Nya Älvsborg Festning - Gothenburg
Here are some photos from the Nya Älvsborg fortress in the river outside Gothenburg. It looks very nice from the outside (weather was too rough for me to take photos of the fortress itself), so I've always wanted to stop there. This time I had a little bit of time as well as reasons to go there (needed a break from riding a small dhingy through rough waves, as well as a toilet visit). Unfortunetaly I was met with big signs "NO ADMISSION" on the quay. Maybe the fortress visit is strictly from those who have paid for the ferry ticket? I was considering entering somewhere else than by the quay ... but after all, it was a fortress, the quay was pretty much the only place to enter, so I decided to ignore the signs.
While wondering what to do, I saw an otter by the shore, right nearby the quay.
There were nobody on the island, except for some few workers. There were information signs everywhere, even a big poster saying "welcome". I even found a toilet. From the toilet I went up to one of the viewpoints ...
(signpost says "this area is entered at your own risk", meaning that the castle wall may be high and that there aren't any fences to protect people from falling)
There was apparently a small fresh-water pond on the island, it was elevated compared with the sea (I don't know, could be that the elevation was less than the maximum tide difference). It didn't seem to serve any purpose as far as I could tell. Reading the wikipedia article, this used to be an inner harbour, but they dammed it up to keep it from disappearing entirely.
This Friday evening the Swedes were celebrating the midsummer night. I believe this decoration was made for their celebration.
Here is a random photo from Gothenburg half an hour earlier - just before leaving the channel and going into the river.
For those that have read my earlier blog posts, yes, as you can guess, both my dhingy and sailing yacht were at the place where fine, just where I left them (ref my earlier blog posts). Though, the rope I used for attaching the sailing boat to the anchor chain was damaged from chaffing, it would have been torn completely apart if I would have left the boat there for a week more in similar weather (I had one backup rope, if that one also would have failed, the anchor winch would have had to take the full load ... so no, I wouldn't lose the boat like that). Next time I'll ensure to use some protection against chaffing.
Oh, sorry for not posting in chronologic order. I already made a post on my next port, Anholt ...
All photos available in better resolution on IPFS QmUjw2fcvd5cn9a2Y8zanNTo6usMsCQiZTpRjTwWoZ773U. License: CC BY-SA 4.0
Here is a photo from the Wikipedia article:
Given the really small size of the island the occurrence of a pond (even a small one) is kind of miraculous. Is it possible that the pond was human made and not natural?
.........I also remember your old post :-) I think you anchored the ship in the middle of the water and got called in for that. LOL!
... and so nice that their biggest concern was that the capain may have gone lost! :-)
It's not the first time ... crazier stuff has happened before, but then I didn't have a note with contact information in the window of the boat. I went to bed at home peacefully, should have bothered to check my email first. Numerous people, including the police had tried to send me messages and call me, but on a phone number belonging to a SIM-card that was onboard the boat and not used for anything but data ... yes, and people had also contacted me on a boat forum. My boat had been observed drifting in the storm, according to a story published (on the internet) by some local newspaper! The newspaper must have done a little bit of research, because they did state that the "home harbour" of my boat was at Nesoddtangen. So, they speculated that the boat probably had been drifting from there.
Only thing is, it wasn't drifting - it was very well anchored. I had the mAIS app on a cellphone, broadcasting the position over the marinetraffic.com website - and in the boating forum people were also commenting on those tracks, making a perfect half-circle along the anchoring point. I had like 50 metres of chain out, so the radius of the half-circle was relatively big - and there was a gale - with no anchor sail the boat was indeed moving a lot. I also happened to anchor up right outside a police station.
So I can imagine that the police officers on the station was working with their routine tasks all morning, without looking out the window. Then at lunch hours someone actually do look out the window, and there is my boat, and it's moving fast and furious. "Look - a drifting boat!"
I did write an email to the newspaper pointing out the absurdity of the thought that the boat should have been drifting around Nesoddtangen, across the fjord, into the Bærum bassin (thorugh narrow straights), pass all the sand banks outside Sandvikselva, and then all of a sudden just drop the anchor by itself outside Kjørbo.
The police called me in the afternoon the next day asking me to move the boat. I think they have zero rights to demand anything, one is free to anchor up almost anywhere, but anyway I did comply.
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