We were scheduled to sail at 2:30 on the Stena Atlandica ferry going from Sweden to Denmark.
Driving randomly along the scenic Swedish coast we stopped in at few places including taking a short walk in picture-perfect Grönemad.
But then I noticed that it was 12 o'clock, and we had to catch the ferry that departed at 2:30ish. In the process of programming the GPS for Göteborg (Gothenburg) we found out that it would take least two hours to get there. Yikes! We had no choice but to take the fastest and least scenic route along an industrial highway.
Shortly into that boring drive I tried to program the GPS to go specifically to the ferry terminal. It flat-out refused to recognize any of my keyed-in inputs. Eventually I programmed in 'Frederikshavn', the ferry terminal where it landed in Denmark.
The GPS cheerfully announced that Frederikshavn was five hours and 34 minutes away, but that included time spent on the ferry. And we finally had the location of the ferry terminal in Sweden!
While we were stopped for gas I perused the interesting salad bar in the gas station. We had heard that the food on the ferry was not very good. Could a gas station salad bar be better than a ferry? Al decided we didn't have enough time to dilly-dally over salads so we were off!
To our great relief we saw our first road sign to the ferry in a place called Ha, and arrived at the terminal at 2:30 on the dot.
Dragging out our passports, we were waved in, noting that the ferry parking decks were the colours of the Swedish flag.
It was another one of those blissfully hot days, and everyone was up on the decks to watch as we departed the city.
Goodbye Göteborg!
On the sunny deck people were dragging out lawn chairs, setting themselves up for the voyage.
A red life ring on the Stena Atlandica.
Leaving Göteborg we were escorted (or so it seemed) by all manner of floating vehicles: Seadoos, tall-masted ships, and this strange submarine-like flotation device.
A loading crane in Göteborg's port.
Passing a fort on a rocky Swedish island, one of many small rocky islands on this coast.
A tanker off in the distance.
Inside we discovered that the ferry had a casino.
Al sitting in the inside lounge where he managed to pick up two draft beers, cheap.
The beer was good but our sumptuous lunch/dinner not so much; this somewhat unprepossessing hot dog made me think longingly of that gas station salad bar.
Land appeared out the window although there didn't seem to be any announcement telling us to go down to our car. On the loudspeaker came an announcement in 'intercom' Swedish, possibly English as well, but we couldn't tell what it was saying.
And then Al decided he wanted to go upstairs to see the view as we came into Frederikshavn in Denmark. We went up five sets of stairs, puff, puff, puff to watch the docking and once there, Al took his time about admiring the view.
Finally at the elevator we found it was stopped on 3, then it inched slowly up to 4 and stopped again. Eventually it made it up to the top deck 10 and we piled in and started to go down. Only to find that there were a mass of vehicle decks, not just one, and Al had no idea which deck our car was on. We were racing up and down the stairs, opening doors only to find decks that looked totally unfamiliar. At one point I remembered that I had snapped a photo of Al as he headed upstairs from our car deck. Scrolling back on my camera I found the photo; our car was on '5 Yellow'!
Running all over level 5 we found 5 Blue, 5 Purple, we flashed the photo to anyone we saw. I spotted an uniformed woman and gasped, "Where is 5 Yellow?" Frowning a bit she opened an invisible door and sent us through, and out the door on the other side. 5 Orange! Amidst the rumbling of car engines starting up, Al headed in one direction, me the other. Finally another attendant appeared. "This way," he called as he led us forward to the front of the boat, and there was our car, all alone, all the other cars having exited around it.
And so we were in Denmark and off to nearby Skagen, a seaside town by the northern-most point of Denmark.
Google Map of Denmark and Sweden showing the ferry route.

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