Nearing the end of our cruise – running out of food supplies!

Boulder landscape in Huvön

11th - 13th of July

The weather forecast is not good and neither the Swedish, Finnish nor Norwegian maritime weather forecast is in agreement with the strength or the direction of the wind. The Swedish- and Finnish one agrees on a near gale (14-18ms) from the NW. The Norwegian one is predicting a ‘gentle breeze’ from the SW. We are in a small harbour (Fotholmsviken) in the middle of nowhere, which is well protected from the N-NW and we are waiting for the bad weather to blow over.

Friendly neighbours in Småskären

We have come from a gorgeous little island called Huvön, with just an anchorage and stunning views from the cliffs over the whole of the Luleå archipelago. It was highly recommended by our boat ‘neighbour’ in Småskären.

Evening light in Huvön anchorage

We anticipated that the weather would deteriorate and Huvön is open to the N – NW so we stayed only one night and went to Törehamn to fulfil a rather ‘childish’ ambition of having reached the most northerly harbour in the Baltic (marked by a big yellow buoy, where you can leave your boat’s name and date of arrival and you might, one day, get a certificate from the tourist board!)

Today we are very near Kalix (20 km away), the nearest town and we have been running out of food supplies for a few days now. (Stephan is already fast disappearing from lack of food…) It is virtually impossible to get food anywhere close to harbours apart from the towns. But the towns are almost all, further inland, where the water is too shallow even for Easy Rider. So today we set off on our mission: find the nearest super market! The only problem was that our harbour is so tiny and so far away from any village or main road. Stephan had the brilliant idea to phone the harbourmaster and ask how to get to Kalix. Fortunately the harbourmaster’s wife was going that way to work and took us with her.

There is no bus and the taxi, which brought us back in the end, had never heard of Fotholmsviken either and also had to phone the harbourmaster to ask for directions! Next time we will go armed with a map or a car GPS.

We will probably have to go straight to our final destination after the bad weather is over. Båtskärsnäs is where Norrkust Marina is situated and where Easy Rider is going to spend the long freezing winter.

I am very tempted, but I still have to convince Stephan of my ‘brilliant’ idea, to come in January-February to see how Easy Rider is doing, and to experience the winter landscape. Apparently almost the whole Bay of Bothnia freezes over and there are winter roads established on the ice, which lead through the archipelago. You can drive your car (or your snow-mobile) on them! But then it is absolute darkness and silence then… if you are lucky, you might see the northern lights?

The rain is now pelting down and the bad weather seems to be arriving – must close the hatches now.

Easy Rider and the most northerly bouy in the Baltic