Stockholm Archipelego

I am chartering a 38'/12m flybridge cruiser for 7 days in the Stockholm archipelago for the 1st week of July.

Can anyone suggest a cruising route, starting/ending near Stockholm itself, that would occupy a week (using a fast boat!) and including not just some nice remote anchorages but also islands/villages which would be fun to visit to keep the Admiral and teenage Ship's Girl occupied?

I am also looking for a cruising guide in English...I was hoping to buy this before leaving Australia so I would have time to read it, but the only references to such a thing I have found online say they can only be bought in Sweden. We will be in Stockholm sightseeing the city the week before we pick up the boat, so I do have some time to shop for a cruising guide.

Thanks in advance for any tips and advice !

Hi. I´ve been boating this area since I was a kid - there are literaly thousands of Islands so it´s kind of hard to tell You which the "best" route is. I suggest You Wikipedia Stockholm archipelago and also buy the book "Arholma-Landsort and Gotland" (on Amazon) it is a very thorough and updated guide! Also google map it - it is an amazing place to cruise - do bring Your XL-wallet - moorings are cheap but fuel and restaurants are not!

Boating playground of my childhood. Some 40 years ago our family used to spend summer vacations on an island in that archipelago named Gåsön. That was the time when I was infected with the boating virus ...
Unfortunately I can't share actual information. Just suggestions from my long time memory (we made some trips on an Albin 25 at that time):
Leaving Stockholm in NE direction, turn to starboard at Kungshamn and follow the narrow fairway south to Saltsjöbaden. The marina at the Grandhotel was a good place to watch the rich and the beauties. I met ones the young Carl XVI. Gustav (King of Sweden) wearing swimming trunks at the petrol pump. Take your time to cruise ccw around through the archipelago, make a stop / anchorage were you like, heading to the NE outer islands. First week of July there will be a lot of live on the islands, Swedes relaxing in their wooden "sommerhus" from "Midsommar" celebration.
You might even make the 30 nm from the NE end of the archipelago to the Åland Islands half way to Finland before you return to Stockholm.
Or you start in Stockholm heading west to the lake Mälaren, turning south to leave the inland waters via Södertälje and finally turn NE to cruise through the complete archipelago from south to north.
You will have plenty of opportunities! Hope this summer will not be another "green winter of Sweden". Wish you a great time!


best regards / med venlig hilsen
wadden

Well, the dane in the former post might have some points but don´t trust him! - Us Swedes don´t at least not since we lost half of our kingdom to them idontknowwhat people a few hundred years ago - he is quite accurate though (for a Dane) if You want to go from Stockholm and kidasorta southwards. Again, buy/read that guide and never mind the "going south" (Denmark bound) courses. Skål!

Don´t trust him - he´s a Dane! They took half of our country/women (the ugly ones) centuries ago. Trust me - I´m a banker!

Yep, Swedes are so polite, aren't they?
You should of course follow Jonzas advice and buy that recommended guide. Believe me, even though I might be a Dane!
All the best!


best regards / med venlig hilsen
Wadden

Jonza said:

Don´t trust him - he´s a Dane! They took half of our country/women (the ugly ones) centuries ago. Trust me - I´m a banker!

Click to expand...

Trust a Swedish banker living in Spain or the Danish Dude..... Hmmmm....



Flip a coin I guess?

Seeing Sweden by boat is near the top of our list. And Dane Land. Tis true but figure I had better say we want to visit both countries or you two might get stirred up again!

Thanks for the laugh early this morning,
Dan

Thanks Jonza & others: unfortunately the English version of that guidebook has been out of print since 2007. Amazon shows none and nor do other online booksellers I've searched. Perhaps copies are still available in Sweden: I'll just have to look for it when I get to Stockholm.

Richard of 'Dauntless' fame has also kindly offered to send me a guide he and Swedish friends use. He says it will even show the rocks he hit!

Bummer. When in Stockholm try "Nautiska magasinet" in the old town or perhaps "Akademibokhandeln" in the city center. Also might try "The English Bookstore" at Roslagsgatan - actually I would give the latter a call - they might be able to find one for You.

To all who contributed to my queries above: MANY THANKS. We completed our one-week cruise through the central and southern areas of the Stockholm Archipelago and had a truly wonderful time in a beautiful cruising ground. Richard of Dauntless fame was very helpful in sending me a .pdf file of an out-of-print English language cruising guide that described many anchorages and harbours---but didn’t suggest any routes. I added to this destinations suggested from other TF friends and some I discovered myself on line. Best of all, I found ActiveCaptain's (relatively) new Route Sharing functionality absolutely brilliant. I didn't want to spend $600 for an electronic chart for a week's use, but using ActiveCaptain I was able to stitch these isolated destinations together into a rational, if 'tentative', route for the week’s passage-making. I then exported this route from the ActiveCaptain site in .gpx format and imported it into my Maxsea Navigator software on my laptop (I use this with my on-board Furuno NN3D system normally for Australian east coast cruising). I took the laptop and a usb GPS dongle with me to Sweden and powered it up on the 33' sports cruiser we bare-boat chartered for the week. Ran my laptop and ActiveCaptain-generated route alongside the basic Raymarine plotter on board the sports cruiser and was able to track to my ActiveCaptain route almost exactly.
It is worth pausing & reflecting on what's going on here, how amazing the technology has become and in particular, what a wonderful resource Karen & Jeffrey Siegel have created for the global cruising community. I'm an Australian, going to the other side of the world (quite literally) to a cruising ground that is well known but poorly documented in English. I get online input from TF folks & some other online sources to come up with a list of likely destinations. I use ActiveCaptain's free satellite/hybrid mapping and their free route creation routines to stitch the destinations together into a route, successfully follow that route and prove it up. Final step: I have now made the route publicly available to other ActiveCaptain users through the site’s route-sharing functionality. Great stuff.
I will finish off this thread with a final post, including a few photos, talking about the cruising experience itself, in a few days when back home in Sydney

Cool - looking forward to it!