The Crater

So, on day three of the cruise through the Finnish hinterland, we had come up with a slightly revised plan.

Leonie and Martin needed to take the train to the airport from either Stockholm or Kalmar, the latter being two hours closer, by train!.  The problem is that two hours on the train is two DAYS on Dauntless.

It would be five days of hard cruising to get to Kalmar and we would have virtually no time in Stockholm.

Now, having ended up spending more than 7 days in Helsinki; I did not want to give Stockholm, the short shrift. I grew up near the Swedish-America line. My second grade teacher was on the Stockholm when it sliced the Andre Doria in half.  Stockholm is in my roots more than Helsinki.

And lastly, this may be the last opportunity to spend any length of time in Sweden, even if only two weeks, therefore we modified the plan.

We would continue west northwest, over the top of Aland Island, and thus take a leisurely route to Stockholm.

So in planning today’s route through the billion islands of the XXX, I noticed our chart warned of a magnetic anomaly.  Nothing to worry about, the three boat compasses never seem to agree, anomaly or not.

But then in the pattern of islands, I noticed was clearly an impact crater, 2.5 miles in diameter, near Angskärs Fjärden.  The magnetic anomaly is caused by the iron core of the meteorite.

So today, we are heading for the crater.  I’ve never driven a boat in a crater before.

Well, the crater was interesting.  The little town was thought may have a dock, may have had a dock a hundred years ago, but all the kids have left town.

A dozen red painted warehouses, boat ports, and no people.

Almost like those ghost towns of Southeast Alaska.

So, we beat a slow retreat and a few hours later, we were anchored on the north side of a big rock. Well, we thought it was an island on the charts, but alas, it was a big rock island.

Figuring that we would have plenty of opportunity to anchor, visit beautiful, pine treed islands, I convinced Leonie and Martin that this was once in a lifetime opportunity.

OK, a bit of a stretch, but an hour later, after having moved the stern anchor twice, we finally pulled it up totally and dropped 300 feet of chain on the hard rock bottom, figuring if nothing else, the weight of the chain would hold us in place.

So far it has.

And it did.

The next morning, we awoke to a 5 knot easterly wind and Dauntless was facing the east.  Hauled anchor and there was some seaweed, but no mud.

In particular on anchor, I wake up about every two hours.  This past night was no exception, so I decided to take advantage of the end of summer light.  Just in the last week have we experienced dark nights, albeit for only short periods?  As we near the equinox, the nights will not only get longer, but also darker.

Last night, in the clear air of the Gulf of Bothia, it was a marvel to see all those stars.  The Milky Way was quite evident.

So many stars, so little time.