Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Sailing through the Archipelago

In October Jake and I were invited to sail through part of the archipelago.  Jake helped install an autopilot on the boat about a month before and the owner thought it needed some fine tuning.  So he invited us to join him, as well as his wife, as they sailed their boat from where they dock it in the summer to where they store it over the winter.

When Jake first brought up the idea he just said that someone he met through work invited us to sail with them for the day.  It wasn't until we were on our way that Jake told me that the reason we were going was because something wasn't working correctly and he was supposed to figure it out while we sailed . . . minor detail.

After I got over Jake "forgetting" to tell me the whole reason for our trip I was excited to spend the night and one day sailing on a boat. I wasn't sure what to expect since we would be on a sailboat and most of my experiences have been on power boats (other than the one testing trip on a small lake which involved me yelling "Jake!" several times because I hated it when the boat leaned and I wanted him to "fix" it even though a sailboat is supposed to lean).  I've been on several power boats at the lake over the years and I just love long boat rides.  I'm not a huge fan of water skiing or tubing but riding in a boat just puts a smile on my face.  I love laying up in the front of the boat and going on a long boat ride, especially when the sun is setting.

On Friday, October 11th we headed to central station to take a commuter train out of the city about an hour and 45 minutes to Norrköping where the boat owners picked us up and drove us an hour to Gryt where the boat was docked.
Central Station was pretty busy and the finding the right platform can be a little confusing but we made it.  We packed in our backpacks since it was just for one night but we also brought sleeping bags.  Our train had two levels and of course we had to sit on the top level.  The trees were so pretty since it was fall and they were all turning colors.
The sunset (but not our boat)

This is our boat.  The picture is from the next morning since it was getting pretty dark by the time we got to the boat.
We had dinner on the boat on Friday night.  As dinner was being prepared they asked if either of us couldn't eat anything or if we didn't care for anything.  At this point I already spotted the shrimp so I wasn't quite sure what to say.  Jake, being the less observant one in the relationship, tells them he will eat anything but that I don't like seafood.  Awesome.  It ended up working out just fine but I felt bad for staying on their boat and then telling them I don't eat seafood after they had so graciously purchased and prepared it for us.  The first night we had pasta with a cream sauce and some of us had shrimp :).

We ate dinner and talked about our first impressions of Sweden and how things had been going so far.  It was really nice of them to host us on their boat.  Two of their friends who were also moving their boat came over to hang out that evening as well.

We headed to bed in one of the 3 bedrooms on the boat.  It was a very small room and the bed was kind of awkward because you had to get in and out at the head of the bed which is impossible to do without waking the other person up but we had a nice place to stay which is all that really matters.

Here is the inside of the boat.  There were 3 bedrooms, one master bedroom and two smaller bedrooms.  There were two bathrooms, one in the master bedroom and one that the other two bedrooms shared.  The bathroom was really tiny and it did have a shower but everything in the bathroom would have gotten wet if you did shower.  You also had to pump the toilet to flush it.
We woke up the next morning and had some breakfast before heading to Nävekvarn.  We sailed for about 6 hours.  We had lunch on the boat while we were sailing.  It was so beautiful!

A few pictures from the day.
It was about 43 degrees when we were sailing which wasn't too bad especially if you were in the sun and sitting on a cushion.  After lunch we had tea, cookies and chocolate.  I loved the tea and the cookies we had so after we got home I bought both of them at the store so we could have them at our apartment. I have a cup of tea almost every day, with a cookie of course :).

We did wear some sweet life jackets while we were on the boat.  Apparently they will inflate once they hit water.  Red is a very popular color for houses and cabins in the archipelago.
We were trying to get to Nävekvarn by 4:10 so we could take the last bus from that city to a bigger city to catch a bus back to Stockholm.  Apparently we had the wrong bus schedule and the bus didn't leave until 5:45.  Thankfully we were too early instead of too late for the bus.

We walked around the town for about an hour before heading to the bus stop.  All o the fall colors were so pretty!
We took a 45 minute bus ride to Nyköping where we could get on a bus to get back to Stockholm.  The bus left around 8:30 so we had about an hour and a half to find the bus stop (which was pretty hard because we couldn't find the bus number we needed and then found out that bus wasn't running so we found another bus that left a little bit later) and find a place to eat dinner before getting on the bus and heading back home. You could say that living in Sweden and traveling has really helped us trust each other and work on our communication skills :). We had Chinese food for dinner which was really good and then headed to the bus stop.  While we were boarding the bus we found out we had to prepurchase tickets.  It is a good thing we have smartphones to save the day!  We went to the end of the line and had tickets purchased before we got back to the front of the line.  Thank goodness for phones with internet and Google translate to translate the website so we could figure out how to buy the tickets!

We made it home safely even though it was a little bit stressful making sure we got on the right buses.  As we were walking back to our apartment Jake told me to run and then jump once we got to a certain spot on the sidewalk and to not ask any questions.  So I did.  After we finished he asked me if I knew why we did that.  I had no idea.  He had figured out that over the course of about 24 hours we had taken the metro, a commuter train, a car, a boat, a bus and walked but we had yet to fly or run.  So we did both just to round out the weekend with as many modes of transportation as we could.  And that right there is a perfect example of why I married Jake.  He thinks outside of the box and lives outside of the box and for some reason he can convince me to join him . . . sometimes.

2 comments:

  1. I'm finding a theme in all your posts...you grow more in love with jake everyday. So awesome to read about the way God draws you two even closer together. I loved you before you married jake, but he has brought out so many great things in you!

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    1. Emily, to hear you say that means so much. You've been one of my 'oldest' friends and you've seen me in so many stages in life. I didn't realize how much moving would bring Jake and me closer together. Thanks for supporting me about the move even though I was terrified :).

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