Skärgården

The season for public ferry sailing to the Weather Islands had finished in August, and I complained to Isabella, the owner of the B&B where I stayed, that I again didn’t reach visiting the islands. Well, it showed up, Isabella had a boat and could take me there!

André, a guest from Switzerland, who also stayed at Isabella’s B&B, joined us for the trip.

After approx. 30 min of sailing, we reached Storö, the main island of Väderöarna, as the Weather Islands are called in Swedish. They are one of the westernmost groups of islands in Sweden. We sailed by the pilot house on top of Storö:

Isabella told us, the pilot house was restored by a group of volunteers (and she has been a part of that group). They take turns in showing the pilot house to the island’s guests where they also tell the history of this part of Väderöarna.

We moored the boat in a small private place, and went exploring. The Weather Islands were long considered to be impossible to inhabt due to the windy weather and the harsh environment. Seafarers have been locked up there since the 1400s in many of the island’s natural harbors and one can now find several carvings on the island’s rocks, like a compass rose.

The Weather Islands today are owned and managed by the National Property Board of Sweden.

The coast pilot operations began in the 1700s and coast pilot families lived on the island until 1966. They were at most five families, twelve adults, seventeen children, a teacher and three maids.

André and I had talked about going swimming, but we were so fascinated by the nature of Väderöarna that we decided to rather go hiking and see as much as possible. The path was marked by some chunks of wood – you can see one on the right from my back:

The Blue Bear and The Aviator found flowers they hadn’t seen before:

The views were stunning, and the rough nature of Väderöarna so appealing:

André in the main harbour:

The yellow house in the far center is Väderöarnas Värdshus. It is an inn with rooms and a restaurant. We went there for lunch, and Isabella joined us.

They were clearly understaffed in that restaurant. No meny card, but a question “Do you want fish or meat?” Complains from a waitress about our questions and requests… We were quite surprised, they didn’t have any seafood or fresh catch of the day, but only two dishes that looked the same. The only difference was fish or meat. Meat was minced and formed in a big round ball, fish wasn’t exactly fish, but a mix of fish remains blanded with eggs and flour, a kind of omelet I would say. I tasted good, but very little fish:

The winelist didn’t exist easier, but again “Do you want white or red?” Very strange, taking into consideration lots of visitors who came by their own boats.

We had the time to walk around a little more after the lunch.

Fan fact: The maximum measured wave along the Swedish coast was registered southwest of The Weather Islands during the storm Per in 2007, with the wave height of 10.2 meters! I only once experienced waves of 4 meters, when sailing northwest of Cape Horn – they were big.