We needed to go up into Stockholm to buy a  few things at the weekend so with the beautiful warm weather holding on into September we decided to combine a rather mundane shopping trip with a bit of fun out on the water. Stockholm is roughly one third water, one third green space and one third city which makes it a stunning place to live in.

We headed out towards Djurgården park which is a vast green parkland only a short walk from the  city’s shopping centre. At the little cafe by Djurgårdsbron we donned some life vests and jumped into a big red pedalo for a little jaunt up Djurgårdsviken the canal that runs out to the Baltic Sea.

It surprised me how willingly the children hopped into what looked more like an oversized washing up bowl than a boat but they were clearly delighted to be out on the water. They loved the experience and even took over the leg straining peddling for a while giving Mum and Dad a chance to watch the other larger boats pass by, admire the graceful swans with their families of cygnets and have a laze in the sunshine.

It is also possible to hire kayaks, Canadian canoes, rowing boats and bicycles from the same place for around 70kr per hour. Our pedalo cost 100kr an hour and it provided a refreshing interlude to our shopping trip.

image by brionv
 

Along the coastline of Sweden and in the huge inland lakes, there are thousands (in fact, hundreds of thousands) of islands and many of them are populated year round. In these areas boats operate in much the same way as buses on the mainland. The service will normally be far more regular over the summer period when Swedes retreat to their summer houses so make sure you have a current timetable. Icebreakers ensure the important routes are still available in winter. If you will be travelling regularly, find out about weekly or monthly cards. There is no one company that operates all the boats and you can find that more than one company will service the same island. Sometime tickets are interchangeable between companies, sometimes not. Check in advance.

If you wish to own your own boat The Swedish Maritime Administration have excellent information available in English. Go in to recreational boating and read about laws and regulations, safety and get good advice for purchasing a boat here.

At this stage it is not necessary to have either a licence or boat registration, although it is only a matter of time before this changes.

With your own boat, the allemansrätt, or The Right Of Public Access, applies – if you’re going to moor, make sure it’s not in somebody’s private land around their house, don’t stay for more than one night and don’t permanently damage the environment.