Ecologbook: The endS of the journey

The next day I left Skagen early, there was still not much wind. However, the direction was a bit better so after I had slalomed around the anchored ships once more, I was able to slowly creep my way East with the gennaker out. I was not the most entertaining of the trips, but it was quite nice though, nothing around, not much to do but adjusting the gennaker from time to time. The arrival on the Swedish coast was something though. Not that I felt patriotic or anything, but it felt a bit more like home. A ton of small islands, waterways everywhere, … Compared to the northern coast of Denmark this was like being back in the Stockholm archipelago, I took down the gennaker and started crisscrossing my way between the rocks and the surrounding buoys, natural harbours, human-made harbours and the traffic. I had noted and booked a spot on a small island that was connected to the main land by a ferry.

So many big cargos in the Kattegat… It's hard to remember that they are comparatively small to some of the cargo vessels that roam the high seas…

Gennaker all day! Oh yeah!

More gennaker!

Here we can see some of the Kattegat traffic in the distance at the end of the video.

Starting to see the land!

I was going the opposite way of a local regatta, it was a bit funny to see so many sailboats, young and old alike, rushing through the archipelago.

View from my dock spot, could be worse, innit?

To Amsterdam and Grayhound

So I arrived there with time for a quick swim before the sun hide itself behind another island. In the morning, I checked one last time my mooring lines before letting the boat here for a week and taking trains/bus to Amsterdam for the festival. There I met back a bunch of people from the Grayhound where I'd spent two months at the beginning of the season and others from the school. It was pretty good, and I got offered to join them to replace a member of the crew who was going away on a humanitarian mission. So, after the wrapping up of the festival and a nice afternoon and evening spent with the friends who were not sailing out directly like the Grayhound. I took another series of buses and trains to get back to Gothenburg and Elvira. There I sailed a bit in the archipelago, before going to a harbour in town that was friendly to sailors, there I also got to do a laundry in the office of the Göthenburg square rigger who were really nice! And then bus and trains again to get to Calais and rejoin the Grayhound.

one of the many railway station I saw on that trip.

The return ferry landed me on the side of the island opposite the marina. It was a good opportunity to explore around a bit.

Can you spot Elvira?

The path to move on the island was pretty nice, lots of green (well that started to be a bit less green).

I spent a night on a buoy while I was in Gothenburg between Amsterdam and Calais.

An unexpected turn

While the season was wrapping up with Grayhound, I found out about an opportunity to buy a very pretty and impressive sailboat, a strip planked ketch of 11m. I had not planned to change boat, but somehow it happened. So I did buy that one in Douarnenez (Woro Jiri — more on that later), and arrange to sell Elvira to a good friend who was at the sailing school with me. She's got a lot of great plans for Elvira, and it was really important for me to find her a good new owner and make sure she'd be taken care of.

So I mounted an “expedition” to drive from Douarnenez where I was with the Grayhound all the way to Gothenburg to move Elvira somewhere for winter and start organising the transition from me to my friend. We considered sailing her back somewhere closer to the Kiel canal for instance, but we were now toward the end of October and the weather was absolutely wretched so we opted for a wintering place near Gothenburg.

Post scriptum and more goodbyes

After the winter, it's my friend who mounted an expedition to take care of Elvira and start sailing. I joined them a few days later in Sjöhed and joined in on the painting, small fixed here and there. But the main reason was to explain a bit the ins and outs of Elvira and all the little habits that once made my life easier onboard. I realise that a lot of this was really geared towards solo sailing and not necessarily useful for group sailing 😅. Once we'd put Elvira in the water again and remasted her, it was time to take her for a spin and check that all was good. Then it was time for some more goodbyes. It was a bit weird to see Elvira motor away from the harbour without being onboard, but it was also good to know that she's in good hands.

'Til next time Elvira! You were really good to me!