Wednesday, August 22: Very cold in the night, rain towards dawn, and overcast and windy (south) for most of the rest of the day
Sea kayaking, 31.8 km
Brattön wilderness camping
My stuff was almost dry by the morning despite the overnight rain. There was a bit of a loud disco on last night and we were up about 45 minutes later than usual but no one else was up. Breakfast was quickly dealt with and everything was packed up, except for the tent, which we allowed to dry for as long as possible.
As we were getting into our boats I noticed that my spray skirt was inside out, had to get out of the boat, put it on the right way and back into the boat and then we were off.
Today’s first stop was a supermarket in town & Simon and I looked after the boats while the others bought stuff. A little boy and his granny were playing in the playground & when he fell over I announced to Simon that the Swedish word for “Hoppla” was “Hoppla” whereby the little guy became aware of us in our spray skirts and pfds. Then they moved along and he caught a glimpse of the boats and his excitement could barely be contained.
Bit by bit the shoppers returned. Kirsten had bought some continuous bandaid for me, so I bandaged up my wounds and we were quickly off, past a refinery and then a chemical plant. The wind was fairly furious behind us and so the speed was quite acceptable. After a couple of hours we turned into a bay which was quite sheltered where we had lunch on a large rock. Kirsten had discovered a couple of surprises she had planted in my boat, so the lunch dessert was dates. Then it was back to the fiord.
Slide Show
Click on the image to stop/start the animation
Since the direction the wind was blowing in and the travel direction were generally in agreement quite a bit of surfing could be attempted, although the waves seemed to run out of their own accord. In the meantime I had sore muscles all around, both back and abdomen. One last stop was Lendertaken with today’s destination Brattön in view, an island just before Uddevalla. Quite a nice bay here, and the weather cheered up a little as we arrived, set up our tents and started preparing dinner. Ours was rice with bell peppers and onions, which we shared and swapped with Rouven & Lena whose creation was very tasty, but then it had almost everything in it.
Interactive Map
At the debriefing Philipp announced that we had almost reached one half of the trip, all in all almost 100 km. Then we had an official round of introductions, which was quite fun, and after a while I treated a mozzie bite on my foot, and reapplied a bandaid to the same foot.
After that the dishes had to be washed and the diary written. Conversations are still continuing but I think I will be heading to bed soon.
