Hunting for submarines along Muskö - 2 & 3 September 2017

Muskö is an island that we love for its mushrooms. But Muskö used to be hosting one of the largest military base in Sweden, since the 1950s' when it was constructed, until 2004 when the base was closed. It still hosts a large military camp, and Muskö is across the mainland where the Swedish admiralty is located. With heavy face winds, cold weather, 55 miles to go (to Stockholm) and a late departure because of morning mushroom picking, we decided to go on engine through the narrow passage along the inner shore of the Muskö former submarine base, still being a restricted access sensitive area.

A bit scary...

Very soon are appearing the entrances for the destroyers and submarines to the underground base. This is not used anymore, but the yellow buoys are a reminder that one should keep its distances. The engine of La Malouine was changed in 2009 very close to that entrance, in a mechanic workshop who was working for the base and happened to be the national importer of Iveco engines. But at this time, the passage on the south west of Muskö was not authorised.

The entrance at Muskö submarine base. (1) on the map.

Going around to point (2), there seems to be an exit, which happens to be another entrance as you can see on the sketch below the picture on the top right.

(2) on the map.

The sketch of the underground of the base comes from a finish site about history with a few interesting pictures of the activity at Muskö base during the cold war. Twenty kilometres of underground roads, a tunnel connecting the island to the main land at 70 meters underground, an hospital, an atomic bomb shelter, you can find there all what was needed to survive the big blast, and respond!

Going up north-east, watching the sonar for any kind of big fish that would pass under the hull, we pass along strange sign posts that will remain mysterious. They look like midsummer poles, but I suspect they are military.

(3) on the map

The vegetation starts taking its autumn colours, which are so nice in Sweden. But this is a clear indication that the season is coming to an end...

(4) on the map.

The archetype of the Swedish dream: a small island, with a wooden pier where is a sauna, the sailing boat moored close by, and the archipelago...

(4) on the map.

The picture below is not the Swedish dream, but a very particular set of two islands, Lilla and Stora Äggskäret. For information, most places' names in Sweden have a meaning, and as ägg is an egg and skär means "in love", it seems that we have two eggs in love here? The picture is taken from a distance and not very clear, but there are piles between the islands with wires around them. Nowadays, the wires are used by cormorants to dry their feathers. But at the time of the submarine activity, this place was used for "degaussing" the submarines, which consists of applying some electricity around the hull of the submarine to remove its "magnetic print".  

(5) on the map.

Below is the island viewed from above on the eniro.se website. The submarines were passing through the piles, with wires around...

This is no longer used, but hunting submarine through their magnetic print and more recently trail is still a very hot topic as reports the Economist. The most recent incident involving a submarine in the archipelago was in October 2014. Encrypted transmissions with Kaliningrad were intercepted while a Russian tanker and a Russian research boat were cruising back and fro along the Swedish waters.
There is a long list of submarine spotting in the Swedish waters. Yet some experts think that most are not necessarilly from Russian origine but rather from Nato, and probably with the support of Sweden. A way of exercising with Nato while not being part of it, and blaming Russians whenever a submarine is spotted, expert said.

The last novel of Henning Mankell, "The troubled man" is centred around Muskö and the submarine hunting that took place there in 1982 and 1983. A good winter reading!

Cormorant island already featured in previous blog posts, at (6) on the map.

Finally, the approach to Dalarö at the sunset that arrives now quite early, as we are approaching the equinox and we are at the east side of the time zone!