Actually, I was very happy indeed to be in Hudik last night when the wind got up to the point where I couldn’t type properly because the boat was moving about so much. Wolfgang looked out and saw that the buoy we were attached to was completely underwater, so he heroically leaped into Nils and rowed out through the raging storm to capture a second buoy while I waved a white handkerchief tearfully from the stern. Luckily they both made the full 5 meters back intact and no sooner had Wolfgang lashed the line from the second buoy to the cleat than Akka immediately quietened down. “Gosh,” I said, “what an enormous difference that second buoy makes!” “It’s the wind,” said the Skipper, dashing my illusions with his stoic dedication to truth, “it’s dying down.” Sure enough, within a few minutes everything was calm again. The next day, though, I found a dead seabird floating in the water next to Akka – not everyone had survived that night, and I was very grateful to have been safe in Hudiksvall harbour and not tossed about at anchor somewhere.
The Skipper further proved his heroism and agility today by climbing up a mast crane to drill holes in the top of the mast and let down a cable to which he ultimately hopes to attach a short range radio. He was a loooooong way up and apparently the crane swayed in the wind but happily he didn’t end up splat on the deck and so Glada Hudik once again lived up to its name. After this adventurous operation (well, adventurous for Wolfgang – I spent most of it playing sudoku and eating wodges of French bread) we filled up on Diesel and sailed forth from Hudiksvall using only the genoa because the mainsail can’t be operated until the new radio cable has been properly inserted into the slit in the wall of the mast. Even so, we buzzed along at a cracking pace and had to abandon our first two choices of anchoring spots because there was too much wind. We’ve ended up back in the bay at Agö, safely if illicitly attached to a Swedish Cruising Club buoy, and mysteriously enjoying a perfect internet connection without any need to tie the chip halfway up the stays. Perhaps the connection is only dodgy if the wind’s from the south…
