Bavaria Cruiser 34

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The sailing area of the Stockholm archipelago is beautiful, filled with anchorages and small ports to spend the night. There is always a place to shelter regardless of the wind. The lake-like nature and the multitude of islands limit the waves, making it perfect for family sailing or with a small crew. The navigation remains simple yet interesting, and you can make a loop without passing the same place twice. The distances are also reasonable, allowing time to visit the islands.
And the icing on the cake, you can swim everywhere! The water is both warm enough (20 degrees) and very low in salt!
The welcome from the rental company was both friendly and professional. The boat is in perfect condition, very well equipped, very comfortable, and very easy to maneuver, making it ideal for our small crew of 4. There is a guarded parking lot and a large supermarket nearby, and access is very easy.
In short, we recommend the destination, the boat, and the provider!

We had a great week's sailing in the Stockholm Archipelago, however, the service provided by the operator was mixed and the facilities at Saltsjo Pir marina were poor.

The marina is easily reached by public transport from Stockholm and well-located for a cruise to both south and north of the archipelago, we made a satisfying circuit in our week. It is only a few minute's walk from the bus/train stop and a good supermarket, and it has a good restaurant on site. However, the marina facilities were very poor. Only one combined toilet/shower - with 12 charter yachts turning round each week. Also there is no proper rubbish disposal or recycling, no sewage pump-out station and no fuel station.

We had booked early boarding as an extra and arrived at the office at around 10:30. We could leave our luggage there and went to shop for provisions, then waited in the office for the early boarding time at 13:00. During this time it became clear that the preparation of the charter yachts was proceeding slowly and chaotically. It was the first weekend of the charter season, the manager said "its always like this, the cleaning company never sends enough people" - but surely it is the manager's job to make allowance for this, the cleaning could have been done on previous days in this case. But the manager offered to refund our early booking fee, which helped, then just at 13:00 the staff on the pontoon said our yacht was ready. Great - but once we got onto the boat, we realised it was not the model of Bavaria 34 that we had specifically ordered. We questioned this and found that a yacht of the correct specification was available, but it was not yet ready. We decided to switch to that and, despite the pontoon staff prioritising our yacht, it was after 16:00 before the yacht was ready for us to leave.

I should emphasise that the staff on the pontoon were all great and worked hard to clean, repair and equip our yacht as quickly as they could. But the manager seemed to take no responsibility for the issues that were occurring, just pushing the blame on to others. When we returned home, three days after our charter ended, our refund had still not been transferred. I believe the manager did not transfer it until I reminded him and would have not done so if I had not contacted him. I received it three days later.

As it turned out, when we left the marina the yacht was still not "ready". The waste tank was almost full and overflowed on our second day, its gauge didn't work. The fuel gauge showed 3/4 full, but on our second day we filled it with more than half a tank (80L); the gauge then showed full for the rest of the week, despite our using an estimated 45L. However, other than these issues, which we worked around, the yacht was in good condition and sailed well. She was well-enough equipped, although a bit short in galley equipment, with glass and china crockery resulting in breakage and further shortage!

In the first week of June the season had hardly started and the archipelago was very quiet once beyond a half-day from Stockholm. We enjoyed good restaurant lunches in Sandhamn and Finnhamn which were both quiet and friendly at this time. But at several anchorages shore facilities were not yet open.

The area is very different to our usual cruising grounds (West Coast Scotland and Mediterranean) with more restricted channels nearer the mainland and open water further out - but peppered with rocks! Navigation is mostly straightforward line-of-site with hazards visible or well-marked, but the islands and skerries all look the same, so either precise chart work or close attention to chart plotter are essential.

Anchorages were mostly quiet at this time, we had some to ourselves. We are normally most comfortable with swinging anchorages, but we found the holding generally poor and on two occasions fouled on abandoned cable/chain in recommended anchoring spots. It is well worth copying the locals and getting used to bows-to mooring onto the rocks - more secure.

Overall, it was a beautiful and interesting area to sail in with limitless itineraries and hundreds (thousands?) of sheltered anchorages. We had good weather in early June, some good sailing winds in generally flattish water and only two rain showers in the whole week.