Ringson, Rassavikar and Nynashamn

Thursday 26th June
We left Nykoping and friends after a last visit with some of them to the Pud School - excellent fish soup with aioli.
At 1420 we slipped and raised the main but motor sailed in a light SE breeze until the track went NE (58N42.8, 17E18)  and we could unfurl the jib. We then had a lovely sail througt the last narrow passage and out into clearer water. We chose as usual to take the narrow dogleg through the skerries at (5844.06,17E21.55) and got away with a very tight fetch going ESE through the hole. I did have the motor turning for this bit though not in gear. The obvious passage here is blocked by a large awash rock so care is needed. However the wind went light at Stendorren ( Stone door in Swedish) (58N44.6,17E23.8) where there is another tight dogleg. This route has been used for at least 800 years and I have enormous admiration for those who sailed large and clumsy boats through these passage without charts or much in the way of navigation aids.
From Stndorren we motored to Ringson and anchored for the night at 58N43.9, 17E26.6 very close to another friends boat Claire Elaine in very good shelter and exchanged gossip for drinks in the evening.
The forecast for Friday was good but bad for Saturday so we left Ringson fairly early and unfurled the jib at once to have a lovely gentle sail towards Savosundet ( 58N45.9,17E28.5). Approaching it the wind headed us and we had to motor through, distinctly hampered by the antics of two historic naval vessels moving in the opposite direction.
Once clear of Savo we were less hard on the wind and made good progress. The ib took on a very good shape and pulled hard, giving us 5 kts. plus. However we chose to go more or less east south of Asko in fairly open water and really enjoyed ourselves in the freer wind to the Askenhallen light at 58N47, 17E41.9. Here we went off the wind which promptly died so we then had to motor. Here we were overtaken by Saga Leon, a small cruise ship based in Nykoping that makes a precarious living running trips along the coast. We had not seen her for a while and were glad the business had not foundered. However putting palm trees on the after deck did not strike us as a sensible marketing ploy. We went on NNE through various skerries to the sound E of Liso ( 58N52, 18E48.2). We motored on up to the opening bridge to wait for it to open on the hour. After this was the normal serpentine route to Rassavikar and a pleasant two night stop there. The weather was cold and at times rainy but we avoided the strong winds blowing outside. The trees around us were being blown and made a continuous hissing but we got only the turbulence pushing the boat about a little. Our new anchor again worked well and came up reasonably readily once we had given it time to get unstuck.
We left Rassavikar on Sunday morning when the mist had cleared to about half a mile visibility. This mist was ahead of the forecast schedule and proved persistent with some patches quite thick. However this little archipelag is small scale and the vis was enough to stop us getting lost. We move quickly on to Nynashamn 58N53.9, 17E57.2 where we now are. We are staying here for at least two nights as the cold and the adverse winds make the long plod NE through Myssingen unattractive. The harbour itself is OK but constant ferry traffic makes the water rather rough and the town has little of interest to detain us.
As I write the sky is heavily overcast and the outside temperature is 15.7 C. This is undoubtedly the coldest summer we have spent in Sweden and we rather uselessly resent it.