2018 season opening in Artipelag! - 28 & 29 April 2018

April this year will be the first cruise of the season. The Saturday 28 was not very nice though, but later in the afternoon the sky cleared and we got a nice setting sun when departing from Wasahamnen. See the rainbow on the right of the picture below. The rain had stopped just half an hour ago.

Bleeding the pilot cylinder - 19 April 2018

At the end of the season last year, I had the bad surprise to get my pilot to stop operating the tiler, while I could still hear it attempting it. A few checks later, I realised that I was missing oil tank was empty...

No oil in the level bubbling window!

An inspection of the hull below the cylinder identified red oily spots indicating that there had been some leaking from the purge bolts...

Scandinavian anticyclone - 26 February 2018

We are now end of February, very close to the Stockholm boat show, which indicates the start of the new season for sailing in Sweden. In prevision of this event, we decided to spend our first night of the season on board Belisama for this weekend, having invited friends for the occasion...

This was without consulting the weather forecast for the weekend in Stockholm, and therefore, a bad idea. The Scandinavian anticyclone is getting established over Scandinavia, right above Stockholm, resulting in polar weather for pretty much of the coming week here... 

Waves in the making - Kloten, 9-11 February

We spent the weekend in Kloten, at Nordic Discovery "Kloten city". A very nice place for a weekend with a warm welcome and good care provided! This is a fantastic spot to release pressure from the working week in the wilderness, two and a half hours west of Stockholm.

This gave us a nice opportunity to visit next summer Baltic waves in the making...

IOR dan buoy and Silzig - 8 February 2018

I spent this winter thinking about increasing security onboard Belisama for the coming season.While I was equipped with the standard horseshoe buoy and its light, along with a 25 metre rescue line, several discussions with Fañch and evenings spent exploring Internet made me consider adding an IOR pole to the horse shoe buoy and attaching a Silzig-like floating device at the end of the rescue line...

Ice sailing - 4 February 2018

Days are getting much longer and with -6°C today in Stockholm, we go to Täby for a walk along the frozen lake. Nordic skis are in the car, but the snow is not good enough...

And we came across a small ice kart marina along the bank...!

Stockholm choucroute - 28 January 2018

After few days in Cairo for work, I made it back to Stockholm just in time to check the result of my first attempt at fermenting choucroute in Stockholm!

After three weeks of nice bubbling, we opened the kysla kapusta jar this morning...