Elaine and I bought a boat in Stockholm via Internet. Stockholm is the Capital of Sweden, and we took her during 13 unnaturally beautiful days in September from Stockholm to Gothenburg through the canals and lakes of Sweden. The boat is a 7.5-meter long, 50-year old wooden lady named BUMSI. The name comes from the Swedish words "Directly into the water" because she is not leaking anything when you launch her into the water in springtime. I think that all Swedes dream of sometime in their lifetime doing a journey through the canal and I can definitely recommend it. It is a wonderful nature experience and sometimes the agricultural landscape surrounding the canal is much lower than the canal itself. We passed 64 water locks and endless bridges that had to be opened for us to pass. BUMSI has a mast of 5 meters and when we approached "Slussbridge" in Vanersborg and called over the mobile to get it opened, the guard looked out from his lookout and said: Oh, I can see you have a little stick there on the boat. But if you land to the right before the bridge, there is a saw and if you cut a couple of meters, you will not have the same problem again. Then he laughed and the bridge opened.

We met a lot of nice and helpful people during our trip and here we will present our logbook or diary.

Testing the boat on a short trip and signed the purchase documents. After that we went back to our hotel Continental where we spent the night

Grocery shopping and purchase of equipment. We needed sea maps, life jackets, fire extinguisher, sleeping bags and more. At 1 PM we went out to the boat in Karlslunds Marina at Galo to have a GPS installed. We installed ourselves in the boat and when the GPS was properly installed around 6 PM we sat on the bridge and talked to a nice couple who were our neighbours. The first 4 pictures on our website are from them and they arrived by post when we were back in Beijing. This was our first night in the boat.

Departure on such a date has definitely got us give up belief in superstition. At 8 AM we took off and our neighbour was on the bridge taking pictures. I was a little bit nervous about this long ride with all navigation and water locks, etc. But the morning was beautiful and the sea was like a mirror. At 1 PM the engine started to cough a little so we decided to anchor up to cool it off and at the same time prepare lunch. I called the former owner and he suggested that we had too high RPM on the engine for too long a time. During the rest of the travel I learned to balance RPM verses speed. So we ended up this day in Studsvik after a quite swinging day at sea after reaching more open water. The distance was 45 nm (nautical mile) and we sat in the cockpit and talked to Ronny for 1 hour. He was a professional diver and was kind enough to lend his extension cord so we could have some heating in the boat.

Elaine needed to buy monthly stuff so we decided to go in to Oxelosund and as we were tired after yesterday’s trip we took a nap. Then we went into the centre of town where we decided that it was time for a hotel night. We checked into Hotel Anchor. We bought some more basic food and went to Restaurant Police House, which is the old police house in Oxelosund, now made into a restaurant. We went to bed at 9 PM to watch a movie but fell asleep immediately. Distance today 13 nm. After 11 hours of parrying the waves during two days it felt like my legs had done workout during the same time. They almost gave away when I jumped from the boat to the bridge.

Breakfast at the hotel, some more shopping and then out to the boat. There was a warning for half-gale winds in our waters so we decided to stay one more night. The phone was almost hot after all calls to my sister because she checked the weather report on Internet. It was warm, sunny and windy but we had a lazy day reading in the cockpit. I also had the time to sort all the equipment in the way I wanted to have it. Distance today 0 nm. Slept in the boat.

We were up at 8 AM and did a last minute shopping tour into Oxelosund. We left at 11 AM and we lost a fender while I was backing out. It got caught in the bridge. 6 knots towards the canal but after 5 hours the engine started to cough again and thereafter it was 5 knots. We arrived at the first water lock in Mem at 5 PM and then we could only wait for the next day to start passing through the locks. We were doing the canal on low season and then they operate this canal in 4 days which starts at 8 o’clock every morning. We were going to go with Ponapé the nextcoming days and it is a 12-meter long sailing yacht with Ian and Delyth as skippers. Pasta Bolognese in the boat. Water temperature 17 deg C. Distance 36 nm.

We started at the first lock at 8 AM and it went brilliantly even though we had never done it before. The lock worker then followed us during the whole day in her Volvo Amazon from 1968 and she opened locks and bridges. We had 3 locks to Soderkoping and another 12 to Norsholm. Bright sunshine and a wonderful landscape. In Norsholm we paid for the trip and also for the two extra fenders I had to buy and then we crossed lake Roxen which took us 2 hours. Today we ended up in Berg at 6 PM where we slept in the boat. Water 16,5 deg and distance 29 nm.

We overslept and had only 20 minutes to prepare for the first lock, which is Berg’s stairs with 6 locks in a row. After that we had a 2-hour ride in the canal in wonderful sunny weather and Elaine could prepare breakfast. We ended up in Motala and decided to stay there over the night before we pass over the second biggest lake in Sweden, Vattern. We had to say goodbye to Ian and Delyth because they continued over the lake. We would now do the locks one day after them for the rest of the trip. We did some shopping and ate a very good steak on a tree tray at Restaurant Etage. 22 locks, 2 aqueducts and endless bridges to be opened for us. At 10 PM after the sea weather report we fell in deep sleep. Distance 21 nm.

It was a calm and sunny morning and we woke up at 9 AM. We did some shopping and departed on a calm Vattern at 3 PM. We arrived in Karlsborg on the other side of the lake at 6 PM. We ate local speciality, a fish from the lake called Roding. It was delicious. Now we had bought an electrical (220-Volt) lamp so Elaine read for a while. Unfortunately the bridge before the next day’s stage opened and I took the opportunity to pass it with another boat because the guest harbour on the other side had access to electricity. This manoeuvre showed to be fateful the next day. The distance today ended with 18 nm and in the lake the water temperature was 16 deg.

We took off at 8 AM and ended up in Forsvik where the first lock was. But there we had to wait until 10.30 because they had not found our boat on the right side of the bridge this morning and it took some time for the lock worker to arrive. Today there were only two small locks and the first took us up to the highest point of our trip of 91,6 meters. The second lock was only 0.2 m and took us down to Toreboda, which was the next stop. Here we ran 4 washing machines, did some shopping and took a gigantic Pizza where the leftovers lasted for two days for us. Now we also got company from 4 boys who had bought a boat in Motala and they would do the locks together with us tomorrow. Distance today 25 nm.

Today we started to take the locks downwards. It is a completely different technique. We did 19 locks today. The start-up at 8 AM was in a compact fog and the sight was down to 50 meters from time to time, but the canal is narrow so you just had to stay in the middle. At 11 AM the fog disappeared and we had another of these sunny days. We went with the boys to Sjotorp, which is the last lock in the first canal. They did some shopping but we continued out on the biggest lake of Sweden, Vanern, towards Mariestad. We needed to fuel up our boat. A friendly man drove me to a petrol station in his car because at the sea petrol station our type of fuel was not available. We entered the guest harbour and did a tour in the town. Elaine got to eat elk fillet with juniper berry jelly for the first time in her life at the Restaurant Buffalo. Distance today ended at 21 nm.

Sunday 22th September

Today we took the decision that it was time for another night at a hotel and checked into Hotel Vanerstrand, which was only some hundred meters from the boat. We had soup on the boat and then we helped a Norwegian who reversed his boat so the stern rope went into the propeller and got stuck. He had an old tree boat like ours. When we, with some helping ropes, got the boat in to the bridge, he undressed and in underwear he jumped into the 14 deg water to try to loosen the rope. It was impossible and he had to lift his boat the next day to clear the propeller. Distance today 0 nm.

Breakfast at the hotel but before we could start, it was quite late so we did not make the complete lake this day. We had to give up our goal Vanersborg and anchor up in a natural harbour because it started to get dark. The lake was calm. We ate pasta at 8 PM and then went to bed. I was up a couple of times during the night to check the mooring, but it was OK. Distance today 48 nm, the longest daily distance during our trip.

After taking the first 7 nm to Vanersborg we stopped for a while and did some shopping. Then we started our trip through the next canal, Trollhatte Canal. We went to Trollhattan the same day. They call the canals the "divorce ditches" and when we docked in Trollhattan guest harbour it was close. But then we went to the public swimming house and took a sauna and Elaine did some swimming. Then we went to a Chinese Restaurant and everything was back to normal again. We had two bridges and a lock on our way and the distance ended with 19 nm.

Today the locks were completely different. They were high and wide and we did 4 in Trollhattan and 1 in Lilla Edet. After the first lock in Trollhattan, we just held on to the ladders by hand while going down. The lock worker suggested that we could stay in the middle of the next lock and hold the boat with the engine. We tried but old tree boats only reverse in one direction so it was impossible and for the rest of the locks we held the ladders. In Lilla Edet we got a new crewmember, Stefan, who was about to steer and navigate to learn how to handle the boat, since he will be the one responsible for the boat when we are back in China. He mostly did fishing though. So finally at 7 PM our journey ended after today’s distance of 40 nm and a total of 314 nm. We ended up in the guest harbour outside the Opera House in the centre of Gothenburg and who do you think our neighbour was? Ponapé with Ian and Delyth who we started to do all the water locks with.

So our adventure was over and Elaine, who never had set foot on a pleasure boat before in her life, jumped in and out of the boat like a gazelle doing all the locks and landings. Then she was the best steerswoman I have ever had, as I spent most of the time over the sea maps and did the navigating. It was an unforgettable trip and during 13 days we only had two hours of rain which is very unusual for Sweden in September. We were travelling from east to west almost all the time so we were very sun tanned on the left side but quite pale on the right side of our faces.