Enter Sandhamn

Sandhamn is a very large, busy and famous guest harbor. The famous sailing competition Gotland Runt   has its ending point (unconfirmed fact so far) in this marina. Also there a lot of visitors and summer residents alike on this island in the remote end of Stockholm archipelago so plenty of  small ferries are coming and going. There was a lot of activity but this time I did not want to stay on deck much and entertain myself with all this - this was due to wind direction that caused too much movement to my taste to the vessel when connected to the pontoon. Also, we speculated that maybe the deep water, almost 20 m, under the pontoons caused some wave formation that contributed to the lively mooring experience? Well, the guide books in our use had informed us beforehand on this wind direction that has its effect.

Here we met for first time the fixed mooring line. This is of course an indication that we have not sailed in the south too much yet. A fixed mooring line is connected in the other end to pier and in the other end to metal chain in the bottom of the sea. You pick the end in the pier and then work trough the line until you reach the other end. Then you tie it to your vessel and you are done. Of course the lines in the bow are recommended as with case of anchor and buoy ;-) To our surprise we learned from the marina staff that necessarily the closest line is not used but a rope seemingly meant to the other spot on the pier could be used meaning that the lines may cross under the boats. This requires some contemplation...

So I used my day in Sandhamn mostly for resting in the vessel but the crew was busier. This marina offers excellent and plentiful options for feeding your crew. You know, take them to interesting places and feed them well. This makes them happy and when they are happy they play a lot with me and pay a lot of attention. So simple art is the crew management! I will later give my crew feeding tips and return to the crew excursion to the lovely Trouville beach. The crew met their first ever medusa there - to my relief the medusas in Baltic sea would not be harmful for them. However this is still unconfirmed so I need to study this more to avoid unwanted stops to sailing due to potential medusa damage on crew...

Next stop Nynäshamn. We had too little time to spend in this archipelago... And still so many lovely places to visit and good sailing to be done!

The fixed mooring line, coming and going to the water.

I hope the first mate behaved, the cute dog...