SURREAL Night Sail to SWEDEN [S5E9]

I think we're ready to go. The sun was setting as we slipped the lines and drifted out of the harbor. It was a perfect golden sunset. I looked around at the gentle Danish landscape trying to commit it to memory. I wouldn't see it again for a while. And we are heading towards Sweden. Yeah, very excited. As the light diminished and the world slowly turned a deep blue, we sailed further and further away from land. The next time we would set foot on solid ground would be in a new country. We are going wing on wing. There is a pole set out. I'm Maya and this is Aladino. In the summer of 2022, we sailed north in our 28-foot home with our sights set on Scandinavia. We dreamed of rugged coastlines, intense sailing and otherworldly anchorages. Join us as we document every chapter of this Scandinavian summer. This is goodbye to Denmark. For the past several weeks, we've been voyaging slowly through the Limfjord, a series of saltwater bays and channels which stretch across Denmark from east to west. It's a perfect wind, flat water. It's just perfect. We've been delighted and surprised by mystical old islands. I am so happy. That was magical. Impromptu music. Old family history. In many ways, I think I would not exist if it were not for the Sarn Larsen. And if it were not for the boatyard here in this town, which, not the Sarn Larsen. So that's kind of cool to think about. And some gorgeous days of sailing. I'm going as fast as I can. But now it's time for the next port of call in our Scandinavian summer, Sweden. Would you not touch the mainsheet for a moment? Pressure it. There's four of us on board. Aladino and myself, of course. Plus our dear friends, Luka and Annika. Then you want to point the lens towards the wind, where the wind is coming from. And the goal is to place it right in the wind. And then you can select which link a little bit. And then there's always mini adjustments that need to be made. So now it's turning upwind. It's not too bad. So the wind vane's working? Yeah, and it always can be tweaked a little bit. It needs observation for some time. Not too bad. A night sail always feels somewhat surreal. The darkness, a full sky of uninterrupted stars, and just you and your boat moving silently along beneath the solar system. But there is something even more surreal about leaving land behind and coming across this old and beautiful ship, anchored in the still shallow waters. The neighbor that was rafted to us just now, he is Swedish. And I was on board for half an hour before leaving and he gave me a lot of good hints, good places to visit. And the chart, which I'm really excited about. Yay! Better concentrate on breathing and let your thoughts fall like water to the floor. The danger what you're seeing know that it's all just a trick of the life. I'm looking for the course. Huh? I'm looking for the course. Something like this would be good. And I'll take the Genoa sheet. Let's go down a bit. There you go. A little more. More. Look at the mast. Look at the windrows. And not on all night. This is more an activity now that we're awake. Okay. Jumping around. Cool. We are going wing on wing. Downwind at the moment. There is a pole set out on the Genoa. There is a preventer on the boom. But we don't have it as a temporary. We only have it as a temporary setup because we're all awake and merry and talking in the cockpit. It's not the evening crossing setup. No. But it is fun. And the light is beautiful. It's still really bright on the horizon to the northwest. Yeah. Hopefully west. It was really nice passing the Alexander von Humboldt tall ship, which is anchored out there. And now the moon behind the cloud is really beautiful. Yeah. We are heading to Sweden. And Annika, how does it feel to be out here on a boat on the ocean? This is the second night crossing you've done in your life, right? Yes, it is. This is much nicer than the first one I did. I'm not seasick yet. And I hope I won't be. But I am super sleepy. There's a lot of food you can knock on. Yes. Nice. Feels good. Yeah. The air smells amazing. And I mean, the scenery is beautiful. The illuminated sails, the deep blue of the world around us, and the movement of the waves past our bow. Every now and then I find myself sitting in wonderment with only one thought running through my mind. I must remember this forever. I must remember what the sky looks like. I must recall the shape of that cloud that so perfectly hangs above the horizon's last glow. I have to remember the sounds of the waves and of the voices of my friends and of the boat as it gleefully dances through the water. One day, when I'm very old, I want to be able to remember this exact moment. Just how it really feels. And to feel a wash of contentment that I was fortunate enough to experience exactly this. No, it's Venus. So when I'm trying to trim the wind vane, I look at those lines on the shaft and then I go from one, I jump from one line to the other using this line here. I can spin it. Yeah, so those little cords control the rotation of the shaft. Yeah. And then basically I wait and I see how much, how is it affecting the boat. And then if I find I gotta change course more, then I jump over to the next one again. And the fine-tuning then instead is not jumping from one line to the next, but just a little step in between maybe. Yeah, I would call them notches. From one notch to the next on the shaft. Yeah. So yeah, it's really not going too bad. So me, Luca and Aladino are splitting the shift. We're gonna do two hour shifts, which Aladino and I actually liked for my North Sea Crossing. It's nice when you've only got the two hours on the helm. And with the three people doing shifts, it makes the world of difference when you have four hours off. So the other two are down below trying to get a bit of rest. Me and I are just up here for a little while longer and we'll gradually drift off to sleep. Luca has 12 to 2, Aladino 2 to 4, me 4 to 6. I mean, we'll repeat it all over again, but we should be nearing our destination by then. This is not a very long crossing. So as the darkness truly settled in, we began our shift rotations, feeling very happy with the weather window we had chosen. Good morning. It's 4 a.m. The engine's on now. Yeah, we were able to go like 25 nautical miles and the wind died down when I took over. So I had two hours of slow motoring. Yeah. Sleep well. Thank you. First sunlight. The sun is just about to come over the horizon. Oh, this is one of my favorite times of day. One of my favorite things about a cross. In a few more hours, we'd be in Sweden, although I still couldn't see it on the horizon. The sea stretched all the way into the sky. Soon enough, the morning brought with it a slight breeze, enough to fill the sails at least, and we continued the journey in peace and quiet. Luca and Annika took over for me eventually and the clouds came over the sky. We wanted to reach land before mid-afternoon. A lightning storm was forecast and we really didn't want to be caught in it. In fact, the turbulent weather forecast today is exactly the reason why we had decided on a night sail rather than setting off in the morning. The wind was light, but we pushed the boat as much as we could. It was time to reach land and pretty soon, we spotted some low shapes on the horizon. Hello, Eladino. Hello. What's the morning report? Morning report is that we can now officially see Sweden. So land ho. Land ho and? Maybe you can see it from Denmark on a clear day, but it is now officially in my sight. And we're sailing again. We're sailing and what a beautiful sail. It's beautiful conditions. It really is. Flat water. We're going six knots on a beam. Could not be any better. It's about 50 nautical miles until we hit land. Okay, welcome to the Faroe Islands. What? Oh no. Sweet. So now I'm heading towards a bigger harbour. So we're not going to do the super rock anchoring right away. Swedish anchoring. We'd seen many photos, but we'd never tried it ourselves. Basically, you throw a stern anchor off the boat and then you approach a rocky island until you can literally step off the bow. You then tie the bow onto the rocks and just like that, you can step on and off your boat. It seemed interesting, but also very nerve-wracking to approach a rock like that and we were curious to see how it would go. So far, I think this might be one of our nicest crossings yet. We did have the engine on for four hours, but apart from that, it's just been the best sailing with full sails out, flat calm conditions. Just perfect. I'm so pleased. This has been beautiful and now our destination is already in sight. Can I get a summary of the voyage from your perspective? It was a very calm crossing. Yes. So far, we suspected less wind. We expected less wind and it finally got a little more, which gave us a nice sail. Really good. About four hours of motoring, which is really nice for a crossing. And Annika, your perspective? I didn't get seasick. That is the most amazing perspective. We saw a lot of shooting stars. That was nice as well. And we have been served the most amazing avocado toast right now, so I'm very happy and content and satisfied. Excellent. Same. Me too. All in all, a great voyage and more great things to come in Sweden. We're putting the fenders on and we are arriving to Lervik. Yeah, it's still great wind and sunny, but I think all hell is going to break loose if the weather forecasts are right. So we are very happy to see the destination. Yes. Perfect timing. That's why we're heading in instead of taking a nice anchorage, which at the moment looks tempting. The sails came down as we prepared for entry into our very first Swedish harbor. All around us, low rocks emerged from the sea. We had only traveled for a night and half a day and yet the landscape felt completely different. We saw our first boat employing the Swedish anchoring system. We saw some little cottages on the rocks and then we found a dock at the harbor. There still wasn't much sign of a lightning storm. Instead, the sky was blue and the sun was warm. We immediately set out to explore the landscapes. Time for an exploratory mission. I am loving this. Me too. This is exactly what I imagined Sweden to be and so far it is. There's rocks, there's ocean, there's beautiful oceanfront paths, there's flat water, there's a harbor. It feels very much like home. There's a pizzeria. I'm loving it so far. But the sunshine didn't last much longer. The first raindrops are falling so we couldn't have timed it better. A minute ago I was about to go out for ice cream. Now it did start indeed. It's happening. The thunder is coming. The weather forecast was shockingly correct. Almost down to the hour that it was supposed to happen which is very good. Apparently we can rely on the forecasts out here but boy, the sky is darkening. Wow, I'm pretty glad we're not out sailing in this. Yeah, now the gusts have just started in the west. Well, I might come in because they stay dry. Man, look, they are just 10 minutes late and they are soaking wet. Oh, is there a boat coming in? Oh no. There were so many out sailing. That's true. The rain poured and several thunderstorms passed overhead but inside Little Magic Carpet we were cozy and safe. It's another thunderstorm passing. Yeah, it's the fourth. The fourth one, yeah. Crazy. Well, we've got some chips, we've got some wine and we have some stovetop bread slowly baking away in my beautiful, beautiful pot. So we are well taken care of. So our real explorations of Sweden itself would wait for the next day but the storms did clear in time for a beautiful sunset casting an ethereal glow over the freshly laundered world. So join us next week as we explore the coast of Sweden when we try and fail at Swedish anchoring and when we explore the beautiful city of Gothenburg. Thank you so much for being here. We are so appreciative that you spend your Fridays with us. Every Friday, we are just so delighted to be able to share these videos with you. So if you enjoyed the episode, please do leave us a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel. Leave us a comment letting us know what you thought. An extra big thanks to our patrons for making these episodes possible every single week. We really couldn't do it without you guys. So thank you so much. 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