During our stay in the Blekinge archipelago, as much as we enjoyed the peace and quiet, we were surprised to be approached by an “unknown” visitor in the middle of the night at anchor…
That night, we were just relaxing and watching stuff on the internet after a day exploring the island, Chris saw some light outside and it looked like a very big ship. We checked the AIS app but nothing showed up, we thought it was a bit strange… The ship was moving toward us quietly and slowly. Chris worried that it may hit the rocks or underwater rocks (because it was very dark and there were many rocks around), he came outside shining a big torch to help it get in safely. And for me, I hope this huge ship wouldn’t drag our anchor. So, it turned out to be the Swedish coastguard when it came closer.
Thankfully, they came into the anchor spot safely next to us. We both felt quite excited about the surprise visit from the big boys. How cool it was to be visited by the coastguard at night.
As far as I remember, they asked us who we were and wanted to check our passports. Chris put our documents in a plastic bag and handed them over by the poky stick.
While waiting for the coastguards to check our documents, we sat on the deck and admired their ship. It had a very quiet running engine although it kept moving back and forth. I told Chris that they might just come to check and make sure we were okay, because it was still freezing cold and we were the only boat on the water.
An hour had almost passed, the coastguards still haven’t got back to us, I started to feel colder and sleepier…
About 15 minutes later, they finally got back to us. They handed us our documents back and asked some questions about our plan (as you can hear in the video). We told them our plan, and then it took them another 10 more minutes to make some phone calls asking some other department about something. After the phone call and more than an hour of checking our paperwork, all they wanted to emphasize was my having to leave Sweden after 90 days (it’s the immigration rule), which we had already known and paid extra attention to as I am a non-EU citizen.
Eventually, all the checks were done and they left. They left us with many questions which we were still scratching our heads trying to understand. Why at night? Why no AIS? Why was it after a long hour check just to tell me about the immigration rule?… We don’t know… But anyway, it’s an interesting experience for us to see a beautiful coastguard ship at such a close distance.
However, it didn’t end just yet…
A few days later, from the Blekinge archipelago, we came back to Karlshamn city harbor for supplies. We went out for dinner that night and on the way back, we were told by the local man whom we met earlier in the day (he also gave us some fish he caught) that he thought the coastguard was looking for us. We guessed that there might be something wrong with Polaris and rushed back quickly. Once arriving at Polaris, we saw the coastguard parking opposite us. We walked to see them and let them know we were home. It turned out to be the same coastguard who visited us a few days ago at anchor, but just on a different ship.
This time, they came over with 2 coastguards, 2 or 3 police officers (I thought one of them was a detective) and a cute Golden Retriever. They searched everything on the boat (both in and outside), asked us a lot of questions about our boat life and also searched us by hand and by the dog. My husband asked if they had a female coastguard/police officer but they didn’t have one. I felt quite uncomfortable but I understood that they had to do their job, so I tried my best to cooperate…
After almost 2 hours, they finished. I was completely tired and cold. We said thanks and goodbye to each other then went back inside. It was really messy as the dog was running on everything. We had to do some cleaning and tidied up our home even though I was so so so ready for bed…
Lying down in bed, I couldn’t keep thinking about what had happened that night… Why was it at night again? Why was it the same coastguard but a different ship? Was it just a random check or there was something else behind it?… I was too tired to continue with my questions, I fell asleep… Who knows the answers…
