Gothenburg - 57° 42' 43" N 11° 57' 50" E

Woo hoo, we sailed to Sweden!

Post-passage mayhem in the cockpit, but we are here!
Motoring past the island of Rörö, north of Göteborg

Our sail across the Skagerrak was superb!  The seas were flat and the wind had us zipping along at about 7kn, until it didn't.  We popped the engine on a couple of times just to keep us moving and dropped the sails as we approached the series of small rocky islands that guard the entrance to Göta River, on which Gothenburg* sits.

We anchored amongst these small islands for a few hours but the wind kept rising and the anchorage was not as protected as we had hoped so we headed up the river to the guest marina in the heart of Gothenburg.

... and the first use of our Swedish courtesy flag.

Travelling from the harbour entrance to where we would eventually tie up took several hours.  We passed by miles of industrial docks, filled with container yards, oil and gas facilities and ferry terminals. After passing under a road bridge with a 44-metre air draft under it (we have a 21 metre air draft), we noticed a recent change to residential buildings has taken place. 

The crane became part of the development when the ship yard was converted to apartments!

 It's a busy river with cargo ships, tankers, ferries, pleasure craft and, of course, an amphibious tour boat. As a wonderful surprise, we came into the marina to find Laura and Rod aboard their Garcia Exploration 45 Chili!  Despite the traffic and the wind, we safely tied up just across the marina entrance from a restored 1907 windjammer that has been converted into a Hotel -the Barken Viking!

Safely tied up to a pontoon

It poured and the wind howled, so we were very happy with our decision to NOT stay at anchor.  We luxuriated in the marina showers with their endless hot water then had a wet walk to the supermarket.  The rest of the day, we hunkered down and caught up on reading and sleep.

Färskpotatis - by the bag or pick your own

We woke to dry conditions but the strong winds persisted.  This didn't stop us from marching around Gothenburg with a walking tour, though - it was a private tour as we were the only tourers!

A walking tour with Sebastian.  We started in his neighbourhood.

Founded in 1621, Gothenburg is the second largest city in Sweden and, as with many of the cities in Europe, has a history too long and complicated to summarize. It involved many men of influence called Johannes, trade, shipbuilding, The Swedish East India Company, wooden buildings and fires. And once again, we encountered that cross - Gothenburg has strong ties with Scotland following immigration and trade in the 17th century.

View to the Göta River

Sebastian led us along a shopping high street and up to a viewpoint on the south side of the river, then back down into the Haga District where there were some older buildings which housed the sailors, tradesmen and city workers.  This is now the 'cool and hip' part of Gothenberg. 

A former rooming house/hospital in the Haga District

We often will take a walking tour of a city if we have time.  As well as a bit of regimented exercise, it shows us areas we might not find by ourselves.  It also gives us a knowledgable local to ply with questions about how it is to actually live in a place, what local customs are, how fair they think the government treats everyone and practical questions that are hard to ask random people we might interact with.  Our guide, Sebastian was very kind to answer all our obscure, off-topic questions.

A gaggle of Canada geese - obviously attracted by our flag

Back in the marina, we caught up with Laura and Rod from Chili and, as they had come from the Göta Canal and were heading to Norway, we swapped notes on our anchorages and favourite places.  They kindly loaned us all their charts and pilot books - in German.  So Sean is brushing up.  Let's hope he remembers enough not to run us aground!

 

* The city was named Göteborg on the royal charter in 1621 but also given the name Gothenburg in English and German.  It is known as Gothenburg internationally.  Likely because it is such a tongue twister for us English speakers.  It's pronounced somewhere between yacht-ta-boar-y and yurt-ta-boar-y!!

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