Marstrand was colourful, noisy, crowded, expensive, windy, eventful and wonderful once again. We sail out through the Albrektsund Canal (see above) and wave goodbye to this very special place one more time. Since we have a day to spare before we need to be on the Danish island of Læsø, we could squeeze in a visit to Gothenburg, but instead, we set our sights on the little island of Fotö, just outside of Gothenburg, which turns out to be even more compact than we had imagined.

Fotö is connected by a bridge to its larger neighbours Hönö and Öckerö to the north. Öckerö is all about shipping companies, seafaring, shipbuilding and maritime education. We pass the “floating classroom” T/S Gunilla, a Swedish school ship on which pupils combine their normal education with months at sea. We also encounter a lifeboat that has been launched by the non-profit Öckerö Maritime Center. The ÖMC is an STCW training centre founded in 1997 with the aim of reducing fatal accidents in Swedish fishing. That was the very same year in which Gunilla was converted into a sailing training ship.

Above: this is all we are going to see of Gothenburg this year. Below: more than a hundred years ago, Fotö was discovered by the Christian revival movement. Sailors were trained here for missionary work, a legacy still visible in the local evangelical congregation, Sionförsamlingen, which also runs the harbour café “Bua” in the old fishing-net workshop. The approach to Fotö is, once again, wonderfully tight. No wonder that in the afternoon we are almost the only visiting boat in the harbour. We enjoy the tranquillity of what is probably the last Swedish island of this voyage.