On Tuesday evening it was supposed to rain, so after Wolfgang had picked up his new sails in Svinninge, we motored round the corner to Vaxholm, capital, so the posters proclaim, of the archipelago. As things turned out, the rain changed its mind and we were given a beautiful sunset instead, and since we were there, at the heart of civilisation, we took advantage of all the delights it had to offer – the tea shop with the irresistible selection of cakes (this time with its lovely garden resplendent in full sunshine), the second hand book shop (it turns out Swedes will speak to you in Swedish if you are buying Swedish -language books), and most important of all the marina’s WLAN. Now that I have a smartphone I’ve joined the ranks of the people I used to mock, huddling outside the harbour officein all weathers peering forlornly at their mobile phones, WLAN is a rare thing here in the islands, so it was a stroke of good fortune that a final whattsapp message arrived at the very moment I was stepping onto Akka ready to head out – it was from Akbar and Elkhom saying that they had passed their A2 German exam. If it hadn’t arrived at that very moment I might not have found out for days.
Not that we have headed quite into the wilds. There wasn’t enough wind to get us comfortably further than Gällnö, so we moored in Getudden bay and walked through woods and past meadows to our favourite bar in the entire archipelago, where we drank ridiculously expensive alcohol and reminisced about how many times we had been there and with whom. It’s become a fixed point in our sailing itinerary, extra dear precisely because it’s so familiar. Tomorrow, though, if the weather is willing, we’ll go out to the outer islands and discover somewhere completely new.