The Castle Home: Finnhamn

Saturday, May 31 - Sunday, June 1

Stockholm's archipelago is 24-30,000 islands spreading 80km out from the city into the Baltic Sea. The local word for the archipelago is: skärgården... which totally explains the name of the cafe (Skärgården... although it's an Italian cafe?!) by the public docks on Strandvagen. Stockholm's archipelago is just a section of Sweden's archipelago which also includes archipelagoes in northern Sweden, Östgöta (east coast), south east coast and west coast.

With a four day weekend to fill and a new navigation license, Gordon was itching to take the boat out for more than a tour around Stockholm's harbors. Weather was not cooperating Thursday/Friday but looked promising enough for Saturday/Sunday. Using an iPad navigation app he plotted our course, we packed and hauled ourselves and Lucy to the boat. One small problem, Stockholm's marathon was being run Saturday morning, trams and roads to the marina were closed. Solution, Gordon road his bike to the marina and picked us up at the public dock with all our stuff.

dodging runners to cross Strandvagen to get to the public dock

this bride had to walk to the boat where her wedding was being held

it's been a long time since Lucy has been able to stick her head out the window of a moving vehicle!

the rain paid off with a low rainbow

plenty of lighthouses dot the archipelago

painting, Evelyn?!

the girls spent the ride playing Phase 10 and eating chips... everyone had Benadryl to successfully combat motion sickness

Lucy just cannot figure out how to get from the cabin to the deck... the step is too narrow for her

We decided to do some location scouting on Finnhamn before taking the Damerons, Jer and Dan there in August. After a beautiful, uneventful, somewhat rainy, 2.5 hour ride we arrived at Finnhamn. By the way, hamn = port in Swedish.

Finnhamn is a group of islands in Stockholm's archipelago. The island is managed by a mother/son team who oversees the youth hostel and cabins (total 270 beds), cafe and bar, the old red boathouse, the summer store and 1000 boat moorings. The island feels remote and mostly uninhabited... however this was just the opening weekend of the summer season. There were a handful of other boats moored in the guest harbors and around the perimeter of the island in the natural harbors. Finnhamn can also be reached by ferry boat running several times a day during the summer or by hovercraft when the sea is frozen in the winter.

What to do? Lawn games like boule and kubb can be borrowed to play. There's a sauna, row boats and kayaks for hire. Mostly, visitors hike around the island and sun themselves, like lizards, on the rocks.