ᛒᛅᛚᛁᛋᛅᛘᛅ ᛁᚾ ᚱᚢᚾᛅᛚᛅᚾᛏ, 22 - 24 May 2020

Belisama in Runeland. On the way from Nynäshamn to Stockholm, through the Mälaren, we stopped for three days in Birka and Adelsö, once the centre of the Viking world.

And there, we discovered the Runstensparken...

Start of the season, 8 May 2020

Awakening from a long winter in Wasahamnen. Belisama was ready to sail since Easter, but the weather was particularly cold, with night freezing and besides, the Covid had been keeping us quite busy. The small community of sailors wintering in Wasahamnen have been spared from Covid.

View from the cockpit, Was a museum on the right.

Tomorrow, we go...

Passing the wave? Not yet in Sweden... 19 April 2020

The wave has arrived, and we are passing over it in the European Union as you can see on the coloured lines representing some of the EU country trend for COVID-19 cases, over the Hukosai famous representation of the Great Wave of Kawanaga used by Debussy for the original publication of "La mer". 

By From The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai Katsushika - Public Domain

Well, most of us...

Sailing stone ships, 20-22 March

Stone ships are common around the Baltic see. Just in Gotland, you can find three-hundred-and-fifty of them. They were used as graves in the late bronze age. Deceased were cremated and the urn with bones and ashes were deposited around or in the stone ships. 

We took the opportunity of the weekend to sail some of them...

A few churches on Gotland, 20-22 March 2020

During our stopovers along the years on Gotland, we had visited quite a few of the medieval churches in Gotland. We took an early spring weekend in Gotland, as at a time Sweden was not confined, and we went through the country side from wonders to wonders as all churches are covered with frescos from the Middle-Ages...

Ninety-three medieval churches are located on Gotland. As Gotland converted to Christianity during the XIth century, the inhabitants started constructing stave churches, wooden constructions inspired by the Norsemen. None of these stave churches have survived. They were replaced during the XII century by stone churches. During the prosperous Hansa trade times of the XIII century, churches were reconstructed and expanded with some adopting a more gothic style and incorporating stained glasses. No new churches were erected in Gotland after the 1400s'.

Dalhem church

Here is a sample of our discoveries during the weekend...

Epidemic rogue wave, 6 March 2020

As a sailor, I have always thought about rogue waves, those mythical monsters that can wreck your boat for good. As an epidemiologists, I spent my professional life preparing for the rogue pandemic that can wreck a country down for couple of weeks. To prevent being caught at sea in by a rogue wave, there is not much a sailor can do when far from the coast. Yet, for the rogue pandemic, there are two things a sailor can do: 1) anchor for a few weeks in one of your favorite natural harbour, or 2) protect yourself from getting infected...

Sars Cov2, source NIAID Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML), U.S. NIH / Public domain

While you can find lots of good ideas for the first option on this blog, in this post, I will provide you with instructions for the second option...

All Baltic 12 years sailing, 2008 - 2019

As we are now planning to move to the Adriatic sea, I have been loading all the 12,500 miles we have covered so far in the Baltic sea since 2008 when I got La MaLouine, a Brise de mer 31, which I bought in Sweden. In light blue are the miles covered with the Brise de Mer, and in pink are the miles with Belisama, the OVNI 445 which we bought in 2015.



As we plan to migrate from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic sea, we feel like documenting what we have achieved in the past 15 years in the Baltic sea.

Now, the plan for the 2020 season is about another 1500 nautical miles through the Baltic States. Time to move southward in any case...