Kayaking in Gryts archipelago

An activity I recently started to like is kayaking. Before this summer I had only a handful of times been kayaking in Stockholm and Linköping. Two years ago me and a friend tried canoeing, but this year is was time for kayaks.

We headed to Gryt’s archipelago which lies in Östergötland in southern Sweden. Since neither me or my friend had been kayaking a lot we decided to take a paddle course so we would get to know some techniques and feel safe in the kayak before we headed out on ourselves.

The course lasted for one day and started at 10 am. We learned how to paddle forward and backwards, how to turn and so on. We also got to try how it would feel like to tip over with the kayak and then with the help from a friend get inside the kayak again. It was a good course and when we were done we felt ready to paddle by ourselves. With this course we earned ourselves a yellow EPP (Level 1 for European Paddle Pass standards). Worth mentioning is that this was a private course, it was just me and my friend with the instructor.

We rented the kayaks and a tree tent from Ostkustenkajak which are located at Ekön camping spot in Gryt. After the course we headed out and looked for a nice place to set up camp for the night. Just a short paddle from the camp we found a great bay for the night.

We sat here and watched the sunset while eating our dinner. It was a very beautiful evening.

We had really big problems with setting up the tent though. It was the first time using a tree tent for both of us. To set it up properly you must have three trees in a triangle and the perfect height above the ground. One of the straps to attach to a tree was broken which gave us more problems than necessary. But after some work we finally got it up and it was time for bed.

The next morning we had breakfast on the cliffs facing east. I had slept pretty good but not my friend. The tent wasn’t that comfy on her side… After breakfast we had a full day of kayaking ahead of us. It was a very calm morning and we took it easy and paddled around.

Our first break was on a small island called Sandön. Unlike the other islands this one has a small piece of sandy beach. It was very nice to take a swim here and relax on the cliffs eating some fika.

We took our lunch stop at Gubbö kupa with a beautiful view over the area. It was super hot when we were here. We wanted to sit in the shadows and at the same time look at the view. That wasn’t possible though and we chose the view over the shadows.

After lunch we continued to check out the small islands. We then took an early evening break and just relaxed on the cliffs which was really nice. We found a perfect spot for dinner and setting up camp.

During the afternoon it gets a bit windy because of the sea breeze, but during the evening it settles down. So we headed out for an evening paddle and the water was so calm. It was a beautiful sunset and we had brought some snacks to enjoy with it. The sunset paddles really are the best.

This time after a lot of work we managed to get the tree tent up a lot better than the night before. This time both of us had a good nights sleep  🙂

The morning after was just as beautiful as the day before, but now the real heat had reached Sweden and we noticed it in the morning already. Another nice day of paddling before we headed back to the mainland again.

We had some really nice days out in the archipelago. It is really nice to be close to the water during the summer and I will definitely try to do it a lot more.

We rented the kayaks for 350 kr for 24h and 350 kr for the tree tent. The course that gave us a yellow paddle pass costed 1200 kr . This company also have events where you can paddle and combine it with yoga, maybe that’s what I’ll try next time. 🙂