Family sailing

Thursday 30th May was national holiday - and with Friday off we got a long weekend. I spent Thursday for preparing Meritaten for sailing - provisioning food, water, fuel and other necessities.
We left Norrtälje on Friday, after late breakfast.

Weather was good although windy. I took rubber dinghy as it can accommodate all three of us.

This is the first family sailing this year so we take it easy - we decided to just sail to Flaten and then see if we want to go any further or stay there. All depends on the weather.
Friday sailing was very relaxing - the wind was strong but conveniently we were sailing broad reach all the way. To keep it calm we went only on genoa.

There were just three other boats on Flaten, all in the inner harbour so we had the concrete, external pontoon only to ourselves.

I avoid going into tight harbours with Meritaten - as a long keel boat she does not like to turn sharply and motoring back is always tricky. On the outside pontoon we have a good position to leave the harbour on sails.

Girls went to explore the island and I took care of folding sails and securing the boat for night stay.

As a simple boat we don’t have refrigerator or ice box but instead we use bilge to store fresh food. It works surprisingly well - temperature there is around 8 degrees.

Girls came back with wild chives which they gathered on rocks.

The rest of day went on exploring the island, reading, smoking pipe and other leisures.

The forecast for the next day, Saturday, did not look promising. With strong and gusty southerly wind, rain and clouds - it was about to change to northerly in the coming night. I was considering which nature harbours should we sail to - or if we stay on Flaten. Or if we just sail back home.
We’ve left it open for the next day and enjoyed the evening.

The night was relatively warm - with 15 degrees - but I started the oil lamp in the morning to heat up the cabin. POD kerosene stove is still waiting in my workshop to be installed.

The weather deteriorated and wind shifted to SE, according to forecast. We didn’t feel like sailing further today so either staying on Flaten or leaving home were the options. Around 11 came more boats to the inner harbour and it became clear that the island will not stay calm as it was yesterday. I decided to take advantage of southerly wind which should gave us beam reach on the way back to Norrtälje.

With reefed mainsail and partially unfurled genoa we’ve left around noon. Rainy and windy, it became in fact close-hauled sailing all the way to home harbour.

Close to Norrtälje the wind calmed and gusts ceased. I shook the reef and we were running under the full sails all the way to the harbour.

We’ve arrived around 17 when heavy rain started..