Category: True East Sabre 48 Travels

Sweden to Finland 2022

Having explored the Stockholm archipelago with Wes and Alexis, we decided to make a direct run to Marieholm, the capital of the Aland Islands. Following what we refer to as our ‘stumble in’ policy, we arrive in the Islands on the 100th anniversary of their independence, quite a celebration.

Arriving on the west side, after a night we decided to more around to the east side that was closer to the center of town and a friendlier marina. Before moving, we visited the wonderful Maritime Museum and four masted 1903 300’ four masted s/v Pommern built in 1903. Over 10% of the workforce on the island are skippers or crews on ships today.

Instead of trying to boat around the entire main island, we rented a car and did a full island tour including Kastelholm Castle dating from the 14th century. Returning to the marina, Marcia got word of the passing of her friend Carla’s husband, Don. It was important Marcia return to the states for the services and a good visit with Carla. The marina was most accommodating in extending our stay for a week.

Dockside we had met local residents and boaters Marie and Edgar. They had offered any assistance we might need, Dan took Edgar up on the offer and the two of them changed out the failed alternator that charged the engine batteries.

Marcia was back on board the evening of the 22nd after four flights from Valdosta, GA to Marieholm, Finland. The next morning we off the dock and headed thru the island toward Helsinki. By islands, I mean thousands of all sizes with many of the larger ones connected by ferries. At Degerby we met Merit and William who were kind enough to invite us for a glass of wine at their home under construction on nearby island. What a great set up they have and are wonderful hosts.

We also met Gustav who was swimming from Stockholm to Helsinki, 350 miles as a fundraiser to Baltic Swim. We would meet again the next day in Kokar where Gustav and his crew helped us get tied to the dock in very stiff winds. Imagine needing 6,000 calories a day to swim 10 miles in 50-60 degree water.

Weaving our way thru the rocks and islands, next stop was Borsto. Again, they would accommodate us dockside in the Guesthamen. Any boat over 15 meters, 49 feet is considered oversized. Borsto was a farming island with four families and a small guest house and restaurant.

Hanko was our first stop on the mainland. This is beautiful resort community with many homes built by Russians in the mid to late 1800’s. We enjoyed a few days of wandering the island and enjoying the restaurants.

Ekenas was a bit of a diversion up a river where the water actually got up into the 70’s. The harbormaster was nice enough to tie us up to the major restaurant dock for the night. Last stop before Helsinki was Porkkala where we anchored up in a small bay for the night and slept on the foredeck.

We found very accommodating dockage at Marina Bay in downtown Helsinki. Returning to the city, we were reminded of how much we enjoy this city. 

Click on the photo to see the album

Stockholm Archipelago 2022

Arriving back Wasa Yachts, we found True East floating at the dock as scheduled. After a few hours of checking all systems we headed to the marina at Södertälje were we could easily provision and get the boat ready for our first, and perhaps only, guests of the season. Wes and Alexis arrived right on schedule; however, their luggage was still in Zurich. The luggage was promised to be delivered by noon the following day.

Noon arrived with no luggage, so we set out with new instructions to deliver the luggage to our first stop at Mariefred on Lake Maleren, home of the marvelous Grisholm Castle. Great visit there, still no luggage. Ok, we will head into Stockholm as scheduled and perhaps will be able to take a quick side trip to the airport for the luggage. This time we knew enough to make dockage reservations at the Glashuest in downtown Stockholm. Luggage was secured as Wes was smart enough to put Air tag’s in each piece and found them at the airport.

A day of sightseeing in Stockholm took us to the Wasa Museum and the Princ Eugens Museum together with a long walk along the park. This turned out to be National Day in Sweden with a Marathon, Auto and Boat Show, Military exhibits and the Nato Fleet for maneuvers led by an American Assault Carrier, the city was crazy.

We then headed out to Vaxholm with its Fortress. Sure glad we were docked before the season really got underway, it was the 5th of June. Dan and Marcia really wanted to sea trial a new boat built in Sweden, the Candela C8. This is an electric foiling boat. Alexander from Candela picked us up the dock in a C7 and after a 15 minute ride, we toured the factory and inspected the C8s under construction. No C8 available, will have to wait for Ft Lauderdale boat show.

Later that day we headed north up the Archipelago to the resort at Marholmen. We enjoyed a wonder dinner, hikes around the property and a round of miniature golf. One more stop on this trip was the inland of Grinda to the east, primarily a natural preserve. Again, we enjoyed off season dockage. The ‘high’ season here is July 1 – Aug 15….how in the world do you make a living or get a return on investment in 45 days?

Wes and Alexis had to leave us on the 9th to travel to Scotland and Dan had some concern over the engine batteries so we returned to Stockholm for another day of great food and sightseeing. Having slow cruised the Archipelago, we all got a taste for life in this area of thousands of island. We also got a chance to introduce Wes and Alexis to our cruising life and hope they will join us again for another adventure.

Click on the photo to access the slide show.

TE Return to Sodertalje

Leaving Marstrand we headed for Varberg and fueled up there. Most of the boaters in the Nordic countries are sailors, no wonder with diesel costing as much as $10/gallon. With a forecast for a calm day on The Sound, we decided to run the 100 miles down to Copenhagen so we could enjoy the Danish food. Dan is convinced that the school for chefs in Sweden is only four days – hamburger, pizza, klucking salad and shrimp with mayo on toast (HPK&S), with this you are trained to run any restaurant kitchen in Sweden. The locals say that since Covid the quality is the restaurants has really fallen. 

We managed to return to our exact spot on the Nyhaven Canal and spend an afternoon at Trivoli Gardens, one of the oldest amusement parks in the world. We love Copenhagen and consider Denmark to be the best of the Nordic countries.

Leaving Copenhagn, we continued south, then east along the coast which is pretty barren. In the end we were bucking 4-6’ seas as we pulled in the Simrishamns. The boating season is over in the part of the world in mid August, so by the end of the month the Guesthamns are pretty empty. Every town has a Guesthamn or Guest Harbor some with nearly as many moorings as the residents, in season a reservation is mandatory.

As we rounded the corner and started up the east coast we started again to get into the coastal island that provided both interest and shelter. Karlskrona was our next stop and a major naval port since the 12th century. The naval museum was a gem. After a visit of several days we moved onto Kalmar, one of Swedens larger cities.

On entering the harbor, the Swedish Coast guard approached and ask to board us. No check of safety equipment but a thorough check of our paperwork including the VAT temporary import document we went all the way to Norway to secure. They also performed a breathalyzer on the Captain who was drinking 2.8% beer in Sweden. The highlight of Kalmar is the magnificent castle/fortress dating from the 12th century and site of the Kalmar Union that united the Nordic countries for several centuries. It really is amazing how many war there were between these Nordic neighbors.

At Kalmar we rented a car and toured the north end of Oland Island highlighted by the summer Royal Residence and an enormous 12th century fort that suffered a fire in the 19th century.

Having discovered that there was a good harbor on the north end of Oland, we make Byzelkrona (we are now up to about 200 places in Europe we can not pronounce) our next stop on route to Gotland Island.

Visby is the capital of Gotland Island and was a very important trading center between the late 12th and and early 15th centuries during the Hanseatic League. This walled city is filled with period buildings and has a great museum. We again rented a car and over two days visited most of the island, including the small island of Faro. Today this is very much a holiday island with some beaches and lots of campgrounds.

From Visby it was back to the mainland of Sweden at Nynasham that happens to be a major port for ferry’s to Estonia and Poland. Looking at a map, this makes sense as the overland route would be very long and pass thru Russia. Our final leg was back to Sodertalje where the boat will be stored for the winter. Five weeks and a little over 1,000 miles….do not ask about the fuel!

Leaving the boat, we rented a car to take a tour of the Stately Homes (castles perhaps) around Lake Malaren.

TE Sweden to Norway 2021

It had been 22 months since we left True East in Södertälje, Sweden (about 40 miles south of Stockholm), as the Covid-19 virus got in the way of our travel plans. We arrived late on August 11 and were off the dock by noon on the 12th thanks to the team at Wasa Yachts.

While our plan for the cruising season had been to go east to Finland and then down the eastern side of the Baltic. Instead we faced a Value Added Tax (VAT) problem. As an American boat, we did not have to pay the 22% VAT tax on its value as long as it was on a Temporary Import License (TIL), good for 18 months. This is further compounded by a 25% import duty imposed on American boats during Donald’s tariff wars. In order to renew the TIL was to leave the EU. The two closest exits were Russia and Norway. We decided against the Russia solution and laid plans to get to Norway and back in 4-6 weeks.

The quickest route to Norway is to take the Gota Canal to Lake Vanern, the Trollhattan Canal to Gothenburg, and then run North for about 100 miles to Fredrickstad, Norway. In 2019 we had done this trip in reserve going west to east so these were familiar waters. The Gota Canal was built in the 1830’s and has 55 locks and 49 draw bridges in it’s 102 mile length. The regular season for the canal ends on August 12, the boating season here is over by mid August.

We purchased an off season express pass whereby we had our own personal lock and bridge operator and were able to complete the Gota Canal in three days. Another day across the lake and one more to Gothenburg were we again stayed across from the Opera House and met a great couple from Curacacao we will surely see again.  From there it was up to the popular tourist town of Smogen, this town was in full spring on a beautiful weekend. Last stop in Sweden was Stromstad, it feels so comfortable when you return to a dock and not the routine and it’s not often we do that. Fredrickstad is only 20 miles, so we scooted up had lunch and returned to Stromstad the same day. The customs office is manned when the ferries arrive, so at 9 am Dan presented the paperwork to a baffled customs office. Not many American boats trying to get a TIL signed off, after a few phone calls task completed.

Now we had to think about getting back to Sodertalje before the boating season truly ended. The Gota Canal was now closed for repairs instead of normally being open to the end of September. The alternative was to go around the bottom of Sweden, about 600 miles to get back to Wasa Yachts for the winter. Our first stop was Marstrand were we docked at the exact spot we were in in 2019. This is the sailing capital of Sweden, has a monstrous fortress from the 13th century and three fourths of the island is a nature preserve. With the wind up to 25-30 its, we elected to stay in port….for four days.

After passing by Gothenberg headed south, this would be new territory for True East.

Another adventure into the unknown, at least to us. POSPONED UNTIL AT LEAST 2021 DUE TO CORONAVIRUS.

We will start in Stockholm with a flight to the Kiruna mine in Northern Sweden then drive back to Gotland in southeastern Sweden, about 2,000 miles, before picking up the boat.

We will then start our cruise on Lake Madaren west of Stockholm on May 17 and be in the Stockholm area until the end of May when we head off to Finland.

We will be based in Helsinki from May 3-20 as we take a tour to St Petersburg and transit the Simiaa Canal thru Russia into the lakes region of Finland.

On to Tallin in Estonia, thru the islands on the west coast to Parnu where we will take a road trip to the interior. Estonia will be 21 June to 6 July.

From there its a straight run to Riga where we plan another road trip for a few days before moving on to Lithuania. Riga will be our base from the 7th to 14th of July.

On to Lithuania where we plan to take advantage of the offer of a friend in Vilnius to spend a week with us on a tour of the country. Kpaidpeda will be our base from 16 to 25 July before we move on to Gdansk.

Arriving in Gdansk on the 26th of July, we plan on a ten day road trip to Posnan, Wroclaw, Krackow, Warsaw and Lotz returning to Gdansk on the 8th of August. From the 10th to the 16th we will travel the coast of Poland and over to Stralsund area of Germany before heading into Szczcin on the 16th of August.

Prior to Bentley (VP Marketing for Sabre) and Brenda Collins joining us in Stromstad, we had done some exploring of this area. Over dinner one night we met Amanda who told us of restaurant she worked called Strandskanten, a must see.

After a quick tour of Stromstad, we headed off to find Strandskanten on the island of Nordkaster, well worth the trip and Amanda served us lunch. We then continued on down to Smorgen for the night. These are some of the best cruising waters on the Baltic with many islands and interesting passages.

Our next stop was Marstrand, the Newport of Sweden. Here we found a dozen classic J Boats that had spend the day racing docked with us. On the docks, we all pitched in to help the magnificent 75′ sailboat Braveheart of Sark get tied up with strong winds. Dan and owner Tim Aitkins enjoyed some time together taking classics.

Next stop was Goteborg, Sweden’s second largest city. Dan and Marcia had visited here previously on the ferry from Denmark and had scoped out the marina. Bentley and Brenda left us here, while Dan and Marcia took a quick side trip to Madrid to deal with visa issues.

The boating season in this part of the world seems to stop about August 15th as the temperatures drop and the days get shorter. In order to transit the Gota Canal, we needed a reservation and would be traveling in convoy thru the 54 locks and numerous draw bridges. From Goteborg, it took two days to go up the Gota River, thru the Trollhatten locks and then across Lake Vanern. At Sjotorp we were met with our first keeper who would stay with us for the day as we transited 19 locks covering only 9 miles along with a wonderful German couple on their sailboat. Verna was on maternity leave, 12 months and Dirk also had 10 month of maternity leave….sure not like the US.

For the next four days, we were a convoy of one as we basically crossed Sweden from West to East. The last two days we were in the step locks, many of them hand operated by our keepers for the trip. Given the amount of coastline, the number of islands and the number of lakes, we concluded that it would be easy for each Swede to have a mile of waterfront property.

Our plan was to winter the boat at Navekvarn, about 100 miles south of Stockholm. On arrival, we changed our minds given the remote location and the limited facilities….bad research on Dan’s part. A little better research found us an alternative boatyard on the Soder Canal much closer to Stockholm and better equipped. Headed north we stopped at Nykoping and Trosa. Trosa is a gem of small city were we lingered for a day wandering along the canal.

After stopping to introduce ourselves to Wasa Yachts, True East’s winter home, we proceed up the Soder Canal into Lake Malaren then on to Stockholm were we locked out of the lake. Much to our surprise, the marina facilities for visitors was very limited…..not up to the guesthaven facilities we had come to expect. However, we were right in front of the Wasa Museum and walking distance to a number of other museum and a ferry and tram stops. The remains of Dorian, which we missed in Florida, caught up with us here. After a rough night on the outer dock, we were able to move inside on a finger about a third the length of the boat.

Stockholm is a big city separated by many waterways and covering a number of islands. Unlike Copenhagen and Oslo, this city takes more time to explore with it’s many districts. After four days, the weather was really turning to late fall so we decided to take the boat back to Wasa Yachts for the winter and head back to Barcelona.

Once again, not as planned. Instead of starting up the west side of Norway on True East we decided to abandon that plan after our technical problems in Denmark. Instead we headed directly to Oslo where are road trip in Norway commenced. Once we arrived in Oslo, we immediately had another technical problem with the boat. Our engines are Cummins, made in USA, the shaft damper between the engine and drive unit is made in Germany, the Zeus pod drive units are made in Italy and modified in the USA….an international boat, the doors are Italian, the passarele Croatian, etc. Our problem was in the port Zeus drive, a terrible racket screaming imminent failure developed on a day trip out of Oslo. We returned to port and got on the phone. Turned out less than 10 miles away was the only guy in Europe who stocks the part we needed. This is due to the fact that he services the rescue boats in Norway that use the same part. Bad luck, good luck. We had to wait for the mechanics to return from ‘holiday’, then it took only a day to make the repair. We used the time to go the arctic circle! Having some time before our next guest arrived, we headed down to the south coast. It looks a lot like Maine, the north side of Lake Huron and British Columbia. Our first night we anchored up outside of Larvik and Dan took his first Norway swim. Swimming here year round is not uncommon and two swims a day in summer is quite standard in water 58-68 degrees. We then headed up the historic Telemark Canal built in the 1850’s and considered only of the wonders of the world at its time. First we took the east branch up to Notodden, home of a UNESCO site where Norway’s first hydro plant was built. Also the Blue’s capital of Norway with the annual bash starting the day we left. Then we proceeded up the west for thru the three sets of hand operated step locks. Senior dockmaster declared we were the first American boat he had ever seen in the locks. They gave us coffee cups, we gave them Flordia ball caps (thanks Glenn). Continuing south we stopped at Kregero and then on to Arendal, passing thru the wooden boat festival at Risor on the way. Grand nephews Chad and Kyle joined us for a night in Arendal with its great Guesthaven for visiting boats. Knowing we were not going to take the boat up the west coast, we decided to rent a car and go up the coast to Stavanger (trip described in our land travels in Norway). Returning to Ardendal, we headed a little further south to Grimstad which was the end of the line. Turning around, we headed back to Risor, a very white town with great facilities. We then headed up to Larvik which turned out to be a very industrial and not interesting town, so we went back out to Stavern. While in Stavern the high winds returned and we were pinned in for several days. Our Grove friend Bernd Meir was to join us in Oslo, instead he took a train to Stavern. With a window in the weather, we decided to head for Fredickstad on the east side of the Oslo Fjord, with a lunch stop at Tonsberg on the way. Fredickstad was the fortress on the Swedish boarder and was burned down several times over the centuries, it’s a lovely town. Docked at the Guesthaven, we were across the canal from the newspaper office. Thomas Arntsen showed up the the morning wanting to interview the folk form Miami with their boat in Fredrickstad, front page in the next issue. Next stop was Horten, near Borre that was the site of a major Viking settlement. More than 80 Viking burial site were discovered here and it is site of a major Viking museum. It is also the site of the Viking festival that was starting just as we visited. It was then back to Oslo where Bernd left us and head to the arctic circle. In Oslo, grandson Luke Yuan and the wonderful Veronica joined us for a couple of days. We once again explored this world class city and its museums and restaurants. It seems for the first time this summer, we actually have a number of days between guests and no long ground to cover. Dan took a couple of days to organize pictures and update the blog while Marcia continued to explore Oslo. Leaving Oslo, we returned to Vollen to have the oil changed in our new gearbox, pick up some spares and pay the bill. Unlike America, after all of our major repairs, each yard has said ‘we will send you the bill’ as we departed. With a little time before we were to meet Bentley and Brenda Collins, we decided to explore the coast of Sweden below Oslo. First stop was Moss, required by the weather as there was not much there. On to the wonderful city of Stomstad where Dan was able to get a new ‘temporary import permit’ for True South. These permits are available when entering the EU (Norway is not in the EU) and are good for 18 months. Last time we did this was leaving Switzerland and entering Germany on the Rhine. On to Smogen and finally a stop in Grebbestad. We then headed back up to Stomstad where Bentley and Brenda joined us for a few days of cruising.

Our original plan was to cross from the west side of Denmark to the west side of Norway on True East. As it turned out we toured most of the country by land as you can see on the map.

When we finally got the boat repaired in Fredrickhaven, Denmark the weather window for the crossing had passed and there was no way we could meet Kristi and Katherine in Bergen as scheduled. Leaving the boat, we flew up to Oslo so that we could meet our guests on arrival and rework our travels during their ten day stay. After a day in Oslo, we all took the train to Bergen, then a ferry up the fjord to Flam and the train back to Bergen. The train from Bergen to Myradal was the highlight of this day. We found Bergen to be very touristic, yet offered adventures like the cable car up to the restaurant at Ulriken where we had a sunset dinner.

With Dan’s nephew Tony and family arriving on the 12th, we decided to take a risk and fly back to Denmark to get the boat and then make a dash for Oslo while Kristi and Katherine continued down to Stavanger before flying back to Oslo. Sprinting 150 miles up to Oslo, we were fortunate to find dockage at the Aker Bryggee Marina in the heart of the city. Knowing the tall ships were going to be passing the mouth of the Oslo fjord on the 14th, we planned to take everyone down to watch the parade and anchor up for the night.

Once again, we encountered a technical problem with the boat and limped back to Oslo on one engine after only getting a third of the way down the fjord. After spending a few days in Oslo, we arranged the Bergen trip to Tony, Julie and Leah  while we stayed in Oslo to deal with the boat. Amazingly, there was a Cummins dealer ten miles from Oslo who had the parts we needed for the repair; however, the annual Norwegian vacation time had just started so no mechanics were available. Knowing we had 10 days or so, we decided to head for the arctic circle and booked a plane to Bodo, Norway. No sense in staying still.

In Bodo we took the tour of the Saltstraumen Sound maelstrom on a jet boat. This maelstrom on a King Tide is supposed to be the strongest in the world….it was blast that day. Enjoying long summer arctic days/nights we had a conversation with a local bartender who told us he had a golf tee time at midnight…Marcia woke up at 3:45 that morning and realized that he was just finishing up his game in plenty of light! Renting a car, we then headed for Narvik which was an important port during WWII. At the Resistance museum there we learned a great deal about the war in the North, a part of the war we were not familiar with. The following day we drove the magnificent Lofoten peninsula to the little village of Reine and stayed in a converted fishing camp. This area we learned is famous for its Stockfish (a form of open air dried cod fish). During January and February they fish, then hang the fish on racks that cover every available piece of land. The fish then air dries for four months before being packed or shipment, primarily to Italy and Japan. In the old days, the farmers would become fishermen for these two month. As the gulf stream runs down the west coast of Norway, the water and seashore are not as cold as one might think, being in the arctic circle.

Taking the car ferry back to Bodo, we then flew to Trondheim. This city used to be the capital of Norway. At Trondheim, we rented a car and drove to Sweden for lunch in Are, then on to a quaint hotel in Selbu. Along the way we stopped at the Helga fortress, built in the early 1900’s by the Norwegians to defend against the Swedes. From Trondheim, we flew back to Oslo to pick up the boat after it’s port drive unit was repaired by the wonderful guys at Vollenslipp.

Crusing the boat south west, we arrived at Arendal just as the wind picked up again making our return to Oslo in the near future dubious. Dan’s grand nephews Chad and Kyle had planned to meet us in Oslo, instead they drove down to Arendal were we had a short by great visit. As the boys left, once again we rented a car and hit the road. This time our travels were along the coast to Stavanger (this was to be our first port in Norway in the original plan). After an overnight, we then drove back thru the mountains to Arendal.

While we had intended a coastal tour on the boat, we ended up seeing much more to the country than we anticipated. There was nothing we did not like about the country and its people. We were very much reminded of Canada in terms of topography, moderation, and hospitality. The discovery of oil in the 1970’s lead to the development of a very sophisticated engineering culture building off their ship building experience. Oil revenues cover about half of the federal budget, but they know it will run out, and have built a Commonwealth Fund whose dividends will make up the difference in twenty years. While they export the oil, they are also developing a fossil free economy, over half of the new cars sold here are Teslas. Some of the reasons these are the happiest people on the planet.