Yesterday morning was spent in agony. We (mostly Hakan) wanted very much to sail the rest of the coast to the Finish border. An easy sail in the western wind but, a long hard beat to windward in the westerlies forecast for the coming days. And, we have limited time. The decision was in the end to use the westerlies and north-westerly winds to return south.

Prevailing winds in these waters are from around south in the summer. Now, we had the opportunity to sail quicker than expected on our return leg. We set of and the wind turned out to be stronger than promised, 15-20 knots, gusting 25+. Great sailing until we had to motor up the river to Lula (Luleå).

We met up with Elisabeth and Per-Olov (Perra), sailing friends from Greece who are living in Lulea and had a nice day sailing with them today. The wind was strong as we sailed all around Sandon under double reefed main and heavy weather jib. Our friend turned out to be excellent guides and the islands came to life as they told stories about them from their youth and from older days.

We found a nice anchorage for lunch and celebrated our reunion with some bubbles.  Last time we met was on Arki two years ago and it was nice to catch up. After the sail, they took us sightseeing in Lulea. The present city was founded 1621.

An earlier city was located further up the river and the impressive church from 1492 still stand in “Gammelbyn”. There are well preserved old buildings and around 400 “church cabins”. These small houses were used by the constituency who lived over a large area and needed to stay overnight when going to church. Elisabeth told us about how she and her family stayed there when she was young.