This report was published by Yachting World Magazine – June 2015

What’s the attraction of the Baltic?, my friends ask when I cruise north in summer. After all, it’s cold, isn’t it? And expensive. Why go to Sweden when you can sail south fuelled by cheap wine to lands where you can sweat at night under a single sheet?

It’s been years since my wife Ros and I joined the hedonists in Spain for the annual three-month cruise on our Mason 44 Constance. We like sunshine and might toddle to North Africa now and then. But mostly we head the other way.

Once you’re tucked in behind Scandinavia, the Atlantic weather can’t hit you. The sun beats down and you’re so far north it keeps up the good work for 20 hours. That’s why even the blondest Swedes are brown. Food and drink prices only seem around ten per cent more expensive than the UK; costs in Norway can be stratospheric, but that’s on the other side of the mountains.

Berthing, if you pay at all, is half the price of the English Channel and the endless islands ensure there are no waves. So, we turned our bows towards the Baltic again last summer, bound for the legendary Stockholm Archipelago.

Via the Keel Canal

The quickest route there is via the Kiel Canal. Built for the kaiser’s battleships before World War I, it joins Brunsbüttel on the Elbe river with the Baltic via 50 miles of rural waterway patrolled only by German walkers with ski poles. However, the approach from the German Bight doesn’t feature in my book of idyllic sailing tours. The seas are often akin to a washing machine, with lee shores, TSS roundabouts, wind farms and every hazard to navigation except coral reefs.

This time the place served up a typical cocktail of misery, but, having paid in full, we arrived at the lock at 1500 in mid-June for a session of international diplomacy that made UKIP look an attractive choice for the thinking voter.

A long queue of yachts outside the gate always suggests this may be the last lock of the day and that you may not get in. The upshot this time was a carnival of national stereotypes as Dutch, Danes, Swedes, Germans and the occasional Frenchman jostled for position. Only us Brits and a bemused Pole hung back like gentlemen. All this in a three-knot tide for two hours while the lock operators finished their luncheon sausage.

When the lights turned green, pandemonium reigned as the fleet surged into the giant lock like the Charge of the Light Brigade. Somehow everyone squeezed in, although the shouting would have done credit to the Tower of Babel on payday.

After-dark navigation in the canal by yachts is banned and the marina just inside is only a few boat’s lengths from the heavy brigade. So, our slumbers that night were punctuated by thumping propellers and the scream of steel on steel. But sunrise banished bad dreams and by late afternoon the windy Elbe and Kaiser Bill’s ditch were history. We motored out of the eastern lock into a tranquil Baltic and squared away for the north-east.

From the canal it’s 250 miles to the Hanseatic city of Kalmar where the real island-hopping starts. The only question is whether just to go for it or to break up the passage.

Wallander hunting

Ystad in southern Sweden is 140 miles, so it’s an overnighter. But if you’ve had enough of watch-keeping, a series of cracking minor harbours in Germany and Denmark can chop the journey into bite-sized chunks. Ystad is the centre of operations for the TV detective Kurt Wallander and the town now makes an industry of his efforts to control crime.

We didn’t see Wallander, but we enjoyed the modern marina, with its little restaurant overlooking a white-sand beach. The place also boasts an 18th Century opera house, where we grabbed the last two tickets for a Mozart evening.

The music sparkled, the old gentleman next to us in a white tux and pink bow tie was charming and the champagne bubbled over. As we strolled back to the ship in the long evening shadows, three ladies dressed in ballgowns for the performance sauntered homeward through the cobbled streets ahead of us.

Utklippan for the good life

When the Almighty designed Sweden he thoughtfully dropped the skerry of Utklippan off the corner that leads into the central Baltic. Utklippan on a sunny day is about as good as life gets. Not quite out of sight of the mainland, its shelter marks the limit of the islets offshore, so anyone on passage to Stockholm via Kalmar Sound, inside the island of Öland, can leave its big lighthouse to port and kiss his troubles goodbye. Birdlife is so undisturbed by the eco-aware Scandinavians that you have to dodge the nests on an afternoon stroll.

The midsummer sunset after a day of intense blue and gold was a kaleidoscope that went on until dawn paled it out. We carried our supper down onto the rocks with a group of Swedish sailors. Someone produced a bottle of malt and we drank to Nature, then to the sun itself as it rose again in splendour over the distant land.

Kalmar Castle came up ahead the following afternoon, impossibly exotic with its onion towers and domes. Like Ystad, the marina here is clean, cheap, has its own sauna and is virtually in the centre of town. Five minutes walk saw us raiding the supermarket and the victuals were terrific – if you enjoy marinated herring and caviar, nobody does it better.

As well as food, Kalmar has one of the rare government-approved wine shops. Unlike the shady joint in Iceland where, 30 years ago, I bought Black Death (the local hooch) among a queue of men in brown macs, this was Liberty Hall: a big space with good choice. Prices were little more than Majestic’s in Salisbury, but I still kicked myself for not loading up in Germany, where they almost seemed to be giving the stuff away.

Over towards the castle we strolled through the Gamla, the villagey old part of town, in search of a spot of lunch. Here, old wooden houses painted in brave colours crowd together while roses pour over garden fences. The sun always seems to shine on Gamla. I’d love to see it in the snow, but I couldn’t come by boat. You can walk across the sea ice here in February.

Don’t do dinner

We’d come for lunch. Here’s the thing about eating in Scandinavia: unless you are super-rich, dinner is to be avoided. The main dish can cost half as much again as the same thing at lunchtime. But it’s the wine where the joke really stops. I was charged £9 for a glass of the sort of stuff Australians use in sheep dips. This was accompanied by a tiny fillet of pike which would have been flattered to be labelled ‘undistinguished’.

By contrast, I have eaten many an excellent lunch at £30 for two in upmarket cafeterias with open-air terraces by the water. But have nothing to do with the beer. It will give you a headache, make you feel morose and leave you in the poor-house. Far better to drink on board and enjoy the food as the locals do.

Half a day north of Kalmar, we reached into paradise, heeling to a warm south-easterly breeze. The archipelago we were entering could now take us all the way to Russia in flat water. There are so many islands with anchorages yet to be discovered that the pilot books give up trying to describe them all.

You don’t even have to row ashore because the approved mooring technique is to drive up to a handy rock, sling the hook over the stern, then hop off the sharp end and secure the bow to a tree. The boat can now be hauled off as required. Hang your boarding ladder over the bow and step off. Take a stroll in primaeval woodland or chum up with the ever-friendly locals.

Bread from the mermaid

If it’s solitude you want, you can find it on smaller islands in company with sea eagles. If you’re lucky, though, your solitude will be broken like ours at breakfast time with a gentle bump alongside and an Ingrid Bergman voice peddling homemade bread.

This mermaid in a RIB lived on the rocks with the grandmother who had taught her how to bake seagoing loaves. “It keeps,” she said, so I bought one. Three days later I met another enterprising young tradeswoman on the same game. This time I filled my locker and it fed us for a week.

We made it to our favourite island after a pilotage spectacular; working to windward into the outer archipelago, jinking past rocks on clearing bearings until we carried our way through a tiny dogleg into the perfect anchorage. Inside were a few small local boats and children playing on the rocks.

After a swim and a run ashore we laid out the cockpit table for dinner. By ten o’clock the kids had gone to their bunks and all was quiet. To seaward lay only the rockscape, the blue Baltic, the Finnish Gulf and the dark mystery of Russia. The half-lit night was flat calm as we set a match to the cockpit lamp and laid out herring, caviar, the girls’ wholesome bread, Polish vodka crisp from the freezer and hand-picked strawberries.

The sky was too bright for stars and as Venus followed the sun’s brief dip below the northern horizon a flock of geese tagged behind to see where they had gone. The air was so still we could hear the beat of their wings.

FACTS AND FIGURES

Distances

• Dover to Kiel Canal – 350 miles
• Kiel Canal – 50 miles
• Kiel to Ystad – 150 miles
• Ystad to Kalmar – 130 miles
• Kalmar to Bottskar – 200 miles of islands, with many more to come going north and east all the way to Finland and Russia.

Victualling

Buy heavy dry goods – spuds, rice etc – at home where you have a car.

Stock up in Germany: it’s cheaper than Britain, especially for beer, wines and spirits. Brunsbüttel has a convenient supermarket.

Fuel and water

Water is everywhere but bring a hose. Fuel is not a problem nor more expensive than in Britain, but you don’t get the option to split some of the tax for ‘heating purposes’. If you have red diesel on board, make sure you keep the receipt and have it stamped ‘tax paid’ in case you’re boarded by zealous officials, particularly in Holland, as I was.

Charts

Admiralty charts will get you to and through the Kiel Canal. Once inside the Baltic, you must use local charts. Paper charts are vital; without them, it’s simply not possible to achieve an overview. They come in chart packs and are not too expensive. They can be bought in Ystad, Kalmar or, believe or not, all good bookshops. The same goes for local pilot books, which are useful for the plans alone even if you can’t read Swedish. The southern area edition comes with an English translation.

E-charts are available from Navionics (who cheekily charge extra for Denmark) and Garmin. Both also offer iPad Apps at a very low rate, but the Garmin one has no projected track feature, so is less useful.

I use paper charts for passage-making then switch to the iPad for pilotage and to find my position if I get lost among the islands and rocks.

BALTIC TIPS

Spar buoys

The Baltic Sea specialises in spar buoys. They aren’t always specified on the chart and are often small and tricky to spot, so watch out when you’re trying to find a buoy – detail someone to look out if you can spare the crew and don’t forget to clean the binoculars.

Box berths

Swedish yachts have those rubbing strakes on topsides because it’s easy to graunch your boat in a ‘box berth’. Fenders help, but they often pop out, especially if you’re short-handed.

An alternative if you don’t happen to own a Hallberg-Rassey or a Najad is a length of cheap heavy rope – run it along both sides from bow to stern when you come in. In some countries, free box berths are indicated by a red or a green label: green, go ahead and secure; red, find somewhere else.

Head-up to the rocks

This is the classic Baltic mooring technique: lay an anchor out astern as you approach, then step off the bows on to the rocks, which plummet away smoothly into deep water. Secure your bows to a tree or ring and haul off a yard or so. Job done.

Rubbish – no problem

Getting rid of your garbage in the Stockholm Archipelago is a breeze. Most islands have small dumpsters discreetly tucked away. They’re also marked on the chart, so are easy for us visitors to find.

Reel in the hook

Swedes and Danes often set their anchors on tape rather than rope. It’s easier to stow and surprisingly strong. A reel mounted on to the aft pushpit makes stowing the rode a breeze.

Step off in style

A stowable bow ladder makes a huge amount of sense up north – many marina berths require you to come in bow-to and clambering off when you moor on to rocks can be a trauma without one.

Currents in the non-tidal sea

Although the southern Baltic tends to empty out via The Sound at Copenhagen, what current there is elsewhere usually runs with the wind. Even The Sound and the Danish islands can be affected by this (although things may be complicated by local topography). Be ready for the effect – it means that when you’re beating, you’ll often be against a non-reversing stream.

Stick on an arrow

Channels though the islands can be so tortuous it is easy to lose the plot on your chart. Buy a red Post-it-style arrow and shunt it from buoy to buoy as you proceed, so you can find instantly where you are when you return to the chart.

Getting off when you’re on

Sail in the Baltic for long enough and you’ll hit a rock, very likely uncharted, and there’s no tide to help you float off. It’s worth pre-planning which weights to hang from your boom end when you swing it out to induce a heel and reduce draught.