It is an eighteen hour trip from Delfzijl to Brunsbüttel, Germany, near the mouth of the Elbe, so we planned to leave in the afternoon and arrive the next morning. The trip down the Ems and northeast in the Elbe traffic lanes was very easy, but our timing was less than ideal, as we picked up so much favoring current as we approached the Elbe River that we were ahead of schedule and arrived in the river before daylight. We became a little confused by all the lights, and received an admonitory call from Cuxhaven Traffic Control that we were in the middle of the channel and needed to move over to the right to make way for a large ship that was due in.

We had to wait quite a while before we were allowed into the lock, because there was traffic coming the other way, and then there were big ships that have priority, but eventually the white signal was lit and we could move into the lock.

The Kiel Canal was originally built in the early 20th century to allow German navy ships to pass from the Baltic to the North Sea; it is not really very interesting, but the big-ship traffic keeps the drivers awake.

At the east end of the canal, in Holtenau, there were several pleasure craft jilling around waiting for the lock while the big ships were being moved in. Finally, a white light came on and the rush started. We were a little concerned; we did not want to be left behind, but if we drove in as fast as these smaller boats, we would have great trouble stopping and there would be problems. Fortunately, however, the lock staff supervised the loading and saved a place for us, requiring one or two smaller boats to move forward and raft up outside others.

At last, the big ships began to move, and then we small fry were allowed to start up. We held back a bit from the first rush, but soon moved out into the harbor, now finally in the Baltic.

We lay over a day in Kiel, to rest up a little, and then headed out to Gedser, a small town in Denmark (Baltic geography and national boundaries are quite convoluted). The forecast was for 15-20 knots, so didn't look bad, but as it happened, we had sustained 35-knot winds by the time we arrived. The channel into Gedser harbor is wide and straight, at least as far as the ferry terminal, but to get to the yacht harbor you have to turn sharply behind a sandbank and run through a twisty channel to the narrow opening in the breakwater. Once there, the wind was blowing us away from the wharf, and there were, as is often the case, only rings to tie to, so getting alongside and tied up was something of an adventure.

While Barbara worked on her papers, I wandered through the parts of the base now open to the public. To be honest, I was a little disappointed.

The nautical museum was interesting, but the ships were closed (off-season, like everything else). The naval base, too, is open to tours, but naturally only in the summer.

We did some food shopping too, and in the process learned a little about Swedish food stores. We were to learn more, of course.

This is a fairly long run, more than we usually like to do in a day, but we were pushed by our schedule and in any case, it was mostly open water, so not too tiring. On trips like this we don't set timed watches, but we do take turns keeping watch while the autopilot steers the boat.

There are narrow channels between little islands, and buoys to keep you in the deep water in the wider spaces, which is all very well, but the Swedish buoys really provoke admiration for the U.S. Coast Guard Aids to Navigation engineers.

In fairness, there are a lot of buoys among the tens of thousands of islands in the whole archipelago, so cost has to be an issue, and the buoys for the big-ship channels are generally much larger and show up better on the radar.

As usual, we walked around the town a little, then stopped in for a cooling drink at O'Reilley's Irish Pub. There we met two nice young prople who worked in the hospital, one as a nurse and the other as a CRT technician. It was fun talking to them and getting their perspective on life in Sweden as opposed to life in the U.S.

Coming out of Arkösund, we passed the giant steelworks and industrial harbor of Oxelosund, and were surprised at how close this huge industrial area is to beautiful green islands and vast numbers of summer cottages. They seem to get along fine, and we couldn't help comparing this scene with the blighted area around (for example) the old steel mill at Sparrow's Point, in Baltimore.

We had decided to go to Stockholm by the "back road," the Södertälje Canal. This meant a very scenic drive through little channels between islands, and then a canal that leads to Lake Malaren.

We found an internet connection at an Espresso House (a very nice chain of coffee houses in Sweden), and with communications established, it turned out that things were better than we had feared.

Now, our plan had been that we would arrive in Stockholm in time for Barbara's conference and would then go on to Helsinki, where we have dear friends, and that Barbara would fly to California from there. Man proposes, however, and God does whatever he wants.

Since there was no real emergency, Barbara did not leap on the next train for Stockholm, but did reluctantly decide to cancel her talks and to fly out as soon as possible after we arrived. While she dealt with these matters in a flurry of emails, I asked the friendly barista for the location of a grocery store and went to do a little restocking. Although the marina was pretty dead, the town was definitely open for business, which made a nice change.

The next morning we got underway early, and by 07:15 were in the lock that separates the canal from the ocean. It was not long before we were through Lake Malaren, west of Stockholm, and in the Hammerby Lock, the southern entrance to Stockholm Harbor.

By 11:20 we were moored alongside at the Wasahamnen, the harbor beside the Wasa museum, which houses a 17th-century warship that sank on her maiden voyage. It was a little surreal, because we were finally in Stockholm, our first goal, and on the day we were supposed to arrive. Barbara's conference would start in two days, but she would not be there, and I felt a little at loose ends, with an accomplishment that was no longer relevant.

Late in the afternoon, we had a visit from the KBV, the frontier guards. A two-person boarding team (a man and a woman) came by RIB from their vessel, parked across the harbor. They said we had been noticed first in Västervik, by an airplane.

As we walked around town the afternoon we arrived, we found half the city's population, or so it seemed, admiring the cherry trees in bloom in the park called the "King's Orchard."

The next day we went to the station and found the train to the airport, which leaves from its own special platform, and Barbara left on the first leg of her journey to Calilfornia, where Anne lives and teaches.

Left on my own, I explored the city, which is largely islands, connected by bridges and by ferries. Our berth is on the island Djurgården, "animal garden." The German cognate, Tiergarten means "zoo," but our island was a game reserve in the 17th century and is now a huge park area with several museums and an amusement park. On weekend mornings the arriving ferries are jammed, and in the late afternoons there is always a long line of cars backed up on the road to the mainland.

The harbormaster, Leif, is very friendly and helpful, and I enjoyed the time there thoroughly. There is a small community of winter live-aboards, who are turfed out when the (short) season comes, who are also very open to newcomers.

So I enjoyed Stockholm, and began to find my way around my very circumscribed part of it. In one of those serendipitous moments that occasionally happen, I went to have a new battery put in my watch, and while waiting I walked around the neighborhood and found a supermarket that was not only better than the ones I had previously found, but nearer the tram line.

The Swedes are great miners; Swedish steel is legendary, and sometimes it seems as though any of the huge granite outcroppings that abound on the coast were just asking to be blasted out, or cut into, or tunneled under. The docks on Bleckholmen (and in Karlskrona, for that matter, though I did not see them) are carved out of the rock, with raw rock walls. The only man-made parts are the gates.

In the end, I decided to go on, but on a series of day trips, rather than one long hop.