Kåseberga

We woke to find a clear day with a light NW wind so we left Hano without delay to head south. Space in the harbour was so tight that we reversed Bonita out through the harbour entrance. There was some scepticism as to whether this manoeuvre would work out as planned but in the event it went OK.

The NW wind faded away so we motored for most of the day but made good progress in a calm sea. We had hoped to get to Ystad on the south coast of Sweden, but a westerly breeze sprang up so we tied up for the night at Kåseberga a few miles to the east.

The first picture shows this diminutive harbour: Bonita and Calismarde are tied up at the fuel berth, partially hidden by the shed at the bottom right. Not much seemed to be happening here and the simultaneous arrival of two unmanoeuvrable English boats with their crews shouting to each other about where and how to moor up could not have gone unnoticed.

The geology here is quite different from that further north among the islands. Here there are sandy hills with gentle slopes and large trees growing. Only a few miles further north the scenery is of rocky outcrops, ground smooth by the action of the glaciers and stunted trees clinging on with their roots in the crevices in the rocks.

We climbed the hill behind the harbour and at the top is an ellipse of standing stones known as the Ales Stones. It is rather like an elongated version of Stonehenge with smaller stones and it seems fairly certain that it was used for astronomical prediction.  Little is known about who built it and why, but apparently it has been dated to 500 - 1000AD. Stonehenge is  a lot older than this and the Ales Stones seems to be a very primitive structure for that time.

The picture shows Geoff and Jane among the stones.