Hyppeln 25th June

The weather on the 23rd was still wet and windy on Björkö, so we stayed another day. The day before, we had forgotten that the forehatch was open wide when it started to rain, so the bedding was rather damp. It was time for changing the sheet and covers etc. anyway so we used the morning to wash and dry it all in the harbour's washing machine. We couldn't get the washing machine to start and ended up with the port captain coming down to sort out the problem - which turned out to be that we should have turned on the water! Oops! But he was very good about it, despite us having got him out of bed early on a Saturday morning.

In the afternoon we managed to get out for a walk, and we climbed up the cliff walk overlooking the harbour. There were some fairly recently built houses up there.

                                           Overlooking Björkö harbour

These were built on solid rock, which gave minimum effort gardens!

                                           Björkö harbour

On Monday the weather was a bit better in the morning, at least it was dryish. We decided to sail over to the island of Hyppeln for a change of scenery - only 2.3 nm way! And different it is too! The approach to Hyppeln is strewn with submerged and semisubmerged rocks and calls for careful navigation.There is only one village here - the harbour. It used to be a fishing community, but there are only a couple of commercial boats left now. Many of the houses are now used for holiday purposes but there are frequent ferry services to a couple of other islands and thence further to the mainland. Rie was definitely not impressed with the local shop though - high prices and doubtful quality.

 Hyppeln is much higher with rocky fells. We moored up bows to again, with fixed anchor rope, luckily there was someone on the quay to help us in the strong crosswind. We followed a walking trail in the afternoon, the best we have seen yet. The path follows the western shore and then doubles back over the top of the island.

                                            A ferry approaches Hyppeln

                         Not far from the harbour there was a sandy beach, and Queenie could not resist a dip!

The western side is quite green, with wild rose bushes and low growing juniper and honeysuckle. The path curved around the northern end of the island and we could see over to Rörö harbour, not far away.

Suddenly the scenery changed as we headed towards the middle of the island. We were now walking through a valley of boulders. The path was still easy to walk though, as it was even and dressed with stone chippings. Queenie loved exploring all the nooks and crannies. At one point she found the discarded skin of a snake!

As we dropped down toward the southern side, the scene changed again as we came down to the shore.
As we rounded the southern tip, the shoreline was strewn with smaller stones, which reminded me of the Chesil bank to the west of Portland, England

Eventually the stones petered out, and we came to a meadow area, still strewn with rocks but in between was a rich variety of flowers. Later we found a small field with black sheep sheltering from the wind in a makeshift shelter. We were now back among houses, and it is amazing the lengths some people go to in individualising their terraces!

When we arrived back at the harbour, it was almost deserted of visiting craft. This was the last day of the Swedish midsummer holiday weekend, so most of the boats had sailed back to Gothenberg.

It is now mid afternoon on the 25th, and it has not stopped raining yet today. We now have a German Najad 360 as neighbour ( they crossed from Læsø, Denmark yesterday ). We are considering donning our wet weather suits and going for a walk. Fortunately the weather man (Norwegian Met Office) is promising warm sunny weather the next three days, so we plan to sail to Marstrand tomorrow.