Hi Scott, Before you can dream about cruising destinations, you have to know that they exist.
Now you are aware of the Adriatic coast of "former" Yugoslavia. Another wonderful area is the Stockholm archipelago. Hundreds of low, pine tree covered islands with Swedish summer homes on them, and, ..........almost every Swede has a power boat or mainly sailboats. Powerboats tend to be primarily slow speed (6 - 8 knots) plus a few outboard powered fast machines. Everyone is most considerate of one another - no wake zones are respected. But once you are off the well marked ship channels, you need local knowledge and someone has to "correct" your charts so that you avoid the rocks. I came to the conclusion that this was done on purpose to give Russian mini-subs that were constantly trying to explore the Swedish coast a hard time. If you believe the published Swedish chart and then run aground: it's Swedes 1 - Russians 0, in the game of cat and mouse. I once was heading back to Stockholm from one of the outer islands of the archipelago, hard on the wind in a Swedish racing class sloop - a long thin boat: tall rig; deep keel; long overhangs, .............. I checked the chart I had and saw 30 meters of water where I wanted to lengthen my tack between two islands. OK go for it, fewer tacks are better, right? With lee rail under and marching along at about 6 knots, all of a sudden - in the middle of my 30 meter depth area there was a loud BOOM, and our ship was high and dry on a nice - barely underwater boulder. 30 meters of water????? No way. My wife, to this day, never lets me forget that episode when I decide to cut a corner or stray from "guaranteed" deep water. Luckily, as I walked forward to get an anchor out of a forepeak, the boat quivered and slid off the rock into deep water again. The rest of the 30 NM back to Stockholm I stayed in the marked up areas of my chart. But still; another area to put on your "dream about" list. If you hit it in August it's kraftor (sp?) time. These are Swedish fresh water crayfish (probably similar to the crawfish from Louisiana). Then it's ritual eating and drinking time: 1 kraftor: 1 Aquavit: 1 kraftor; 1 Aquavit. and so on, deep into the night. Another great area are the Danish islands............. Towns are built around the harbors. Marinas all have showers and toilets for the cruising sailor. In the morning you walk to the local bakery and buy fresh Danish pastry, and are back on board in time for the coffee to finish brewing. Another delightful area. Connie _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats
