The Wind, the Water, the Islands: Exploring Stockholm’s Archipelago

The second the motor turned off, I used to be hooked.

It was 20 minutes into my first Swedish crusing journey on a blazingly sunny morning in late June. I’d set sail with two buddies from their summer season home on Kilholmen, a wooded islet within the central archipelago, about an hour by bus (then a five-minute boat trip) from Stockholm. After motoring via a slim waterway, previous easy, rounded cliffs backed by pine forests and the occasional pink timbered cottage, we entered a wide-open bay, steered the bow into the wind and raised the sails. When the puttering motor was reduce, it was abruptly quiet, simply the wind in my face and the glowing archipelago throughout.

The sheer magnitude of Stockholm’s archipelago is astounding. Formed like a fan spreading out from the capital into the Baltic Sea, this watery area spans over 650 sq. miles — greater than twice the world of New York Metropolis’s 5 boroughs — with someplace between 24,000 and 30,000 islands and islets.

“The innermost islands are fairly huge and populated,” stated Jeppe Wikström, a photographer and e book writer who has lived and labored within the archipelago for many years. “The farther out you go, the smaller the islands get, the decrease they get. And within the outermost archipelago, there are solely low slabs of rock.”

In Swedish, there’s a selected time period for every archipelago landmass, from the massive islands coated with pine bushes and stately Nineteenth-century summer season homes to tiny islets with nothing however a couple of shrubs and lichen.

“I may most likely offer you 30 totally different phrases for an island and most of us would know what the island appears like due to that title,” Mr. Wikström stated. “Skär, kobbe, haru, ö — it’s just like the Inuits and snow.”

For Swedes, the archipelago is a quintessential summer season vacation spot that has typically served because the backdrop for films and tv exhibits, from Ingmar Bergman’s movie “Summer season with Monika” to Astrid Lindgren’s youngsters’s collection “Vi på Saltkråkan” (“Seacrow Island”). However few international guests discover their strategy to these idyllic isles.

“It’s a cliché, the hidden gem, however these are 24,000 hidden gems,” Mr. Wikström stated. “It’s jewellery shops of hidden gems.”

A lot of these pure treasures are accessible by ferry, bus or automobile. However the overwhelming majority might be reached solely by motorboat or sailboat, which one can hire with or and not using a skipper.

For me, the choice whether or not to journey by engine or sail was simple.

“That is most likely probably the most extraordinary place for crusing on the earth,” Mr. Wikström stated. “The number of the panorama, the appropriate to public entry, the dearth of robust winds and tidal currents makes it fantastic.”

It’s additionally an eco-conscious alternative, relying solely on the wind for energy.

“You’re one with nature whenever you go crusing,” stated Patrik Salén, the commodore of the Royal Swedish Yacht Membership, a 193-year-old group based mostly within the archipelago. “It’s the wind, it’s the water and it’s your boat.”

Or it’s your good friend’s boat.

Crusing upwind

My friendship with Viola Gad, a journalist for Sveriges Radio, started a number of years in the past at a artistic co-working house in Stockholm. In June, she and her husband, Henke Evrell, invited me aboard their sailboat: a 33-foot Smaragd, a lithe Swedish racing boat designed in 1973 and constructed in Sweden via the mid-Nineties. The boat has been aptly described as “constructed for energetic sailors.” Their rambunctious 2-year-old, John, was additionally alongside for the journey.

The aim for our first day on the water was to push as far out into the archipelago as doable, crusing upwind within the course of Biskopsön, a nature reserve within the outer islands. Zigzagging forwards and backwards throughout a large bay, Henke was in fixed movement, adjusting a pulley, letting out a rope, tightening a sail and consulting the ocean chart to make sure the route was away from underwater rocks — an ever-present hazard within the archipelago. A seasoned sailor with years of racing expertise, he confidently steered Chicken — the identical title Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Regulation’s character) christened his boat within the film “The Proficient Mr. Ripley” — to overhaul bigger sailboats with ease.

In the meantime, with John sleeping within the bow, Viola peeled tiny Baltic shrimp for a snack piled on Swedish crispbread with mayonnaise and dollops of salty roe. Passing a contemporary glass-walled mansion by itself tiny island, we traded guesses as to which start-up founder was the possible proprietor.

It was late afternoon once we lastly moored in a pure harbor on the islet of Tistronskär, the place Viola leaped onto a barren cliff to tug within the boat, which was then tied to metallic hooks hammered into cracks within the rock face. As soon as ashore, the entire sweaty crew determined to take a dip within the refreshingly chilly sea, wading via sea grass and slippery moss-covered stones to succeed in the cool, clear depths past.

Dinner was a little bit of a fiasco — I broke a bottle of pinot noir on the rocks, another person smashed a glass, John rolled a head of lettuce into the water — however afterward, sitting on the graceful, sun-warmed cliff we watched a chestnut-colored mink dive into the ocean as an Arctic tern gracefully circled overhead. The closest island was wooded, with a small home and a dock seen via the pines, however within the distance, the horizon was interrupted solely by low humps of rock.

“See, the ocean and sky blurred,” Henke stated after the solar set at 10 p.m., nightfall erasing any distinction between the 2.

I’d lengthy considered crusing as one thing solely different folks did — rich folks, to be trustworthy — however in Sweden, that’s not essentially the case. Allemansrätten, the Swedish proper to public entry, implies that everybody has the appropriate to roam — and moor — on any land or island, regardless of who owns it.

“It’s very egalitarian,” Henke stated. “Anybody can come to an island like this when you have a ship. And also you don’t should have an enormous boat. It’s even higher when you have a small boat as a result of the smaller the boat you will have, the higher entry you will have.”

“It’s like you will have this island for the night time, and it’s simply yours,” Viola added.

That stated, not everybody has a good friend with whom to sail or the means (or need) to hire a ship to expertise the archipelago. However alternate options exist.

“In case you’re not an skilled sailor, I’d advocate beginning on a kind of fantastic archipelago ferries,” Jeppe Wikström advised me earlier. “And it’s doable to do even for those who’re in a wheelchair, so it makes the archipelago actually accessible.”

Earlier than crusing, I’d solely explored the archipelago by ferry, taking day journeys to the Artipelag artwork museum, or to a seaside on the island of Grinda to flee my sweltering Stockholm residence.

However a daytrip to the archipelago is like dipping solely a toe into the ocean.

My first in a single day go to was to the island of Svartsö within the northern archipelago. I’d lengthy identified a few seasonal restaurant there, Svartsö Krog, as a result of the homeowners additionally run one in every of my favourite eating places, Matateljen, within the suburbs of Stockholm. Lately, the property additionally has a glamping operation, Svartsö Logi, with 5 canvas tents clustered on a wooded hillside beside the water. Reserving a tent normally requires advance planning; this 12 months, the whole season bought out the identical day bookings opened in February. However cancellations are introduced on Instagram and that’s how I snagged one the primary time I went two summers in the past (this 12 months it prices 5,200 Swedish kronor, or about $500, which incorporates dinner for 2 at Svartsö Krog and a morning breakfast basket).

On that journey, my husband, Dave, and I packed a bag and biked to the jetty in entrance of the Grand Lodge in Stockholm the place the Waxholmsbolaget ferries depart for the archipelago. The crowded ferry thinned out after Vaxholm, a preferred vacation spot for day journeys with its colourful city heart and Sixteenth-century fortress. As we approached Svartsö, the islands we cruised previous turned smaller, with fewer cottages, often only a solitary cabin by itself islet surrounded by a couple of knobby pine bushes.

On the island, we spent a complete day biking alongside gravel roads, selecting wild blueberries in a mossy forest, plunging right into a tranquil lake and having fun with a leisurely dinner on the deck at Svartsö Krog. Then we crawled into a comfy tent with a comfortable mattress and sheepskin rugs, and fell asleep to the sound of water gently lapping towards boats docked on the close by pier.

Glamping, like crusing, is an interesting compromise for many who lengthy to be close to nature with out forfeiting a mattress. However there are myriad lodging choices for an extended keep within the archipelago, from bare-bones tenting websites and rental cabins to hostels and full-service accommodations.

Most of the properties belong to Skärgårdsstiftelsen, the Archipelago Basis, a non-profit group that owns some 42 sq. miles of land — about 12 p.c of the land within the archipelago — in addition to 2,000 properties, starting from accommodations, eating places and hostels to farms, lighthouses, cottages and saunas. The inspiration was created within the Fifties to protect public entry to land and water for future generations.

“Individuals understood that each one the land within the archipelago would finally be purchased to construct summer season homes on the market,” stated Ulrika Palmblad-Wennergren, the top of communications for Skärgårdsstiftelsen, which additionally maintains leisure areas for outside actions, from climbing and swimming to snorkeling, crusing, and extra.

Let the wind determine

With so many islands, so many issues to do and see, the laborious half is usually deciding. And on a sailboat, we may go wherever.

“It’s like the sensation of getting on the freeway,” stated Viola, as we sipped tea at twilight, discussing the place we’d sail the subsequent morning. “Your sails are up and the alternatives are infinite.”

When it was time to start out heading again to Stockholm with Viola and Henke, we let the wind dictate our course and wound up stopping for lunch and ice cream on Kymmendö, a small island that served as inspiration for the novel “Hemsöborna,” by the celebrated Swedish creator August Strindberg. Then we set sail for dwelling.

This time, with the wind at our again, Henke unfurled a royal-blue spinnaker, a light-weight three-cornered sail good for the current wind circumstances. Whereas Viola and John napped under, he instructed me the place to steer and nimbly hoisted the spinnaker and adjusted the ropes and when the wind caught the sail — what a thrill! — it crammed like a large parachute flying via the archipelago.

Simply as I had been awed by the passing nature whereas standing on the strict of a ferry chugging slowly towards Svartsö, I used to be once more enraptured by the ever-changing scene: a sea gull sitting on an islet that was nothing greater than a small rock, a slim bay framed by sloping cliffs, a rocky peninsula coated with tiny yellow flowers, a small pink cottage on an island all its personal.

“It’s not simply the place you’re going, it’s the journey there,” Henke stated.

It’s additionally the journey again, I assumed, as we made our manner via this beautiful archipelago.

In case you go

For sailboat leases and skippered excursions, the Archipelago Basis has an inventory of operators on its web site. You’ll be able to count on to spend from round 1,500 kronor (about $145) per day for a small four-person sailboat to about 10,000 kronor for a skippered yacht that may accommodate eight folks.

Waxholmsbolaget ferries depart from Strömkajen in central Stockholm. (Fares vary from 57 to 173 kronor one-way, relying on the vacation spot.) There are additionally departures from places exterior town heart that may be reached by automobile or public transportation.

Cinderellabåtarna (Cinderella boats) are sometimes quicker, however dearer, from 165 to 210 kronor one-way. These ferries depart from Strandvägen in central Stockholm.

When deciding the place to go by ferry, Jeppe Wikström recommends Sandhamn with its charming city heart and sandy seashores, Bullerö for stunning nature walks and the lighthouse on Landsort, the archipelago’s southern tip. Ulrika Palmblad-Wennergren suggests Nåttarö and Utö, bigger islands with a great deal of actions. When crusing, Viola Gad and Henke Evrell choose the distant islands of the outer archipelago, from Stora Nassa within the north to Huvudskär and Borgen within the south.

On Svartsö, hope for a cancellation at Svartsö Logi, or keep elsewhere and cease by for lunch at Svartsö Krog, which is open every day via mid-August and on weekends via the top of September. (Lunch for 2, about 1,200 kronor, not together with drinks.)

Open every day via mid-August, Båtshaket is the archipelago outpost of the Stockholm restaurateurs Jim & Jacob, the place house-smoked seafood and recent grilled fish are served on a wood deck beside the ocean (lunch for 2, about 600 kronor). It’s situated on Ålö, an islet close to Utö, a big island within the southern archipelago that’s dwelling to Utö Bakgård, top-of-the-line bakeries within the archipelago (open every day via mid-August, then decreased hours; lunch for 2, about 300 kronor).

The Archipelago Basis’s web site is an efficient place to seek out cottages and cabins to hire, visitor harbors to moor for the night time, in addition to accommodations, hostels, tenting websites, eating places, retailers and actions.

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