Thursday, June 30th: 11nm almost due south of Paradiset/Idholmen lies Sandhamn (Sand Island). This busy yachting center was always going to be on my itinerary, mainly because it is one of the busiest harbors in the archipelago, complete with fancy hotel and swanky bar, but also because the walk around the island is one of the best in the area. August Strindberg summered here for many years, and it was good enough for him… But also I needed reliable wifi for a work day and I was also in search of an able-bodied young fellow to climb my mast and retrieve my main halyard, which had skied due to a threadbare retrieval line in Blidö when Mike, Mirelle and I set the mizzen following our escape from Grepen Marin. I did not fancy climbing a mast with my foot still so painful, and I certainly was not going to ask my guests to do it. And I was confident I could find someone there to help, since the famed Gotland Runt race was barely a week away and fancy raceboats from across the Baltic’s shores were everywhere, doing some last minute practices and shakedown sails. I quickly found a young German fellow who went up and down in less than three minutes, returning with the halyard and asking no more than a six pack of beer, to which I gratefully added a bottle of rum.
The mood on the docks that night was festive, to say the least, with dance music echoing through the slips until the wee small hours. But I had my eargplugs, my halyard and some wine inside me, so all was well with the world.
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