The summer of 2001 was Taniwani's second season. Taniwani spent her first winter very close to her birth place at the excellent facility of Vindö Marin. Vindö Marin is a very recommendable maintenance yard with several clean and heated halls to safely store boats over the winter and possibly have some extra work done. It was quite clear that we would have to sail a long way before finding such a luxurious winter hotel again.

Around May 20th, Taniwani was re-launched and rigged, and Harald and Beate went preparing the boat and for a short early season tour in the vicinity, visiting Gullhlmen and Käringön. After that Taniwani had to wait for another month at Vindö Marin until school vacation in Germany.

In no hurry to go south, we opted for the long trip around the British Isles, rather than rushing down the European continental coast and the through the busy British Channel. So the summer tour for 2001 became the first part of this plan.

Our journey started on June 24^th in Vindö. Our permanent family and friends crew this time was: Harald and Beate with younger son Felix and his friend Jonas. Part time crew our older son Markus and our nephew Ulf.

After the many trips to Henån during the construction, and later for the sailing trials, the whole Orust area now seemed to us like a second home and sailing through the long estuary towards village of Gulholmen, now was routine. For the third time we dropped anchor on the east side of a small island in front of Gulholmen. Gulholmen is a must to see and enjoy, though for Nordic standards, the little harbor can be quite busy in the high season.

Having explored the area extensively in the previous year, and a longer stretch to Scotland ahead, we decided to go a bit faster through the first part of our trip and our only other stops in Sweden were at Hunnebostrand and a bay 2 miles from Grebbestad. It was our 3^rd time in Hunnebostrand a place we really like. We usually go alongside at the stone pier at the northern end of the harbor basin. A nice little hill goes up right there with a magnificent view over the many little islands in front.

From near Grebbestad we crossed over to Norway, to the little town of Risör, another place we had previously visited and liked. And again we chose the same bows to the pier, stern on a mooring, place right in front of a good restaurant.

For several days the wind remained blowing from southwest with 20 to 25 knots, so that we usually sailed a long tack out and then back in to our next destination. Good sailing for the day in rough seas, but once back between the islands it is a whole different world, quiet and warm, almost like being on a lake.

In that manner we leisurely worked our way along the southern cost of Norway, every stop a bit different but always beautiful.

Our next stops were Skagerö near Lillesand, followed by Kvarenes Fjorden just before Kristiansand and then the must-see place of Ny Hellesund.  

It is hard to describe the beauty of this narrow little passage through a group of small islands framed with nice little houses. Finding a place for the night there is off course not easy and we decided to anchor a few miles away in front of the town of Høllen.

A day later we moved on to a place we had already checked out in the previous year, and found quite convenient. Bankebukta, just outside of Mandal is a very good anchorage, and exceptional on the Norwegian coast with it’s large area, all at a depth of about 10m with good holding in thick mud. (58°00.77N 007°25.72E.)There is also a large sand beach to the north. Shopping in Mandal works fine via dinghy.  

The next dayhop took us around the southernmost part of Norway, the Lindesnes. This time with barely any wind, but in thick fog until we were well west of Lidesnes. Again we chose a well-known place in Farsund right in front of the pizzeria, just as last year. 

This year we avoided trying to see if we fit under the bridge right at Farsund, which is listed with an air clearance of 22m. We now know we don’t fit. New this year was the very nice Marina, which was almost finished when we visited. Seems to have all the facilities like showers and launderette.

The light winds around the flat promontory of Lista offered an ice opportunity to gently sail with our gennaker and relax.  In this case more close hauled, but we sail our gennaker on any point of sail and it works quite well poled out on one or even two poles.

Now we come to what I consider one of the greatest anchorages we have ever been to, a small cove at the southeastern end of the island of Hidra, called Kelvekilen. It is so well hidden that one could sail by quite close and not notice that there is a cove hiding behind.

The entrance is about as narrow as it is deep and the rocks overlap so that one cannot really look into the anchorage. I would not try to enter with a southerly gale blowing into the entrance, but it might well be possible as it is very deep. Once inside the cove opens towards the left and the inner cove bends around a steep hill. Depth inside is between 10m and 5m, but we felt it a bit too narrow to swing around just one anchor and set a stern anchor just to keep us in one place. (58°12.09N 006°37.09E)

While the tide is exchanging water in the cove, it is still at least one degree warmer than other places in the vicinity and we used this opportunity for extensive swimming and diving. Also worthwhile is the struggle up the steep cliffs to the top of one of the surrounding hills.

Taniwani and most of the crew then had to hang out in Egersund for a few days, while I had to fly to a two-day business meeting in Texas. Once back we moved on to Tanager where Ulf joined the crew and we sailed out to the Kvitsö islands, our last anchorage in Norway.

This little cluster of a couple hundred tiny islands is quite worth mentioning and a recommended place to visit. We found a good anchorage in the eastern part. (59°03.6N 005°25.31E). We called it the electric bay; since all LEDs in the panel lit up due to the strong field from the powerful AM transmitters nearby. The only downside was that we couldn’t receive our daily weather fax with these strong signals stuffing our antenna pre-amp. Not exactly what we wanted before crossing the North Sea.

All that was well made good by the pleasure of slowly cruising through the little canals in the late Nordic light with its long shadows and warm colors.

Rather than going around the northern tip of Scotland, we had chosen the comfortable passage through the Caledonian Canal and so our destination on the other side of the North Sea was Inverness, about 360 miles to go.

Our passage along some oilfields was fairly smooth and uneventful,  except for when we had a booby on our fishing line. By the time we got him on board and had the hooks cut out, he was pretty exhausted and had to recover on our aft deck fro 14 hours, before being relaunched.

The passage to Inverness took us two days and a few hours, averaging 170 miles a day. In the long shallow passage towards Inverness, we were escorted by a school of dolphins showing off their artistic near miss swimming skills. Once in Inverness we locked through the first two locks and tied up in a little pond called Moir Basin, with ducks around our boat. Coming from the North Sea into what looks like a little village pond, Taniwani seemed quite out of place there.

Next day we locked up towards Loch Ness and anchored in Urquart Bay near the village at a depth of 20m. We could not resist swimming in the cold water of this famous place and enjoyed the evening with the impressive scenery of the loch.

In the morning we awoke to easterly winds and took the opportunity for a fabulous spinnaker glide through the loch towards Fort Augustus. We were rewarded with Nessy showing up right next to Urquart Castle.

All of us enjoyed going through the Caledonian Canal with its 29 locks, a great opportunity for all crewmembers to exercise maneuvering the boat in close quarters.

While the Caledonian Canal can be passed in two days, with just one stop inside, we took our time and enjoyed the easy progress through a wonderful landscape. Our last night in the canal we spent at anchor in Achnacarry Bay in Loch Lochy.

As soon as we left the canal, the weather switched to classic Scottish weather, with 3 days of rain on one day of sun. Still the mystic scenery, with spots of sunlight illuminating old castles or small green stretch of land, sure had it’s own charm. We quickly understood the importance of single malt, to survive in this climate.

Spoiled from sailing in Norway, we found Scotland a bit crowded with yachts. But all this is relative and true only for popular places like Tobermory or Oban. We have also been entirely alone in anchoring in some of the sea lochs.

In Oban we had a crew change: Ulf had to leave us again and our older sun Markus joined us for the rest of the trip. At this point we had about two weeks left to cruise around the Inner Hebrides before we would have to be at Ardrossan, our final destination this year.

With a nice southwesterly wind, it took us less than 4 hours from Oban to Tobermory. My father had marveled about Tobermory as a really great place, but when we arrived, with rain flying horizontal and the anchorage so crowded that we had to go all the way down to the south end of the bay, we couldn’t figure out what he meant.

The world was totally different when we awoke the next morning to bright sunshine on the colorful waterfront of Tobermory. 

We enjoyed strolling around the village and visiting the distillery and decided to stay another day and were rewarded by the magnificent J-class boat Velsheda sailing in and anchoring nearby. What a view!

We decide to cross over from Tobermory to the main land, but then go counterclockwise around the Isle of Mull. This brought us first to Loch Na Druma Buidhe where we spent one night and then to the island of Staffa, which looks almost man made with a band of hexagonal columns supporting the rocky top layer.

We found a lone and beautiful anchorage in West Loch Tarbert on the Isle of Jura, a deep loch way off the beaten track.

Next we sailed on to Islay, since I badly wanted to see the distillery of my favorite single malt: Lagavulin. Despite detailed sailing directions in the Clyde Cruising Club guide book, we failed entering the inner bay at the distillery, and after touching ground (rock) almost all the way in, we abandoned our approach and anchored a mile east in front of the Ardbeg distillery. It was only a short dinghy ride back to Lagavulin, only to find out that there are no tours on the weekend. But then the very friendly manager gave us a very memorable private tour, which made good for all the hassle to get there.

From where we were, it would have been a day trip around the Kintyre to our final destination, but since we still had several days left, we decided to sail back into Loch Sween, to the Fairy Isles anchorage at it very end. We had a fast spinnaker ride, surfing all the way along Islay and Jura and into the loch. The anchorage was very pretty with young seals playing on the rocks next to us.

The 28 day permit fro the Caledonian Canal also includes the usage of the little Crinan Canal, which cuts the passage around the Mull of Kintire and still having some days to spare we sailed on to Crinan to pass to the Clyde via the canal. Right after the sea lock in Crinan is a nice little basin in which we stood for a night, getting both the rainy and the sunny impression.

When we walked up to the canal we were shocked it’s small size and wondered if we would fit through. Well, we did, but the first two miles while it winds along a rocky hillside, it requires full concentration on the helmsman side. All locks are manual and small and don’t fit much more than a boat of our size. We all enjoyed the unique passage quite a bit and would do it again any time.

We completed our trip of this season by sailing north around the island of Bute to a last overnight anchorage at Holy Island right off the big Island of Arran.

On our last day we crossed over to Ardrossan drying our rainwashed sails and taking photos from the dinghy.  

Our journey ended at the Clyde Marina in Ardrossan, where on August 6^th , way too early in the season, Taniwani was hauled out of the water and stored in a shed for the winter.