Leg 3 – Gotland to Karlskrona

We stayed in Visby only for a couple of days from Friday (June 13) to Sunday (June 15). Visby is a classic summer destination for many Swedes and tourists from other surrounding countries so when we sailed to Visby we were thinking about doing some bicycle tours, going for long walks along the beach under the sun, having nice food in a restaurant and of course some nice rest… But the weather decided otherwise. Winds on Sunday where very promising while the weather forecast for the days after was a bit random so we decided to skip the bike tours, the nice walks and head towards Byxelkrok already on Sunday (June 15). It is a bit sad to say that in Visby, we have actually not really seen anything more than Biltema, Coop, and some clothing shops. But we had anyway some time for a lovely fika on Lovisa with Mats, an expert in HF radio who was also on Gotland during these days. That man went alone from Sweden to Caribbean with a sailboat he assembled himself from an empty hull. Very inspiring !

No remorse, the sailing to Byxelkrok was very enjoyable. And the 8 m/s southerly winds pushed us there without any need for manovres.

We arrived in Byxelkrok with a similar ambition as we had in Visby. Byxelkrok is a tourist place, so let’s go biking, walk along the beach under the sun and eat some good food! Instead of that we started to do some troubleshooting and try to find out why we cannot communicate with the HF radio. We also repaired our Swedish flag that was already starting to give up (this is why having a sewing machine onboard is actually not a luxury).

And once again, the wind decided for us. We ended up with no time in Byxelkrok for a bike tour, walks under the sun etc … instead we took the opportunity of the winds turning to west to sail towards Kalmar already on Tuesday (June 17). We hade nice 6-8 m/s winds first half of the way and took the opportunity to test the windvane and relax a bit. With the windvane, we don’t have to worry about electronics breaking due to the pressures caused by high wind speeds (as with the autopilot) – it is purely mechanical!

Then things started to get a bit more rock’n roll with average wind increasing to 10 m/s and gusts over 12 m/s (the forecast was giving only 8 m/s). This was anyway a good occasion to test Lovisa in harder winds compared with what we have been used to so far. We could test the reefing system for the mainsail and for the genoa.

And now a new problem. At arrival we noted that the water level in the bilge had increased a bit and that we had a bit of salt water in some places under the floor. Since we checked this area in Byxelkrok and everything was dry, the issue has something to do with this specfic stretch. So what was the problem? The drain hose that evacuates the water out of the cockpit on port side was broken right over the through hull. When we were tilting a lot, the broken area was under the water level and water could come in. We replaced the damaged drain hoses on both port and starbord side (the latter was not leaking but was quite bad as well and for that one we had to redo the seal of the drain hole in the cockpit). We spent several hours fixing this instead of biking, walking along the beach under the sun etc … quite frustrating but at some point we’ll be able to enjoy it more!

In Kalmar we found anyway some time to meet Maria’s mum with her husband and visit a bit the surroundings.

We left Kalmar on Midsummer eve, Friday (June 20). The plan was to start at 1 am and reach Sandhamn (Torhamn) before a low wind period that was expected around 10 o’clock. We got up at 1 am but we were just too tired. And it is actually taking a big risk to sail half sleepy, especially in an area where there is a lot of shallow areas (talking from experience …). So we decided to delay the departure and have some more sleep. We left Kalmar at 4.30 am instead. For the first 4 hours, we managed to sail at 6 knots under the 6 – 7 m/s easterly winds. The wind died and we had to go on engine. We could finally resume sailing for the last 2 hours as a light breeze from west started to blow.

And here we are now in Sandhamn! With nothing to fix (or nearly because a boat always needs some cares)! And here we can loan bicycles for free and finally we can go biking !

We remained in Sandhamn the entire Saturday (June 21, Midsummer day), enjoyed the nice weather and we could finally find time for some reading and planning for the next coming days and week. In Sandhamn, we met a Dutch couple sailing SARK, a ketch rigged sailboat on their way to Göta Kanal and got some nice tips.

We left Sandhamn towards Karlskrona on Sunday (June 22) and reached destination after 3,5 hours sailing in 6-7 m/s of wind. We are finally in Maria’s town (Maria has been living in Karlskrona for 7 years).