Once again, we had a beaut hot shower in the Earthroamer. We walked into the service station and had cappuccinos, a cheese and tomato roll and pastry for breakfast, a typical Scandinavian breakfast. We were going at 8.45 am under an overcast sky with light rain. Outside it was 52°F. We were soon passing large rows of overhead lights beside the highway. In Sweden this far north, the days are long in summer and in winter, they are very short. Therefore, the lights are obviously necessary.
We headed through the city of Stockholm using the Garmin GPS directing us to the famous historic boat called the Vasa and parked in their open air car park.
We thought this museum is one of the best interpretive museums in the world. We had visited the museum on a previous trip to Sweden, not long after the Vasa’s recovery from the bottom of the Saltsjön. At that time, the museum building was completed and the ship was being washed with water so that the timbers would not dry out. The ship was built for the King of Sweden in 1628 but within minutes of being launched, the top heavy vessel overturned and went straight to the bottom. Amazingly, after 300 years it was painstakingly raised in 1961 and the ship, with its incredible wooden sculptures, have been carefully restored.
The building is huge – all heated and air conditioned of course. You entered through three air locks. The interpretive signs are both in Swedish and in English. There are excellent videos including a 25 minute film, which covers additional information.
The artefacts raised with the ship were amazing and included sailors’ bones from the 17th Century. The archaeologists have even been able to work out the colour of the ship sculptures from looking at the chemical composition of the paint that remained. Some of the panels had been restored to their original colours. It is obvious by looking at the ship that it would have been top heavy. We are sure the King was not pleased.
We had phoned our friend Christer Salen who kindly offered to come and take us for a drive around Stockholm in his car. Christer is a very successful Swedish businessman who we had met in 1983 on a trip to New Guinea when he owned the Lindblad Explorer ship. He is a long-term resident of Stockholm so he knew the city backwards. We could not have had a better guide and we thank him very much for his kind hospitality.
We drove around the harbour to a restaurant where we had lunch with Christer and his wife Yvonne and their friends Maree and Michel.
At 3.15 pm, we were back at the museum car park and Christer led us with his vehicle to the Silja Line car park. We had originally decided to put the vehicle on the ferry to Turku in Finland but after a few phone calls, we found that it was completely booked out. Fortunately, there was space on a ferry with the Silja Line that departed at 5pm directly to Helsinki. We paid 4,060 Kroner ($801 AUD) for the shipment of the vehicle and the cabin.
We waited on the wharf watching huge container trucks drive into the ship. After 30 minutes we were directed to go on board. The ship the Silja Serenade was huge – 58,000 tonnes and 203 metres long with a speed of 23 knots – it had engines of about 40,000hp.
It could take 2,800 passengers and 450 cars or 60 buses. On board we could not get over it – there was deck after deck of leisure services everything from the “Sauna Sunflower Oasis” to the “Bellamare Sauna and Wellbeing Centre”. Also on board were hairdressers, conference centres, six restaurants, nightclubs, nine bars, and a major duty free shopping area including six shops.
We travelled down the Stockholm Archipelago past many islets dotted with colourful summer cottages.
As we headed across the Baltic Sea towards Helsinki, the Moscow Circus entertained us with acrobatics from the high wire.
There were many poker machines on board and it looked as if many people went on the voyage purely for the duty free shopping and the gambling. We found that we had a small cabin near the rear of the ship – this was probably the one normally given to truck drivers. It had two small beds so Dick went down to the information centre and for $100 USD, we were given an upgrade to a cabin with a mini bar, television and a nice double bed. Just as our previous voyage across the North Sea, the trip was incredibly smooth the only way you would know you were on board a ship was a slight vibration from the engines.
64kms Today 17,105kms Total since Anchorage, Alaska
