Turku-Härjänmaa
Still lovely weather - unbelievable. So far it has been sailing in shorts and T-Shirt, only!. Incredible. Again, our goal was Vääramaa, but passing the bay we considered it not so promising and we moved on toward Härjänmaa, where some type of club had a large and empty quay. We requested to land there, but did not receive permission and therefore lay alongside the rocks just opposite.
We eat like the Spanish people does; as the evenings are extremely light, it does not feel like evening until 21:00-22:00 - and that is when we usually have dinner! But even later on it does not want to get dark! When we get up around 08:00 in the morning, the sun has been up for many hours already - and it feels as hot as in the middle of the day.
The magic blue summer nights of Scandinavia!
Härjänmaa-Katanpää
Another lovely sailing day and another day were we did not end up in the place we intended.
The rookie sailor's corner
I'm not moving an inch closer to that horrifying chasm between the quay and the boat!
On Katanpää, a Russian fort was build in 1915, which can be visited today. There is still 1.5 km road build by some Chinese prisoners. Today this road was walked by the first mate and the dog.
Finding natural harbours is not as simple as we thought it should - there are hundreds or thousands of islands here! Because of the dog we do not want to lie on anchor in the middle of a bay, and finding islands which provide a deep enough natural harbour are hard to find - at least today. Therefore we had to stop again at a organized harbour - and we were not the only ones!
Katanpää-Uusikaupunki
Nice reaching trough the fairways to the next city and the heat is still here!
The Pakkahuone guest harbour was quite full , when we got there,
shortly after noon. The harbour is well managed and with good service.
In the evening there was a market on the quay and even live music.The
city itself had many old, well kept wooden houses, but unfortunately
there were quite some newer houses that didn't fit the old style.
The captain was very pleased with the desert this evening!
Wild strawberries, blueberries and home-made chocolate mousse mmmmm....
Uusikaupunki-Rauma
The day started out nice, running with 10-20knots wind from the south, just as forecasted. Still warm and we were sailing in shorts. Just before Rauma the wind increased to strong gale - 43knots at the most, and the sea became rough - that was not forecasted! - so we decided to go to Rauma and find a sheltered harbour for the night. First we went to the harbour that is closest to the city, but there was no guest harbour. Then we went to the next harbour, but it was closed as guest harbour last year. However, a friendly chandler owner told us to use his service berth for the night.
The rookie sailor's corner
When I finally got of this rocking boat, I strolled around on this shipyard we're at, when suddenly I got a lead - and man, that's the biggest hare I've seen, almost 1.5 times the size of myself! I chased it around a bit, but then I lost it!
Here we are laying on the backside of a noisy port of shipment and the view could have been better, but at least we don't have to pay harbour fee! Someone let us his place for free :-).
In the channel by the entrance of the harbour...
... we saw this cute little house.
Rauma-Reposaari
Long leg today, with NW near gale and choppy sea we where beating northwards.
After Rauma the coastline of the Sea of Bothnia has changed, the shoreline is shallow and thus not allowing landing on sheltered natural harbours. The guest harbours are fewer and more shallow and for our draft at 1.95 meters many of the guest harbours are inaccessible. We don't see many boats and the distance is getting longer between each harbour.
To get a feeling of the nice sailing, click on the picture to watch
the video!
The guest harbour is quite shallow - our sounder showed 1.6 meter - but it was most likely seaweed, and we did not hit the ground, although the boat didn't want to move sideways at the quay, the keel was standing in mud!
Many nicely kept old houses in the city, but we really liked the
knitted "stockings" for a plum tree - it was probably to avoid cold
feet in the winter!
Reposaari-Kristinestad
As you can see, we were the only boat in the "harbour" of Kristinestad. The guest harbour consists of one single quay belonging to one of the hotels in Kristinestad. Just behind the hotel is a large food store.
However, the next morning, when the first mate wanted to buy some breakfast buns, it was not open - as it only opens on Sunday afternoon.
We arrived on Saturday and both hotels (the one to which the guest quay belongs and the other one on the other side of the river) prepared huge tents for parties with live music for the evening. In other words: we did not have a quiet evening!
Some of the Finnish could not wait until the evening and started partying in the afternoon.
Kristinestad is an old "Kaufmannsstadt" and the inhabitants making quite some effort to keep the city nice. Even new buildings or older concrete buildings are covered with nice wooden facades. To the right you see the church.
Kristinestad-Kaskinen
This was the only boat we saw on our way, but quite some cormorants and ducks.
We figured that the the trip to Vaasa would be to long in one go and we should have another stopover before. So, we had a nice, but short sailing trip to Kaskinen, a city smaller than Kristinestad and with less shopping possibilities.
This time we were not the only boat. While we enjoyed the sauna another Finnish boat arrived around 22:00 in the harbour. Kaskinen provides a "sail through" harbour: you enter from one side and then can leave on the other sides, therefore it is just "on the way". Again, nice houses here, lots of spacious gardens and an impressive custom building. The rest of the day was spent polishing the boat, because it needed to be done and we had the time!
Kaskinen-Vasa
When sailing in Finnish waters, one should keep to the fairways, because outside the fairways one might find some rocks that are not on the chart. This picture illustrate how it could look like underneath the surface - rocks as far as one can see!
Harbour day in Vasa
From the harbour it is a 1-2 km trip to the city. The day was spend with shopping, polishing and the first dog has been taken to the vet, to get some worm-pills in order for him to be allowed into Sweden. Later on we found out, that this is not necessary when arriving from Sweden. We finally found some mosquito netting, but now we are missing rubber bands to hold them in place above the hatches. Incredible, how much time one can waste on shopping! The Finnish supermarkets have a self-service bar for sweets - Lovely. The captains favourites are the fudges. We are going to miss this!