Föglö, 25 July 2019

Föglö, the "Bird Island", is a group of islands with 530 inhabitants. Two main marinas are located on Degerö, one of the island of the group. This is our second visit to Föglö, a convenient stopover on the way tp Mariehamn.

A view of the Degerby from the guest pier.

Kökar, where the summer started..., 24 July 2019

Kökar is a group of relatively large islands in the south of the Åland archipelago. There are three marinas available there, one in Sandvik (59.940675, 20.883422), one in Hellsö (59.950326, 20.923333) and one in Kalby (59.92114, 20.912465). We chose the one in Hellsö and moored on a stern buoy, bow to the pier.

Belisama on the Kökar guest pier at Hellsö.

And here, we started experiencing the real summer, with temperature above 25°C during the day, and limited wind...

Sottunga, 23 July 2019

Sottunga (60.109718, 20.682106), with 90 inhabitants is the smallest municipality in Åland. Only three of the islands around are inhabited. Sottunga got inhabited in the 11th century. The original church was built in 1661, but the one we can see today dates from 1728.

On the island, there is one bank, one school and one post office. One wind mill provides all electricity needed for the whole island.

Torsholm, a supposed guest harbour in Kumlinge, 23 July 2019

Upon leaving Gladalaxen guest ham, we decided to get back to Kumlinge on the east coast, in the guest harbour of Torsholm as indicated on the SXK cruising club pilot book. Tyvär as they would say around here (too bad in English), the big guest-pontoon just disappeared and we had to revert to an old abandoned wooden pier from a factory looking as having closed in the previous century... A good night swinging as the ferries were landing close to us, but overall fine as we wanted to have a chance to visit Kumlinge again since it has so mucho offer...

Kumlinge church.

Glad sailors in the Glad Salmon place... 21 July 2019

In Swedish, a glad salmon is called a gladalax. In March 2019, as we were preparing for the sailing season already scheduled to take place in the gulf go Bothnia and in Åland, we went to the boat fair called "Alt på sjön", held in Stockholm during the first week of March. There, we passed by the Åland stand and ask the guy handling the stand where should we go while sailing in Åland. He told us, in many places, including mine, the Gladalax marina (60.30392, 20.743668). We connected immediately with a post in the blog of François and Valérie on Cybèle 17, indicating how much they appreciated their stopover in his happy salmon place. The connexion was established, and we ended up there with our fiends Johan and Suzanne...

Johan and Kaja on the way to the Gladalax guest harbour.

A ride to Kustavi to welcome Johan and Suzanne onboard, 21 July 2019

Today was quite an important day as it was the day we completed our tour of the gulf of Bothnia. Our aim was to reach Kustavi, in the Turku archipelago, in order welcome onboard Johan and Suzanne, two months (and 1000 miles) after having departed from Stockholm.

After a month of favourable back winds, we experienced no winds for the first time, around 0.3 m/s on average for the day. A full day on engine then, for a 47 nautical miles...