Wednesday 15 July 2009
From Flundreviken harbour to Lauterhorn (Fårösund)
After visiting the beautiful wall enclosed city of Visby we set sail to the North. Along the coast of Gotland a shallow shelf runs about 200 – 300 m out from the shoreline. Outside the shelf the water becomes very deep >100 m, but on the shelf the depth is less than 6 m for the most. The currents with upwelling deep cold water often cause dense fog along the western Gotland shore. So we experience a very thick fog today. We have very low winds from the SW and slowly pace through the fog. At no more than a few hundred meters another yacht passes us running on the engine. Scary! They come from out of nowhere and disappear just as swiftly. After a few miles out we have reached clear weather, the sun comes out and is hot. We see a search and rescue helicopter searching for something (don´t know what). In the afternoon the wind dies out alltogether and we start the engine and run closer to shore to try and catch the sea-breeze. No luck! But at 1630 UTC wind comes back and we have it from the SE this time. After another two hours we reach lauterhorn harbour, which is packed with big yachts. So we find a small cove just SE of the harbour and drop anchor there. We are now at position 57*56,30 N 019*05,08 E.
Tomorrow we intend to go through the sound between Fårö and Gotland toward East. Hoping for good winds we fall asleep. Goodnight.