Today was a quick and breezy sail (me to Wolfgang “Why do you keep saying ‘We’re almost there’ when what you mean is ‘We’re at least an hour away’?”) down to a bay with a tiny guest jetty, which we scorned, preferring to save the €5 fee (never say we are squandering your inheritance, children!) and moor over on an unbelievably steep rock nearby. I’ve spent many summers now standing on the nose of boats staring into the water as we approach a possible mooring spot, looking out for rocks and sudden shallows, and this is the first time the water has ever got deeper as we got closer. It started off at 14 metres and by the time we were near enough for me to jump ashore, it was 16 metres deep. The water was correspondingly chilly – 15 degrees as opposed to 18 at Gullkrona – but as I gazed thoughtfully into its depths, wondering how quickly I might change my mind about wanting a swim once I was actually in it, I spotted a number of moon jellyfish undulating about. Reluctantly – oh so reluctantly! – I abandoned my swimming plans. Cold is one thing, jellyfish stings quite another. A little later on, though, two people anchored over on the jetty dived into the water, and with keen scientific interest I watched them to see how loud the cries of pain would be. Zilch. Evidently there aren’t any jellyfish over by the jetty, only here, by our rock. It was most disappointing,
Berghamn was immortalised in a work called “105 Rocks” by a Brit sailing in the archipelago. He was fascinated by the public barbecue, complete with a stack of wood and an axe for chopping it down to size, and mused on the field day Elf&Safety would have had, had the barbecue been in Britain. Accordingly, he dubbed Berghamn “The Psychopath’s Paradise”. It is very pretty. Below is the view from it. We didn’t see any chopped off fingers or heads littering the picnic area, though, so either there aren’t that many Finnish axe-murderers or they’re all very tidy.
16 metres straight down…