time because the wind came howling during the night and one of the other boats dragged and was gone in the early morning.

We slept in Saturday mooring and after a late breakfast we left our anchorage and a few hours later we were safely back in our home port Björlanda Kile after 5 fantastic weeks. Thanks to the awkward wind conditions and sometimes lack of wind we had managed to make it to some really remote places. This together with the amazingly good weather the first two weeks had made this Shetland cruise truly memorable. We will definitely come back again and explore more of the islands and then especially the northern parts we never managed to cover this time.

We want to send our special thanks to the friendly people on Shetland. We hope to see you soon again.

No comments:

Post a Comment