Our fishing boat Siam acquired last summer went through some hardships this winter.
Our fishing boat sinking
With a hole in the hull, it was close to sinking several times. But thanks to the interventions of Martijn, Sebastian and Agne, Siam was saved.
Equipped with a brand new water pump, connected to a battery charging with a solar pannel installed for the occasion, it now remains dry. Some freediving and dry work are planned this summer to fix the hole once and for all.
But there was still a big problem to solve.
The engine problem
The Volvo Penta diesel engine that had been under water was not functionning anymore. It would simply not start.
Sebastian bought a new starter motor, and with some work together with Jeanne and Chat GPT, the other causes of the problem were investigated.
The injector chambers were inspected, the injectors themselves got tested in Gothenburg, and it turn out that it was the injection pump that stopped the fuel from being delivered.
With some moves that were sometimes random, we finally managed to find a way to start the engine.
Siam back to normal
We were rewarded by hosting the first freediving course of the season, as well as a boat excursion with some Hästekasen residents.
A freediving happening featuring many underwater activities.
Date
Starts Saturday August 1st Ends around 4 PM Sunday August 2nd
FREEDIVING HAPPENING CONTENT
Freediving flea market, excursions, depth diving (up to 35 meters), participation in games competitions, test equipment, yoga, sauna, bonfire, film, sleeping place (bring sleeping bag).
Game competitions
Guess-your-depth
Breath holding – Magic 3
CNF Noseclip only
VWT
Depth relay
Team breath holding
Underwater treasure hunt
Other
Booking
Indicate your personal best in depth diving with fins. Also indicate your 2025 personal best, if it is different. Indicate your personal best in static breath holding. Indicate if you have a dive partner with you.
70 € Bank Giro: 5609-0384 STATE name and “Jippo26”
Equipment/suit can be rented: 30€
Bring training clothes and bed linen. Soft clothes for stretching and hat and jacket for boat excursion.
You can also come here and camp in your own tent/van, water and outhouse are available.
Bring your own food for the grill or buy food from us 20€ per day.
Possible schedule
(all activities are weather dependent)
SATURDAY
11.00 Own warm-up in pairs
12.00 Breath holding – Magic 3 Everyone starts simultaneously in static breath holding, the one who ends their breath hold closest to 3 minutes…wins.
12.15Own diving in pairs. Lines at 10, 20, 30 meters 13.00 Guess-your-depth On an unmarked depth line you shall swim down to what you think is 15 meters. Do not touch the line. The one who is closest…wins. May be repeated two times.
14.00 Depth relay in teams (FSE makes the teams) Teams of three. 3×15 meters. Swim or pull yourself down to 15 meters and up again and switch to the next participant through hand clap above the surface. May be repeated two times.
15.00 Sled riding Stand without fins on a bottom weight and be lowered down, release when you want, pull yourself up. Not competition. One chance.
15.00 Underwater treasure hunt in pairs. Find things at different depths on the bottom. 3-20 meters. Area 100×20 meters. Stones in colors of gold 5 points, silver 3 points, white 1 point.
17.00 Diving ends
18.00 Sauna
20.00 Dinner, bonfire in the Tavern. Calculation of score standings.
SUNDAY
9.00 Yoga
10.00 Breakfast in the tavern.
11.00 Own warm-up in pairs.
11.00 Underwater treasure hunt in pairs. Find things at different depths on the bottom. 3-20 meters. Area 100×20 meters. Stones in colors of gold 5 points, silver 3 points, white 1 point.
12.00 Team breath holding In teams of three hold your breath as long as you can in relay. Longest total time wins. Next participant must be under the surface before the next diver comes up.
12.30 Depth relay in teams (FSE makes the teams) Teams of three. 3×15 meters. Swim, or pull yourself down to 15 meters and up again and switch to the next participant through hand clap above the surface. May be repeated two times.
13.00 CNF Noseclip only As deep as you can with only nose clip and swimsuit. No mask, no suit. This category has a special prize.
13.00 Sled riding Stand without fins on a bottom weight and be lowered down, release when you want, pull yourself up. Not competition. One chance.
13.00 Underwater treasure hunt in pairs. Find things at different depths on the bottom. 3-20 meters. Area 100×20 meters. Stones in colors of gold 5 points, silver 3 points, white 1 point.
15.00 Diving ends
16.00 Meeting at the farm, prize ceremony. All performances are counted together (approximately 12 competition efforts). Your placements in each competition.
During our creative festival, we explore the things that Hästekasen community has proven to be passionate about over the years. During ten days, at the height of Swedish summer, we invite old and new friends to share our favorite activities and traditions.
Accommodation in tents that we provide. Come one or more days.
LARP
23rd – 25th July
Two days of an imersive medieval role playing game in our fantasy forest. More details here.
Land activties
26th – 31st July
Workshops and study visits: permaculture, compost, off grid homes, clay tiny houses, nature reserve, forest, berry picking, drumming, yoga, personnal development, fire circles.
Sea activties
1st – 2nd August
Swimming, snorckeling, cliff jumping, fishing, canoe trips, sea weed gathering. And special freediving.
Creative festival schedule
23-25th July; LARP 26th July; arrival, study visit, social games, “loppis” 27th: details later 28th: details later 29th: details later 30th: details later 31st: details later 1-2nd August; freediving, snorkeling and sea excursion days. Cliff jumping and fishing.
Study visit; off grid homes, Tiny houses, natural building techniques Study visit; soil, gardening, compost, water systems, permaculture Study visit; larp area including trying archery and larp sword fighting Long walk: Swedish nature, trekking skills, ecology theory Boat trip: nature reserve island & shopping in the next village harbor Boat trip: Camp on a beach/island. Swim Canoe in the bay: and seaweed collection Long session / sleep out: survival trekking hide and seek sleep out Session: Drumming and chanting for dummies Session: Jamming session by the fire Session: Berry (mushroom?) picking. Session: Early morning animal watch (05.00) Session: Nighttime maze walk with torches (24.00) Session: Talking circles on specific topics Session: Body movement Session: Breath, mind focus and breath hold session Session: Library quest (Swedish) Session: Yoga Session: Blacksmithing Session: Karma yoga – soil work Session: Local cultural heritage (lecture)
At Hästekasen Farm in Bohuslän (adventure center, fantasy village, permaculture, farming, natural building). Theme: Self-sufficiency.
You can see it as an active weekend getaway, we can call it a course, or why not a practical workshop. We can say it’s about experiencing nature at a farm between the sea and the forest. It will likely be a cure—a small mental “detox.” You’ll participate in various practical farm tasks, get a taste of what old-fashioned agriculture and forestry might have been like. You’ll get soil on your hands and an understanding of what a cycle is. A practical study in ecology.
We’ll discuss nature’s place in today’s society, the future of cities in a scenario where cheap energy is running out, and where humans have irreversibly changed nature and diminished their own quality of life. We’ll talk about food quality after harvesting and cooking with produce from the farm. We’ll discuss self-sufficiency in the city and in the countryside. Do your children a favor—bring them along.
Location
90 km north of Gothenburg, accommodation on the farm.
Fee
1,800 SEK (includes food and lodging—bring your own bedding) Contact Participants: 8 + farm volunteers Food: Vegetarian
Theory and Possible Practical Activities Outdoors:
Foraging mushrooms
Composting & soil work (1 hour)
Cultivation school: Terra preta & biochar production (1 hour)
Sowing seeds (1 hour)
Shearing sheep (1 hour)
Slaughtering lamb
Wool handling (1 hour)
Felling trees & barking (1 hour)
Simple clay cube wall (2 hours)
Baking, fermenting vegetables (2 hours)
Carving a wooden ladle (1 hour)
Making torches and stearin candles (2 hours)
Making apple juice
Making herb salt
Introduction to permaculture
Bonfire
Baking in a clay oven
Drying fruit
Apple jam
Music jam
Blacksmithing
Advanced bread baking with ancient ecological grains
We adapt to the weather. We’ll make a bonfire, we’ll get lost in the forest. We’ll start the day with yoga-inspired exercises or a walk (before breakfast).
We’ll also have the opportunity to sell our own products, which will be presented on-site.
At a farm, close to the sea, on the west coast of Sweden. 4 days Cost: 150€
Yoga according to hatha tradition, with a mix of other methods relating to awareness, relaxation, focus (meditation). Forest, sea, Sauna, walks in nature, fires, drumming. Vegetarian food. Beginners welcome.
Yoga sessions every day at: 07.00, 12.00, 17.00 och 21.00
Bring soft stretchy clothes. Bring bed linnen. No TV, no radio, no books, no smoking. Keep your phone out of sight. Do not involve others in your possible coffee drinking.
We have certain sessions on the grass. Half a day in silence (Thursday).
Leader
Sebastian has been using yoga for 15 years with the aim of mastering elite freediving and mental peace and physical health. Speciality: Breathing- and concentration exercises.
Yoga is modern. Even trendy. It is also an ancient phenomenon. It has existed as a method for health and personal development for thousands of years. Yoga is not just about the physical exercises found within the tradition. The physical exercises, or Asanas, are one of eight steps in yoga.
The goal of these eight steps is to feel emotionally well. A feeling of peace and vitality. To feel well, both the body and the mind must be involved. To be able to process emotions, there must be a certain degree of thought control, or at least an “awareness” of what the thoughts and mind are doing. The mind as a description of what we can experience, and the thoughts as the way we process/respond to these experiences. Something that modern neuropsychology is now beginning to be able to explain. Sensory impressions that give rise to emotions that give rise to thoughts. And sometimes the opposite: thought patterns (habits in our thinking) that lead to emotions that shape our way of seeing the world. An expression of our personality: quirks, habits, behaviors.
Steps five and six deal with this: Pratayahara and Dharana. Awareness, thought control, concentration.
If you want to be able to take greater control over thoughts and emotions, a healthy and energetic body is required. To train awareness and concentration, the body and breath are excellent tools. Steps three and four: Asanas (physical exercises) and Pranayama (breathing exercises). The breath, the controlled breath, is a way into the mind, a way to work with thought control, to reach into the processes of the nervous system. A link between body and mind.
Steps one and two are described differently in different traditions. In some cases, they describe various cleansing processes (e.g., colon cleansing), in others, different ways of relating to other people. Questions of honesty and responsibility. A clear conscience and fewer conflicts with fellow human beings make it easier to develop in the “higher” steps.
Steps seven and eight deal with meditation and the goal of meditation (peace). Training in the lower steps makes these final steps less difficult.
Now there are a multitude of different styles within yoga, many modern ones that only aim at the physical result: flexibility and body control (often there are some meditative elements, which mostly serve as relaxation exercises).
In my opinion, it doesn’t matter so much which yoga you try, as long as you do it with presence and awareness of your body, your emotions, and your thoughts. That you take the time to “do” and “feel”. Some styles are more physically demanding, others more calm.
As a beginner, you don’t need to worry about whether you can do it or not. Just trying to do different Asanas will give you something. Over time, quite a lot. Maybe it will change your life. Your way of thinking and feeling and your entire worldview.
But for that, a lot of commitment is required, you will probably have to sacrifice some of the content in your current life.
Are you motivated for that?
A yoga retreat where we start with basic yoga exercises. Simply yoga for beginners according to ancient and fundamental Hatha yoga. A course at Hästekasen that operates according to the “open farms” principle. We serve vegetarian food, so vegetarians are more than welcome. At the same time, it is also a yoga camp where we mix styles and adapt the sessions according to the weather and the group’s mood. Sometimes the focus is more on doing yoga together than on being instructed. We talk about meditation and have moments where we try to develop our concentration and relaxation using effective methods. It’s a lot about breathing, as one of the teachers specializes in this. A yoga journey to Bohuslän, simply put.
