Overnight to Stockholm

I had booked the cheapest cabin on the boat to Stockholm, an inside one low down in the ship, with a shower too small to bend down in and a fan that never stops. It was the darkest room I had slept in for months.

The alarm went off at ten to four. For a few seconds I did not know if it was night or morning, or where the wall was. Then I felt the floor humming and remembered.

The alarm was for Mariehamn, where the ship calls at about a quarter past four. I wanted to see it. The boats stop there for tax reasons. A few people got off, and soon we were moving again.

The harbour lights were still on and the sky behind the town had gone pale without becoming any colour yet. Further along the shore were tall masts that I think belonged to the Pommern, the old four-masted sailing ship they keep there as a museum. I had the deck almost to myself.

By the time the sun was up we were out in open water, and it was almost straight behind the ship as we crossed towards Sweden. Some time later the clocks on board went back an hour, so I got most of the same morning again. I stayed outside with the Bessa and a roll of HP5. The deck vibrates with the engines all the time, enough to feel through the rail, so I kept the shutter at 1/125 or faster. The light before sunrise did not really allow that.

Then the islands began again on the Swedish side and went on for hours. Last summer I spent a slow week on the Archipelago Trail near Turku, and this is the same kind of country, granite and pine close to the water, only seen from the top of a moving block of flats. The low sun was behind us and lit every rock face-on. There were red wooden houses with white corners, and flagpoles flying the long pennant instead of the flag, because it was too early for flags. In the narrow places we passed close enough to see a man on his jetty in a dressing gown, holding a mug. He did not wave. He must see the boats every morning.

We docked at ten, Swedish time, at Värtahamnen, which is not really in the centre. I walked in, past new flats and building sites and across a wide field full of dog walkers. I had brought a fifty-kronor note left over from a school trip twenty-odd years ago, then read that it has not been money for years, since Sweden changed all its notes. I paid by card. On Södermalm I had a coffee and a kanelbulle. The kanelbulle was almost exactly a korvapuusti, our version, whose name means something like a slap on the ear.

The best hour was on Monteliusvägen, the cliff path on the north side of Södermalm, looking across the water at the City Hall and the roofs of the old town. I sat on a bench there for longer than I meant to and took a few frames on the Canonet, not many.

The boat back left at half past four. On the way the archipelago was full of sailing boats in the afternoon sun, and I watched most of it from a seat in the buffet, eating more than I needed. Outside the shop people were pushing trolleys stacked with crates of beer. I slept through Mariehamn, and by half past ten we were in Helsinki.

On Sunday evening I developed the HP5 in the bathroom. The Mariehamn frames are thin, as expected, a grey wash with some masts in it. Two from the archipelago are better than I hoped. The man on the jetty is there, small and slightly soft, with his mug. The Fomapan in the Canonet still has a few frames left. My holiday ends tomorrow, so it may stay there for a while.