We’re only here for the World Cup

After a really lovely sail this morning, skipping along over white-puffed waves at, quite literally, a rate of knots (just over 5 to be exact), decided it was time to look for somewhere to tie up for the night because stiff north-easterly winds were forecast.

It turns out that there is practically nowhere in the archipelago that offers protection against north-easterly winds. Even when it looks on the chart as if a bay is magnificently situated to do just that, the wind contrives to sneak round a corner and come at you from the side. After a couple of attempts, we gave up and headed for the ginourmous harbour at Utö – space for 300 boats! – which at 13.30 proved to be already so crammed that it was only with difficulty that we were able to squeeze ourselves in, It turned out that it wasn’t just the prospect of strong winds that had brought them here. The harbour office’s first questions were “Do you want electricity?” and “Do you want to watch the World Cup?”

We did, however, want to go and see the massive wooden windmill, built by Dutchman at the start of the 18th century and still grinding away in 1927. And we also wanted to see the early 18th century mines, now flooded and eerie (they were destroyed by invading Russians, also in the 18th century, who left nothing in return except another stone bread oven. There are signs all over the archipelago saying “Ryssugn” (Russian oven) and it really isn’t worth following a single one of them.