Yeti rides

Sea kayaking in the Kosterhavet National Park

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 17:20:00 +0000

In September I went on a small sea kayaking trip in the Kosterhavet National Park on the Swedish West Coast with two friends.

I have a younger brother who have lived by the Swedish West Coast for thirty years, so I have been there a number of times during the years. I've done a little sea kayaking outside Strömstad a few times and once a day trip of the Koster Fjord to the archipelage that now is the part of the Kosterhave National Park. The archipelago is quite interesting and different from that of the Archipelago Sea in Southwest Finland, so doing a little kayaking there has been on my mind now and then. This year it happened. I got two friends to join me and we went there for a few days in the middle of September.

The trip there was uneventful, the night ferry from Turku to Stockholm and then 500 km in car to Strömstad. We got on the ferry to Nordkoster, where we rented the kayaks and got going. We rented kayaks for two reasons: You should strive spend some money in the local communities you visit and this was one way, in addition to a few restaurant visits. Secondly, crossing the Koster fjord to get to the Koster archipelago isn't always possible, due to weather and wind, even though the Koster archipelago itself can provide good shelter even in stronger wind.

The goal for the evening was to find an acceptable tent spot before sunset, which was at around 19:30. We managed that.

Landing and camping at Tegelholmen.

The next morning was nice and there was very little wind.

Due to the weak wind, something you definitely cannot count on in the area, we decided to paddle a bit on the outside and go to Stora Drammen, the westernmost point of Sweden.

Klövningarna

Stora Drammen

Landing on Stora Drammen is probably not possible very often. Even now, with only weak wind and limited swell, some waves almost swept over the only possible landing spot this day.

After Stora Drammen we turned south again. The area is small enough that you basically can paddle across it and not worry about the distance.

Camp site at Burholmen. From the camp site we saw a couple of kayakers pass by, the second small group today, as well as a motor boat. This was a good time of the year to be in the Koster archipelago. I think we were the only kayaking group actually overnighting there. There were also a few sailing boats at Ursholmen and a few motor boats moored to some islands there, but very far from the crowds of the summer. From what I've heard the area is very crowded in July and August. The only downside of mid September was that the birdlife wasn't very interesting any more. For that May or June would be better.

Ursholmen

The next morning was nice, even though the day later became more cloudy and a bit chilly.

One of the local workers where clearly more social than the others and quickly befriended me.

By the time we got started, the weather was already cloudy.

Ursholmen with its lighthouse.

We rounded Ursholmen and paddled a bit to the north, to explore some more islands. Lunch at Stora Sockna, which was one of the few islands without sheep, which was very visible in the vegetation.

We had time to paddle around Ramsökalven, before it would be time to find a place for the night.

Stora Tjälleskär was chosen for the night. It had facilities such as a fire place, loo and recycling shed.

The next morning had sun only for a brief moment.

The goal of the day was to explore the labyrinths around Stora Tjälleskär and then get back to Nord-Koster in time for the ferry back to Strömstad. Due to the short distances, this didn't need much planning.

The final lunch of the day was at Stora Brattskär.

Paddling back to Nord-Koster.

We returned the kayaks and had a cup of coffee in a local café, before jumping on the boat back to Strömstad.

One night in Strömstad followed and then the next day the ferry back from Stockholm. All in all a nice trip. One of the goals was not met, though. We had hoped to paddle in mareld, literally sea fire in English, but this time there wasn't any. The dinoflagellates which light up through bioluminiscense when moved, were not there anymore, even though there had been lots of them during the summer.

Sailing from Norrköping to Turku

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 18:33:00 +0000

At the end of August I bought a sailboat in Sweden and solo sailed it home from Norrköping to Turku, 240 nautical miles in five days.

I did check out the boat, a Semona 30 from 1976, in July, and found it to be very promising, but due to vacations it wasn't possible for me to get it at that point. It was splashed in the middle of August, but was lifted immediately again, since the Blackjack propeller shaft seal was leaking. Due to vacations and an acute medical incident it took some time before the yard got that fixed. The boat was splashed again on a Thursday, and I travelled there and arrived the following Sunday, to get the boat ready for the crossing. There was a lot to do, and the bilge had some five liters of water in it, with the shaft seal still letting in a drop of water every few seconds. I tightened the seal a bit further, and for the rest of the season in didn't leak a single drop. I slept in the boat at the yard one night, since I didn't finish everything on Sunday.

I got up early and installed the sails, but still had a lot to do, but had to get going in time for the 9:30 bridge opening.

I soon stopped at the Norrköping guest harbour and went shopping for some more food and tools. Some more things still to fix, but at around 13:30 I finally got going for real. The wind was quite good, so I had some hope of getting out of the deep inlet going to Norrköping. I was almost the only boat out on the sea here.

I did 36.5 nautical miles despite the late start and found a nice island outside Oxelösund just around sunset a little over eight in the evening. This was of course still a bit exiting, not knowing the area and with darkness arriving.

The next morning.

The wind was quite weak in the morning, and I decided to take the open sea route almost straight to the east towards Landsort, instead of staying inside the archipelago with likely very varying wind. Due to the weak wind, I also started immediately and made breakfast under way.

Passing Landsort.

The heading now turned to NE, aiming to go on the inside of the large islands like Utö in the Stockholm archipelago.

Coming into the Stockholm archipelago, I finally started to see other boats.

I had preliminary planned to go to Mörtö-Bunsön, but it seemed quite crowded (by my standard) with five or so boats already there. I continued for maybe fifteen more minutes and after a few tries found another island to stay at, just around sunset also this time.

It was a fairly long day with 12.5 h and 59.5 nautical miles.

The next morning was equally nice.

Breakfast on the move, as I motored the first hour due to weak wind straight from behind.

I decided to fill up the diesel tank, since I only got around 20 liters when I started. That is normally a lot for a sail boat, but since I needed to make miles in order to get home I wanted more, despite this far having motored very little. It turned out the tank could hold 50 liters, which is a lot more than what I would use in one season.

Being it the Stockholm archipelago, there was the potential for more marine traffic, and the lunch was therefore not anything that would require going below deck. Life is hard for a solo sailor.

In practice there was very little traffic, I mainly kept my eyes open for the infamous ferries going between the inhabited islands. They have a reputation of not caring and behaving very rudely against leisure boats.

The goal of the day was to find a place in the outer archipelago, close to the open sea for the crossing to Kökar the next day. I had three different island groups in mind, and when I noticed that there really seemed to be sailing boats in many places, I took the first one that was empty. Having a boat with shallow draft and and a long bow sprit for nature harbours also helped.

A view to the north. In the far distance a ferry going between Finland and Sweden can be seen.

I actually arrived quite early, a little after three in the afternoon after 38 nautical miles. It was much too late to start a crossing though, since it does get dark at the end of August. Two months earlier when there is no darkness I might very well have done a crossing through the night.

A very Swedish boat dinner.

The next morning was as nice as the others. I was really lucky with the weather, it was pretty much optimal. I got going quite early.

The weather looked very nice for the crossing to Finland. Some risk of fog in the morning, which would be a risk in the open water with all sort of freight ships in the area, but there was still some small islands before coming out into that area.

When I got out on totally open water, the risk for morning mist was probably already gone, so I just continued. I did see the occasional freighter and in one case also altered my course a bit, but in practice I didn't really get close to them. The wind was easy, around 5-6 m on a broad reach, which gave me a speed of around 5.5 knots. I could see some lighthouses and islands in the far distance, but since I only had a smartphone as a camera there isn't much to show here.

Maybe a picture of the simple lunch, in the absence of other pictures. One reason for the simple lunch is also that I didn't want to use the nice gas stove with an oven before it had been checked and officially inspected, which I got done two weeks later.

Coming into some archipelago again, this one is Västergrundet in the Fästorna islands.

I arrived at Kökar at six in the evening, having started at six in the morning and sailed for eleven hours and 56 nautical miles.

There was plenty of space at Kökar.

The weather forecast for the last day, Friday, showed a weather change coming with rain and thunder storms, so I got going at sunrise.

I did motor for about an hour in headwind, to the east, before turning towards northeast and raisin the sails. The coming change in the weather could be seen.

Viking Glory a bit south of Houtskär.

A race against the coming rain and thunder. I was of course to lose the race, but held away for a few hours.

The first rain showers passed quite quickly...

... but at around Själö/Seili the next one came, with quite a bit of thundering and flashes quite close. I took down the sails, since the visibility was now and then very poor and I was in the big ship lane.

This was Friday afternoon/evening and people still wanted to get out despite the weather.

For the last four nautical miles the sun came out again and I raised the sails to get them to dry out a bit, even though the wind was now a bit weak. I arrived at the home harbour at five in the afternoon and 51 nautical miles.

Thats it. All in all the trip was quite easy and went very well, even though it was a bit exciting in the beginning to do a 240 nautical miles solo sail with a for me totally new and unknown boat.

The Summer 2024

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 19:12:00 +0000

In the beginning of June there was full summer.As always, there was a lot to do at work before the summer vacation, I managed a few outings with the sailboat, working from the boat, in June, but not much else.

My vacation started at the second week of July, and I went out sailing for a few days.

I checked out a possible overnighting spot at Vekara. It was shallow and the anchor hold was bad, but seemed possible with my boat.

The Sandbäck lighthouse, which is quite far out. Close to impossible with kayak, considering the restrictions.

Yttre Bredan was the most extreme overnight place. Quite far out, bad anchor hold and quite exposed.

The weather wasn't always sunny and easy, but that is just an additional richness of life.

This was also the last trip with the Halcyon 27.

I also spent some time with the family, including brothers, in Kvarken.

As can be seen, most of the summer was spent sailing, since the archipelago is currently what interests me the most. I still ride my bike almost everyday, though, but for me the sort of "hobby" side of bicycling is concentrated to the winter.

I also started to try a little sea kayaking again. I injured my shoulder when I held a sea kayaking course doing lots of rescues in July 2023, and it has been really slow in healing. It took six months before I could sleep on the right side again, and paddling still hurt in May 2024. The shoulder has slowly become usable again, though.

At the end of August I bought a sailboat in Sweden, and sailed it home 240 nautical miles in five day. That was a fun trip, and I'll do a little writeup of that one.

I also did a little sea kayaking with two friends in the Kosterhavet National Park on the west coast of Sweden. I'll write a little about that one too.

There was of course also some sailing and working from the boat in September.

And then the summer ended, about the time when September changed into October.

The Spring 2024

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 17:16:00 +0000

Even though the real winter was over by the middle of March, the spring still was weeks away.

I was a bit afraid that I would miss the early spring in the archipelago, due to the skiing trip to Jämtland being a bit late, in the beginning of April. Well, there was no problem at all. There were a few somewhat warm days in April, so I got some boat jobs done and the boat splashed about a week after the harbour was free from ice. The first short sailing trip was still a bit wintry, though.

The spring is generally a bit later in the archipelago, and it took time for the trees to get their leaves.

The grey seals shed their skin in May-June.

Eventually the vegetation started to become green.

A bit further out still in archipelago, the spring was clearly later.

I managed a few remote work days from the boat in May, in addition to a six day sailing trip at the end of May. I think the April to Midsummer time in the nature really is the most interesting. So much is always happening and everything is fresh and green.

And then, in the end of May the summer was on.

Helags skiing trip

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sat, 28 Sep 2024 14:53:00 +0000

In April 2024 I went on a little skiing trip to the Jämtland area in Sweden with two friends.

The Jämtland area is maybe the closest real mountain are to Turku. The night ferry to Sweden doesn't really cost any time and after that it is around 620 km of driving to Ljungdalen, which is a good starting spot for the Helags-Sylarna area.

In the beginning of April there is enough light to start skiing the same day, but we chose to stay one night at Ljungdalen and start the following day.

There is a bit of climbing to get up above the tree limit.

One of the goals of the trip was to at least see tracks of polar foxes, which we did see quite a lot. Seeing one in real life would need quite a bit of luck, though, or sitting many hours looking through binoculars, which we didn't do. Thus no visual observation of the polar fox.

After passing the Helags cabin the valley we skied in offered very little protection against the wind. We decided fairly early to take the first reasonable tent spot we could find, but that took quite a while to find.

When we finally entered an area with some small hills providing shelter, we were close enough to the Miesehketjahke emergency shelter that we decided to continue there. Sleeping inside is strictly for emergencies, but it would provide a nice cozy shelter for dinner. The tents got some shelter from the wind behind the hill.

The wind was quite strong during the night and continued in the morning. This time we had a short distance to cover, though.

The lunch was a rather cold affair in the wind, but Sylarnas Fjällstation wasn't far away.

Sylarnas Fjällstation was pretty much what I expected, (relative) luxury facilities in the middle of nowhere. It was the first time I stayed on one of these, but it was a nice experience.

The dinner was also excellent. Not the fresh stuff that is flown by helicopter to the Kebnekaise Fjällstation (really weird in my opinion), but still an an excellent three-course dinner with ingredients that store longer. A very interesting concept that was nice to experience.

We stayed two nights at Sylarnas Fjällstation, so the next day we took a daytrip without the pulks. The weather was excellent.

Entering Norway.

Lunch at a small shelter in Norway.

Rock ptarmigan.

Some impressive clounds got stuck over Sylarna.

Esko found a playground. A little childish, don't you think?

The evening again was an excellent three-course dinner. The next day was warmer and started out quite cloudy.

There were places with very little snow here and there. It should snow quite a bit in the area, but some places were likely cleared of the snow by hard wind.

Picture by Esko. The climbing skins remained in the pulk during the trip, and this short section was the only one where the fish scales of the skis weren't really enough.

By the time we arrived at the Gåsån shelter in the afternoon the weather had cleared up nicely.

We stayed there and took a shorter skiing trip without pulks in the evening.

Willow ptarmigan.

Dinner inside.

Sleeping inside was again strictly for emergencies, so we erected the tents.

The next morning was nice and sunny.

For most of the day we would ski in the Holkendurrie valley, which is supposed to be very interesting, but maybe mostly in the summer.

Picture by Esko.

Willow ptarmigan again.

The last night was at Ljungan. We had time for a short evening trip without pulks.

The evening was very beautiful.

The last morning was also nice and the weather forecasted to be quite warm. We had heard the ptarmigans before during the nights, mainly willow ptarmigan and the rock ptarmigan only in the distance, but this time we happened to exactly in the party spot. Really a lot of sounds and fights right outside the tents before sunrise.

Picture of yours truly by Esko.

Kristian felt a little unwell, so Esko and I took turns with his pulk.

In the afternoon we were back at the car and drove down from the Kläppen parking spot to Ljungdalen, where we stayed on night before driving back to the night ferry home.

That's it. A nice trip in good company and a new experience with the Fjällstation comfort level for me.

The Winter 2024

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sun, 12 May 2024 09:08:00 +0000

The winter of 2023-2024 started out great.

The first snowfall came at the end of October 2023, just as I got my boat up for the winter. It didn't last, of course, but the last week of November was already quite cold and the lakes got an ice cover. The cold also provided some nice photo opportunities at the sea.

By the beginning of December, the skiing season started, which really is quite early for Southwest Finland. The rest of the month saw some more skiing and overnighters in wintry conditions.

There was a thaw period after Christmas, but we soon got snow back and the beginning of January 2024 was again quite wintry and also cold. Cold enough that I finally got the try my new winter sleeping bag, bought at the end of 2022, With a temperature of around -23C, it got so warm that I had to open it a little in the middle of the night.

The winter weather continued, and there was quite a lot of snow.

At the end of January another short thaw period came, followed by cold weather. This meant that the pulk track from a week earlier in all likelihood would be a perfect "groomed" trail for a fatbike. I went with Toni to check this out and we had another nice overnighter.

The first half of February was still a pretty much perfect winter, with perfect winter weather and a returning light, and I managed a last skiing overnighter before the weather changed.

After this the winter pretty much ended. The weather was warm and the snow started melting. Still many nice moments, but I still would like the winter to continue until spring.

Being an outdoor opportunist, I did of course follow the development all the time and in the beginning of March the conditions were right for a Tour de Kurjenrahka fatbike ride on ice and snow crust. Since we had had quite a bit of snow, it melted slowly and there was enough left to form a strong crust for a while, since it was still quite cold.

There were still some nice moment in March, with some snow now and then, but for practical purposes the winter was over, without there being any signs of spring.

I kept myself very busy at work and had one more winter trip to wait for, a week of skiing in the Swedish mountains. More about that later.

Quattro Stagioni: Fall

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Wed, 27 Dec 2023 08:34:00 +0000

The fall started in late September, since the month was quite warm and not as wet as August.

In September the weather became a little better, but the wind was difficult. There were weekends with no wind at all and weekends with too much wind. Despite the work situation, I still managed to take a couple of days off and sail to Jurmo for a little mountain biking, something I had wanted to do for a long time. With some 43 NM distance, the day in the middle on September does start to limit things, but I managed both a sunset and sunrise ride, which checked off a box of mine.

The rest of the fall was busy, I did some more sailing and managed a six month sailing season, which was a goal of mine, as well as a little sea kayaking, all while pushing the burnout boundary at work. I also started photographing birds with a little more focus.

In the beginning of November a project I had been working on for over three years finally was ready, which meant that I could relax a little. It took almost month to get the stress levels down to something more normal, even measured by direct physiological means like rest heart rate and HRV. The product in question will need additional development for a few years, but hopefully at a more reasonable rate.

The last week of November saw the start of the winter, with cold temperatures and snow. More about that in the next blog entry.

The year 2023 saw the most work related stress I've had in my life, something I really must address next year. Despite that, the year wasn't totally wasted from an outdoor point of view: I managed a little over 40 nights out, which isn't actually too bad. A little more than half of that was on the sailboat. The sailboat has enabled me being out also during the work week, since I can work remotely from the boat, something I will try to utilize a little more next year.

Quattro Stagioni 2023: Summer

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Tue, 26 Dec 2023 16:44:00 +0000

After the Suomujoki packrafting trip I the summer began.

The month before the summer vacation is always very busy at work, and this year I worked very close to the burnout limit, something that unfortunately was a recurring theme during 2023. I managed to get out and work from my boat a little in June, though, which meant that the best time of the year wasn't totally wasted on work.

I also held a weekend beginners course in sea kayaking in June and soon it was Midsummer, which was spent on an island in Kvarken, as generally is the case.

The work stress still continued for two weeks after Midsummer, after which I started a three week vacation. The first weekend was spent teaching a sea kayaking course, during which I injured my right shoulder in a way that would keep sea kayaking at a minimun for the next six months. The injury is old and a result on a nasty fall on ice twisting the rotator cuff somehow, some four years ago. The injury has never healed fully and from time to time resurfaces. This was the worst one ever, though, and after two months I had to go and get some stronger painkillers to be able to sleep. In the beginning of December I at least again was able to sleep on my right side, so some progress has been made.

July saw a few more sailing trips, as well as another trip to the Kvarken outer archipelago and generally was very nice.

The weather changed clearly when I started to work, becoming rainy and very unstable, resulting in an unusally cold and rainy August. I did a three day really nice sea kayaking trip with a collegue from Germany, even though my shoulder didn't like it at all.

I had very little sailing in August, but was still out a couple of nights.

It almost felt like the fall started in August, but to some extent it got warmer in September. At least the weather was better, but that is something for the next blog entry.

Packrafting Suomujoki

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Tue, 26 Dec 2023 10:39:00 +0000

Packrafting Suomujoki from the beginning to Raja-Jooseppi was fun.

In the beginning of June I participated in a packrafting course arranged by Vigu, the school were I did my wilderness guide studies. This was the third and final part of the education, which started with a week of packrafting and hiking in the Rogen area in Sweden in September 2022 and had a whitewater module in May on Jongunjoki and Lieksanjoki.

We arrived at Kiilopää on June 2nd in the afternoon and walked to Niilanpää, where we stayed the first night. I had lightened my pack quite a bit, and everything weighed under 23 kg, which isn't too bad with a white water packraft, drysuit and everything needed for a air temperature of just over freezing.

The temperature was just a little over freezing and above the treeline the spring had just begun.

The next day we continued over a small ridge to get to the Suomunlatva creek, which later would become Suomujoki.

And there it begins.

We had lunch at the shelter near the trail intersection and put the packrafts into the water there, much too early of course, there really wasn't enough water yet.

Some sections were possible to paddle.

Camp at Suomunruoktu. I shared tent with Mika, who arranges interesting outdoor trips in Finland and Scandinavia. Go check his web site Railo Outdoor.

The next day we continued, and put the packrafts in the water immediately. The good choice would have been to carry everything to the fireplace and bridge near Aitalampi, after which the river was mostly possible to paddle. Before that there were some sections possible, but the water was low. And in high water that section would have been quite dangerous with a lot of sudden obstacles.

Low water and a lightweight packraft might need some patching up now and then.

For the rest of the day it was possible to paddle most of the river. There were some more demanding white water on the way and several places that had to be portaged.

Not all was difficult, though, and there was plenty of easy stretches.

The night was spent at Lankojärvi.

The paddling only got better the more we progressed, and the next day had a nice mix of easy water, fun whitewater and portages.

We arrived to Siikauopaja for the night. The weather was quite dynamic. with some really wet rain showers.

I've never been a fan of porridge for breakfast, instead preferring e.g. fresh bread. That is not easily doable when going lightweight, but an omelette made from dried eggs topped with some parmesan cheese is also quite acceptable.

The weather wasn't perfect all the time. In fact, a temperature of a little over freezing and some rain made it a bit chilly from time to time.

Some rapids were now quite big, and we again had some big portages in addition to the paddling.

We made camp just after Suomujoki joined with Lutto at a nice place. The weather was now excellent.

We did make the mistake of going too far this day. The plan was to use a spare day for some hiking or similar, but we were too close to the finishing point at Raja-Jooseppi and nobody thought it would be a good idea to somewhat artificially stay an extra day less than two hours from the car.

We thus cut the trip a day short and just paddled to the car.

That's it. A really nice trip, and I would definitely like to do more of this, but there is of course the question of time. Not only time for trips like this, but above all time to get the whitewater skills up to a level that I could do wilderness whitewater trips, and I unfortunately don't see that happening. I simply have too much else to do, and the closest place to train is more that three hours away.

Next: Summer

Merry Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sun, 24 Dec 2023 07:57:00 +0000

Quattro Stagioni 2023: Spring

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 16:52:00 +0000

Going into spring, my stress level at work again skyrocketed, but I still did manage some really nice outings.

I started to work on the boat in the beginning of April. There was a bit to do, of which mounting the Furlex 104s furler was the main thing. I did manage a first day sail on April 23rd, which was quite close to my goal. The spring is a fantastic time in the archipelago. By the end of April there is already plenty of daylight and the days are still quickly getting longer. There is also very few other people out and the everything is just so nice. The heater in the boat is great to have, though. With both air and water temperatures just above freezing, it would otherwise be a bit chilly.

In the middle of May there was also the four day Vigu packrafting white water course, which was very nice.

I still had time for a little sailing at the end of May, working from my boat, which actually works very well.

By the end of May the summer had already started, but I had a week long packrafting and hiking trip in Lapland in the beginning of June, and there it definitely was still only spring, and thus I consider my summer to have begun after that trip.

Looking back at this, the spring was definitely not wasted this time, even though I had much too much to do at work.

Quatto Stagioni 2023: Winter

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 16:06:00 +0000

The winter 2022-2023 was a very mixed experience.

I'm a bit late with this one, but I decided to write it anyway. This blog is after all mostly for my own memory, since nobody reads blogs anymore.

December 2022 had quite varying weather, but several weekends provided quite wintry skiing conditions. By New Years Day everything had pretty much melted away, though.

And soon it came back. The Epiphany weekend was again provided perfect winter conditions for a three day ski trip.

And less than a week later all the snow was gone. A slight dusting kept things from getting too depressing, but there was no skiing anymore, and by the end of January I started the kayaking season for the year.

In the beginning of February the weather was cold, but there was no snow.

In the second half of February the winter returned, with nice skiing conditions, and that continued for almost month.

By the end if March it started to look a bit like spring...

... but the spring wasn't just unsprung, it was completely buried when April started.

I was unfortunately ill with a persisent flu at the beginning of April, so I couldn't really enjoy the surprise late winter. By the second half of April, almost all snow was gone and the spring started for real.

Next installment: Spring

2022 Wrap Up

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sat, 31 Dec 2022 11:40:00 +0000

The year 2022 didn't exactly go as I had wanted. Below is a brief recap and some pictures, mainly for my own memory.

After having returned from the skiing trip in the beginning of April, I started to get quite busy at work, even stressed to the point that I didn't have time to do the things I normally do outside my work. This continued until the beginning of my summer vacation in the middle of July.

I did get a new mountain bike, a fully rigid Pässilä Kytö in titanium. Very nice.

At least a little sailing in June.

Midsummer on an island in Kvarken.

I did teach four weekend sea kayaking courses, which was a tad much considering my lack of energy and time for own things.

Another trip to the Kvarken archipelago.

A new kayak and a small test trip. Tiderace Pace 17 turned out to be a British style sea kayak 2.0. Stable, roomy and fast.

After my vacation I did try to find more time to do the things I want to do. Not that easy, though, since periods of more work stress is kind of built in to working in R&D. The final phase of multi-year R&D projects simply needs more time and energy.

Some more sailing in August.

In the beginning of September I took part in a very nice Vigu packrafting and hiking trip of six days to the Rogen area in Sweden. Really nice.

When arriving home from Rogen I tested positive for Covid-19 and was sick for a while. Not too bad, but it took over a month for the tiredness to pass. A planned mountain biking trip to the Helags and Sylarna area of Jämtland in Sweden had to be postponed, though, since there was no way I could do that when recoving from Covid. I did still have energy to do some packraft whitewater training at the end of the month.

Picture by Caj Koskinen (hutkai.fi).

October saw some sailing before lifting the boat.

I also had a nice trip to the Kvarken archipelago.

The rest of the year, November and December, doesn't usually see much outdoor action from my part. Usually a lot to do at work, and the weather is typically miserable. Not this year, though. The November weather was strange, with a weekend of almost summer temperature in the middle of the month, following by the start of the winter two weeks later. Even though I didn't have energy to do much on workdays after work, I actually managed seven overnighters during weekends in November and December. The hot tent really gave a new dimension to the dark December evenings.

That's it. I'll try to improve my work/life balance next year. Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Fri, 23 Dec 2022 18:21:00 +0000

Last of the winter

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sat, 16 Apr 2022 07:14:00 +0000

The last ski overnighter of the winter was in the beginning of April, 6-7.4,

A late addition, and added mainly as a record of when the winter ended.

After the Tour de Pältsan winter trip, I had assumed that the winter definitely would be over, since we had a nice spring weather before the trip. However, it turned out that the winter returned while I was gone and there even came some more snow, so after having returned home I decided to go on one final winter overnighter in the Turku area, before the spring definitely would arrive.

Definitely enough snow.

I didn't ski for long, a little less that two hours. I wanted to try a tent spot I had seen earlier.

The night was quiet, it seemed that the snow had dampened the enthusiasm of the birds having arrived in the belief that spring was at hand. Now even the wolves bothered to howl at me or anything else.

The morning was a bit misty and I tried not to have too much of a hurry, even though I needed to be at work at ten or so.

The water was running under the snow, though, and the snow bridges weaker.

That's it. A short overnighter in the middle of the work week is quite possible, though the threshold to get out in the middle of the work stress is unnecessary high.

Tour de Pältsan - Winter Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 18:25:00 +0000

A week long skiing trip in the north where Finland, Sweden and Norway meet at the end of March.

Ten years ago I went on a little trip in the Pältsa area with a fatbike at the end of July. Despite mostly miserable weather, a horrible amount of bugs and a Campylobacter infection, which had me in the bed for five days with 40°C fever and bloody diarrhea when I got home, I took a liking to the place. When asked about a skiing trip with some kayaking buddies, K and E, I was immediately in, especially since the winter in Turku is never guaranteed to be acceptable, and nothing was known of it when the train tickets (car to Kolari) was reserved in the fall. As it turned out, the winter in the Turku region was unusually good, and combined with quite a bit of work stress before my winter vacation, I for a moment wasn't too keen on it, a feeling I did know would pass immediately after actually starting the trip.

On Thursday evening we drove to Pasila, loaded the car on the train, and got out at Kolari on Friday morning. With less than 300 km to drive, we were in no real hurry.

We arrived at Kilpisjärvi, packed the stuff and started to ski southwards a little over five in the afternoon. The weather was wintry, and the rain in the area a few days earlier could be noticed only though a crust layer under the new snow.

The skiing was uneventful and a little before eight in the evening we arrived at the open cabin at Kuohkimajärvi, which turned out to be empty. We put some wood into the stove, made dinner and fairly quickly went to sleep, since the previous night had seen less sleep due to a much too hot sleeper cabin on the train.

For a moment, the weather looked promising the next morning.

By the time we got going, though, the wind increased and it snowed, so I decided to go with a full shell layer, something I rarely do. I'm much too warm to be comfortable in Gore-Tex style clothes.

The border cairn between Finland, Sweden and Norway.

After an hour or so, the weather showed signs of improving.

The plan was actually to go low to mid-high in the beginning and not crossing the river directly. As it turned out, the river was partly open, which wasn't too tempting, so we turned back a little and search for an easy way to go higher early. This went quite well.

Coming out from the birch zone.

Yours truly, picture by E.

Now we had fairly nice skiing without any mentionable ups and downs.

Lunch break.

The lower part of Bárrás look quite interesting.

The contour interval on the 1:100000 map was 20 m, which meant that some things got unnoticed. We were high enough that most creeks didn't run deep in the landscape, but there were some surprises.

We soon went higher and came upon a snowmobile trail marked with tree sticks for the last bits towards Gappohytta. K also had information the the last bit to Gappohytta would be a long uphill section, to be approached from below. We certainly did that, but I remain unconvinced that this was the correct way. In places it was steep enough that it wouldn't have been possible for everyone.

We barely found space at Gappohytta, which is close enough to some Norwegian villages that people come up there for winter weekends. The stay was still quite acceptable and very welcome, since the day hadn't been easy and I almost started to struggle a little, since I had eaten far too little. The dinner was quite nice, though. Everyone was responsible for two common dinners, with some implied pressure that it should be quite tasty, and also contain a dessert.

Sunday morning was nice, and the -11°C temperature felt warm, since there was no wind. We got going at around nine in the morning, with some uncertainty of the actual time with daylight saving starting and a different time zone in Norway. Not that it mattered much.

I guess we were doing crosscountry skiing, since we crossed country borders several times a day, this time into Sweden.

The orienteering was quite easy in the nice weather.

Entering Isdalen.

Skiing at the bottom of Isdalen would probably have been quite a bit easier, but we took the scenic route with its ups and downs.

When we got into Isdalen we got a strong headwind. No real shelter from the wind was to be found, so the lunch was a rather quick.

After the lunch we had one more climb to go, after which we would go down over 500 m in altitude. This part was again marked with tree sticks, probably since the safe route wasn't very obvious from the terrain or map.

Reindeer. At this point the bad weather, which had stayed a bit to the south had arrived, with quite a bit of wind.

The next section went without pictures, meaning the weather was bad and I was probably getting a bit tired. The orienteering went without any real reference points in the correct general direction and slowly loosing altitude. We arrived spot on.

It took nine hours to get there, with almost eight hours actually spent moving. Rostahytta was almost empty, with only a German skier in the big Jubileumshytta. Dinner, dessert, hot minttu chocolate and rest commenced.

The next morning looked nice.

Heia Norge!

The weather was splendid and we got going at around nine in the morning.

Occasionally the snow was blown hard, occasionally even icy, but for the most part there was new snow on top of a crust that made going very much possible, but still quite slow.

Yours truly, picture by E.

The entire day would be spent going slightly uphills.

A dog sled group.

Now and then quite nice sastrugis.

The small hut at Moskánjávri.

Sun, maybe around -6°C and now wind made for a pleasant lunch break.

The next two hours were spent in a suprisingly slow uphill section, but then it levelled out.

Pältsan.

The Pältsa cabins.

Again we took our time with a nice dinner and dessert.

The next day we had planned as a rest day, which meant that we skied without pulks and checked out the surroundings. The weather was maybe a bit windy, but otherwise quite ok.

On Wednesday the plan was to ski over the Duoibal plateau and probably spend the night at Goldahytta. The weather was a bit windy, but less cloudy than forecasted. The climb up was quite slow, as expected.

A view back to the valley where the Kummaeno river starts.

After finally getting up on the plateau there were less going up and down.

Lunch break with at least some shelter from the wind. Picture by E.

A short while after the lunch break, the route down to Golddajávri opened up.

Going down outside an established route is always a bit fun. The map shown only the steepest parts and largest gorges and you could easily encounter 10 meter drops not visible on the map. In addition, the birch forest might have deep soft snow. This time the snow was solid and great to ski on and we found a pretty much optimal route down to the lake.

We got down to the lake, and skied to Goldahytta, even though there seemed to be quite a bit of activity there. It turned out that the cabin was quite occupied with around 22 Norwegian high school students and their three teachers. They had been stuck there an extra day because of some sickness. Needless to say, we quickly reconsidered staying there and instead turned towards Kuohkimajärvi. On the way there we met more Norwegians, this time a middle school class of again a total of around 25 persons. We chatted a bit with one of the teachers, who spoke a thick north Norwegian dialect that I had a bit trouble understanding. They were also going Goldahytta, though the high school class was supposed to have moved to Gappohytta by then. That didn't happen, so there was probably quite a circus at Goldahytta that night. I must say that I do admire the Norwegian approach (ut på tur aldri sur), though. The students skied in their own tempo, spread over maybe 10 km with four teachers. That would never happen in Finland.

We stopped at the Kuohkimajärvi cabin, which was empty when we arrived. After having eaten dinner, more people arrived, so we moved out into a tent.

The next and final morning was nice.

The final stretch to Kilpisjärvi, some 10 km.

Willow ptarmigan tracks, but we also saw the bird itself several times.

Saana, the fell above Kilpisjärvi.

We arrived in Kilpisjärvi at around noon, but didn't want to end the trip yet. After some quick sandwhiches we decided to ski up and down Saana, though without the pulks. For this occasion I put on the climbing skins, otherwise I hadn't had any real problems with just relying on the fish scale pattern of the skis.

The views were nice, for as long as we could see them.

At one point some dense snowfall came in and cut the visibility, but eventually some of the visibility returned.

Then we skied down, which went very much faster than the climb up. After that, sauna, pizza, beer and a good night's sleep before making the journey home on Friday and Saturday.

An excellent trip of around 113 km, with an average skiing speed of less than 3 km/h. The area is interesting, and certainly worth considering if Kilpisjärvi is the starting point.

The animal life was, as expected, quite absent. We saw ravens, willow ptarmigans, reindeer, a red fox and heard, quite excitingly, what in all likelihood was an arctic fox.

Thanks to K and E for a very nice trip!

The winter

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 18:35:00 +0000

Some radiosilence here in the blog. Here is a short recapitulation of the winter 2020 - 2021.

After the sailing season ended at the end of October, the weather turned wet and dark for a few weeks. By the end of November, however, the weather turned cold and there started to be some hope for a winter. No snow yet, but the lakes started to get ice.

The Nordic skating season was started 2nd of December for my part.

The rest of December went enjoying the cold weather, which was also unusually sunny, though the day is of course short at that time of the year.

Winter solstice.

At Christmas we got snow, but most of had disappeared by New Years Eve in a thaw period.

In the beginning of January we got more snow, enough for skiing. The entire January saw almost weekly thaw periods, but there was plenty of snow for skiing except for a single weekend. Typically January weather is quite cloudy, but this time there was actually some sunny and clear days as well.

By February the snow cover was solid and it stayed so until the end of March. Now the weather was mostly sunny and everything was a real winter paradise.

The new thing for this year was me getting into hot tents, with a lightweight pyramid tent and a light titanium tent stove, a combo of about 4 kg.

With a pulk everything is easily transported.

In March the daylight was visibly coming back and the excellent sunny weather just continued.

Plenty of space inside the pyramid tent.

Cooking on the wood stove.

The last skiing trip of the season in the Turku region was two days before I wrote this. Still plenty of snow in many places, but spring is coming closer. We've had temperatures of up to 10C lately, which makes the snow quite soft in the afternoon. The nights are still below freezing, though, so there is a strong crust in the morning.

Test packed for the upcoming Lapland ski trip.

That's it. A fantastic winter, the best one since 2013. I've tried to make the most out of it with skiing, fatbiking and to a lesser extent Nordic skating. At the time of writing ten nights out, without having any actual vacation yet.

The first season with a sailboat

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 18:10:00 +0000

Looking back at the first season with a sailboat

At the end of April this year I bought myself a small sailboat, which came as quite a surprise to most of my friends. It was maybe something of an impulse purchase, since I ruthlessly used the fact that I turned fifty to justify this. On the other hand, I have from time to time looked at sailboats but for the most part been quite realistic about it and haven’t taken it any further. My main reason for this is that I want to do so many things: Buying a sailboat that would fit the entire family of four would moneywise be an investment big enough that we would have to spend most of our free time in it, in order to justify it. I wasn’t willing to do that, nor was the rest of the family. With five weeks of vacation per year and maybe some extended weekends I simply haven’t had the time for it, and I still don’t. I want to do sea kayaking, packrafting, fatbiking etc as well. Now, though, the kids are big enough that I have more possibilities to go out alone or with one of them.

Still, sailing has been at the back of my head for a long time. I’ve never dreamt of a big boat with all kinds of comforts and luxuries, I’m into more simple outdoor life close to the nature. I want to explore the archipelago and for most part a sea kayak is an excellent tool for that, allowing you to go almost everywhere, but I do consider sailing being able to complement that quite well. A big sailboat would however provide fairly limited possibilities to go outside the well-known guest and nature harbours and I think my dream boat would pretty much be something like a Fabola Campus 7.4, which should sail quite well and still be able to access most places with a draft of 30 cm with the swing keel in the up position. It is also be big enough to sleep in, important since there are a number of places in the Archipelago Sea where you are not allowed to camp on, though a boat is ok. Unfortunately, it is a fairly new model and thus again too expensive for my use. The second option that I always considered was a classic long-keeled boat with a shallow draft around 27’ long, something along the line of an Albin Vega from the late sixties and seventies. These are available on the used marked for a reasonable amount of money. The draft of this category of boats is typically around 120 cm and a long keel means that you don’t easily risk any real damage running aground in low speed approaching unknown harbours. And no, I don’t generally want to anchor, I want to land and explore the islands.

I thus started to look at older boats, the Albin Vega being a strong candidate. The Vega, however, does have enough of a reputation to keep the price slightly higher. After all, just about everything has been done with an Albin Vega, Cape Horn, Antarctica, Northwest Passage etc. Still, there were number of these around, and I could very well have ended up with one if I hadn’t looked further into a Halcyon 27 as well. There were also some other boats in the same price and size range available. These boats are quite cheap, starting from around 4000 €, and the condition varies, but generally they need some effort and money to be invested. The price is very much dependent on the engine included. Many still have the original 40 – 50 years old engine installed, and it might or might not be barely working. In many cases they come with an outboard engine, since installing a new inboard engine is quite expensive. I went to Dragsfjärd to take a look at the Halcyon 27, and while I wasn’t entirely sold on it immediately I soon decided that it could very well be the boat for me.

The Halcyon 27 is a 27 foot British boat that is considered to be a folkboat derivative with its long keel, transom-hung rudder and fairly heavy displacement. Its 8.23 m (27 ft) long, 2.34 m wide and has a max draft of 1.22 cm. By today’s standards it is very narrow. The total displacement is 3048 kg, with a lead ballast of 1361 kg, which is quite much since it is made for offshore open water sailing. The rigging type is Bermuda sloop with a masthead rig. The model has circumvented the world and crossed oceans, which is very far from what I plan to do. It is however a tough boat from the time when they didn’t know how to optimize fibre glass constructions and is therefore a bit overbuilt with a thick hull. The fairly shallow draft and tough construction, including the keel, is suited for my intentions of landing on places with dubious suitability for sailboats, but the rigging, which is made for tough ocean weather is a bit small for archipelago use. Inside the boat is a bit smaller than an Albin Vega, though it has clearly better headroom, somewhere around 183 cm, which means that it isn’t horribly cramped for my 192 cm. The main selling point of this particular boat unit was the fairly new inboard engine, a Nanni 2.10, installed in 2011 for a total cost of 5700 € (the receipts are still in the boat). At the time of me buying it the engine had run for around 100 h, so it is almost as new. I paid 4000 € for the boat, so in that sense it was a fair deal. On the other hand, without a working engine you would have a very hard time to get anything at all for a boat like this currently, since there are things to fix and renew on it.

At the end of April the boat was lifted into the water and I made a short evening trip with the previous owner checking out the system. The next day, the day I turned 50, my wife drove me to Dalsbruk, where I started the 60 NM journey home with the boat. The previous owner joined me for the first 16 NM. At Högsåra I switched out the genoa for the jib, since the forecast mentioned a wind of 10 m/s (around 20 knots) and more in the gusts.

Now I was on my own, with no sailing experience but in an area I knew very well from my sea kayaking. I also knew how to navigate at sea as well and was familiar with the rules at sea, from my sea kayak guide education and even before that. After a motoring a narrow section in headwind, I raised the sails and started sailing. It was a bit exciting but went without any drama, though an autopilot really would be useful when going single-handed (I got one soon after this). I landed at Högland for the night and sailed the remaining 25 NM the next day.

I didn’t have any grand plans for sailing the first summer, just some shorter one and two night trips, as well as one trip of up to a week, which didn’t happen due to kayak guiding jobs. The main idea was to learn to sail and figure out what needed to be fixed on the boat. I did some some small fixes and improvements, but didn’t let that be my main focus.

I did come up with a good system for the stern anchor, which is out of the way and also fast to deploy. The anchor line roll was switched out to a bigger one taking 56 m of anchor line, which should be plenty for the shallow Archipelago Sea. The boat has no good solution for a bow anchor currently. I don’t see myself using a now anchor much, since I intend to have a land line from the bow in conjunction with a stern anchor. Still, I do consider a bow anchor that is fast to deploy a possible security factor, to be used when everything else fails. The boat, being a British model, does have an anchor locker with space for a fair amount of anchor chain in the bow, but the actual anchor has not good spot. A bowsprit with space for an anchor would be a possible solution that could provide other advantages as well, but it is quite expensive, like many other boat parts.

Among the next things to do was to restore the starboard bunk in the cabin. The bunk consists of a sofa with space for the legs under the chart table. That space however had been changed to accommodate a refrigerator. The refrigerator was quite well insulated, but the actual refrigerating unit was an inefficient Peltier model and a better compressor unit would have been very expensive. I thus took it out and restored the bunk. At just under two meters it is still a bit short but couldn’t be made any longer since the air pipes from the heater limited the space a bit. Instead of the old refrigerator I purchased a 40 liter compressor cooling box and placed it in the forepeak. It seems to be very energy efficient. The port side bunk is a little longer, with leg space extending into a clothes locker. The forepeak also has a large bunk fitting two persons, but I intend to have only one in use and the cooling box on the other side. I see no need to have more than three bunks in a boat this small for my mostly solo use.

There is a small galley with a two burner stove running on propane gas, which should be enough for me. I’ll use the Omnia oven if I need fresh bread or oven food and I might very well bring the Ooni pizza oven if the intention is to make pizza, there should be enough space in the boat for that. And I still see myself making dinner on land in a nice spot, instead of in the boat, and therefore will also have an ordinary outdoor stove in the boat.

The head is a water closet with a holding tank, but it would also need some work to get it tolly odour free. The tank itself definitely leaks odours, the tubing might or might not do it. For the next season I will remove it and replace it with a chemical toilet, which should suffice for my use. I’ll leave the thru-hull fittings for now, but if the chemical toilet is enough, I’ll remove them after the next season.

I also installed two small solar panels of 60 W each, which should suffice for my use, since I’ve replaced all bulbs with LED versions and the only real power consumption comes from the cooling box. The solar panels should be enough for this. In addition, the inboard engine does have a quite powerful 40 A alternator, and the engine will be used for getting into and out of harbours. The heater, an old Wallas Sail 1800 running on kerosene, doesn’t use enough power (0.5 A on full 1.7 kW heating) to be significant, since I won’t use it more that maybe a few hours in the evening and a little less in the morning.

I continued to sail through the summer and into the fall. The summer until August was unusually warm and there was lots of very light wind, meaning that there was number of occasions when the wind really wasn’t strong enough to move the boat. When the real wind is under 3 m/s it isn’t enough for a boat like this, except for maybe beam reach. A larger flying sail could maybe help here.

In the beginning of August the weather changed completely and became unstable with lots of rain and clearly more wind. From the middle of August to the middle of October I didn’t use the genoa at all, the jib was always enough, with the wind typically being 7-11 m/s (14 – 21 knots) and more in the gusts. With the jib a first reef on the mainsail starts to be needed at around 9 m/s (18 knots), depending a on the wind direction.

There are of course lots of things to do on the boat, but I didn’t want to spend the first season only fixing the boat. I now know a lot more about what needs to be done. There are e.g several leaks with thru-deck hardware that needs to be fixed. These leaks mean that in hard and gusty wind some water will collect into the deep bilge, since the boat easily can heel over 30 degrees in gusts with too much sail up. I would estimate that the boat is designed to sail efficiently at a heeling of maybe a little under 20 degrees and much more that that is quite suboptimal for several reasons. These leaks shouldn’t be too hard to fix.

Parts of the rigging also seem to be quite old and I will replace most of the standing rigging, since the wires definitely need that. If I’m going to get our in higher winds next year, this year has been at most around 14 m/s (30 knots), I don’t want to have any uncertainty about this. From what I’ve understood, and to some extent experienced, the rigging of this boat isn’t subject to very high loads, since the boat will heel and allow the wind to spill over, but the equipment should still be in order.

The current sails consist of a main sail, a self-tacking 100 percent jib and a genoa of probably around 130 percent. The main sail is clearly too small for this boat, and presumably being very old it quickly became clear to me that it needs to be replaced. The self-tacking jib is in good shape and a nice sail to have. It is hanked to the forestay, meaning that the genoa has to be removed first. The jib cannot be rolled in, since it has horizontal battens. The genoa is just a lot of cloth and can be rolled in completely on the furler. The genoa is also hanked to the forestay and the furler is a more simple unit that cannot be used for reefing. After much deliberation and discussions on a forum, I decided to also renew the genoa and upgrade the forestay to a furling unit which allows reefing. The genoa itself needed repair, so the decision to renew that one was easy, but the choice between hanked on sails, meaning that the sails cannot be reefed by furling, wasn’t easy. The Furlex 104S furling unit isn’t exactly cheap, though I think I got a good price for it in conjunction with the sails, but the main point to decide on was functionality. A reefable furling unit in practice means that you don’t switch out the foresail, meaning I wouldn’t use my nice self-tacking jib, which really is excellent when there is too much wind for the genoa. A genoa reefed by furling is supposed to be a lot less good in close reach or close hauled. There were even suggestions to install an extra removable Solent stay, to be able to use a jib with a furled in genoa. I’ve seen pictures of that configuration for this and similar boat types. Well, I will end up with new sails and a reefable furling unit, and after that I’ve used more money on the boat than what I originally bought it for. You could see this as being totally foolish, and I certainly wouldn’t get the money back if I would sell the boat, but another way to see it is that the boat fortunately wasn’t too expensive in the first place.

At the time of writing, I had my last weekend trip a week ago, and that is realistically about as long you can have the boat in the water in Finland. Much later than that and you might be in a hurry to get everything packed up for the winter. The boat is now de-masted and should be lifted at any time now. If I get the boat into the water as early as I would like to, in the middle of April, that would mean a sailing season of six months here in Southwest Finland, which isn’t too bad after all. This would mean starting to work on the boat already in March.

So, did I like sailing? Yes, I did. It pretty much has been like what I had imagined, in part probably since the environment is the same as in sea kayaking, so there wasn’t too much unknown about it. This first year I took it quite easy and focused on learning to sail and enjoying it, and a total of little over 500 NM of sailing isn’t really much. Almost all of it single-handed, though, so in one way it has been quite intense and a pretty steep and fun learning curve. And I am looking forward to the next season, after a hopefully cold winter with lots of snow.

Ammarnäs to the South Pt 2

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 16:11:00 +0000

Continued from here.

It again rained during the night, but mostly stopped by the time we got up a little over six in the morning. The breakfast was bacon and an omelette, as well as coffee.

We again got going around eight o'clock. There was a slight drizzle, so we rode in full raingear, since we also expected some wind after the sheltered little valley where we camped.

At this altitude there were no real fall colors left, everything looked like November at home.

I felt quite strong and rode the entire uphill I wasn't able to ride the previous time we were here.

Soon there started to be some hints of the sun.

And voilà!

A little break just before we arrived at Kungsleden.

About 250 m of altitude to gain now, in a fairly short section.

The trail being Kungsleden was now a lot wider.

Jarkko seemed quite happy to arrive at the pause shelter for lunch. It wasn't particularly warm in the wind at this point.

Having done this section on bike once before, I knew there was some bike pushing ahead, but the landscape was great.

Picture by Jarkko Holopainen.

Actually seeing the landscape would have been nice, though.

And then a long downhill section started. Hours of climbing to be wasted quickly.

We took some breaks, though, so that it wouldn't be over too quickly.

The Aigert mountain hut.

The intention was to continue a bit past the Aigert mountain hut to a ridge giving nice views to the north.

We arrived maybe sometime around three in the afternoon and erected the tent. We were now in no hurry, having at most a two hour ride to the car and an extra day to use.

Around the tent site.

We planned to take another route than the main route down. It looked good on the map, but in reality the trail was a bit difficult to discern.

The tent site was quite nice.

Spaghetti Carbonara for dinner, made with spaghetti, bacon, two (dried) eggs and parmesan cheese. Quite acceptable.

Good night.

Almost no rain during the night, but the morning was quite misty.

Gorilla in the mist.

Since we were in no hurry, we waited for a while for the mist to lift, but eventually had to leave.

Going further down.

At around eleven we passed the car. We planned to use the spare day by going up the fell north of Ammarnäs to check it out. We did of course have food for the last evening as well, but since there was a food store in Ammarnäs we picked up some better food before continuing on a short road section before the next trail.

Going up again.

The main goal for the day was to find a nice spot for the tent, preferably around the tree line and not too far away from the car. I think we managed this quite well.

A little stroll to look at the views.

Beef, tortellini and vegetables for dinner. Quite nice.

We went to sleep a little earlier and got up a bit before six in the morning. Again omelette and bacon for breakfast.

The sunrise was at seven, and after a little bike maintenance we were ready for the final descent.

Picture by Jarkko Holopainen.

That's it. We were back at the cars before nine and took a quick bath in a refreshingly cold stream close to the car and started to drive to Umeå and the ferry to Vasa/Vaasa, where we arrive at nine in the evening and immediately started the four hour drive home to Turku.

The coarse route is shown here (taken from the safety transmitter).

All in all an excellent trip. The extra day we had meant that we didn't have to push ourselves and we could relax quite a bit. The area is nice and the trails are completely empty at the end of September.

Ammarnäs to the South Pt 1.

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 12:13:00 +0000

There has been some radio silence in the blog lately, mainly because starting the home computer after a day of working from home hasn't been very appealing. I've still done stuff, like the usual kayaking, cycling, sailing and packrafting, though. Now there is some content from the Swedish mountains.

I saved a week of summer vacation for going to Cornwall for some kayaking in September, but it turned out that there were too few participants, due to Covid-19 uncertainty, to be able to have an assistant guide and thus I couldn't come. I started to look at options for a bike tour in the Swedish mountains, but for some reason none of the usual suspects were able to join me. I thus planned a trip of a week and two weekends to justify driving the car alone for almost 1500 km and came up with a nice route. In the beginning of September, however, Jarkko came by when I was out on an overnighter and we had a long breakfast. It turned out that he was interested, but was not willing to do something as physically demanding as out previous trips, where we've pretty much been pushing our limits, in addition to the fatbikes. I quickly came up with a suitable route and a spare day, meaning we wouldn't have to push ourselves this time. Bike pushing was guaranteed, though. About half of the route was unknown to us and the world, meaning I found no usable information on the internet. Part of it was in all likelihood impossible to ride, so we got an adventure aspect into it as well.

On Thursday 23rd September at eight in the morning we drove on the the new ship Aurora Botnia of Wasa Line in Vasa/Vaasa and the trip started.

After 3,5 h on the boat as well as one hour extra waiting on each side, we started driving towards Ammarnäs, around 360 km away.

We arrived there at a little over four in the afternoon and got going a little over a half hour later. The aim was to get to somewhere around the tree line for the evening. With less that two hours to sunset and a little under 400 m altitude to climb that seemed enough. The weather was cloudy, but it didn't really rain.

We took the first suitable spot after around two hours. Not much else to do than make dinner (vegetables and a nice beef) and go to sleep.

It soon soon started to rain, but luckily stopped just as we got up at six in the morning (which was seven o'clock in Finnish time, so not that early). The night had actually been quite cold. For this morning we had fresh bread and ham, so the breakfast was easy and tasty.

We got going again at eight. The weather was quite grey, but it didn't rain. The upcoming section went mostly above treeline and based on that and that it wasn't used much (since there was no info on the net), we expected this to be rideable. This turned out to be true, though some climbs were too steep or too long to ride.

Yours truly, picture by Jarkko Holopainen.

Uphill section.

We did take time to enjoy the landscape. Picture by Jarkko Holopainen.

The trail was for the most part easy to follow, even though it wasn't much used. The map still helped, though.

A very lonely spruce.

The trail reached about 950 m of altitude, after which the downhill started.

Back at the tree line, going down.

The last section was steep enough that we were not sure if it could be ridden, based on the map. In practice we could ride almost all of it, though with a break halfways to allow my brakes to cool down. A 160 mm disc in the rear was not enough here.

Coming down in altitude, there were again more fall colors.

Arriving at Àjvàk, containing an open hut for overnighting. There used to live people here, but the place was abandoned about fifty years ago, but it is still kept in shape.

At the Överst-Juktan lake.

Lunch break. Though we did have quite nice food, we used freeze dried outdoor meals for lunch, for simplicity's sake.

The following section, Àjvàk-Biellojaure, didn't look good on the map. There was a discernible trail, and it was possible to ride it in some places...

... but also a lot of bike pushing, even though the word pushing doesn't describe it well. It ws more like dragging, lifting, pushing, etc.

The last hour or so it started to rain. Luckily we found a reasonable tent spot where we hoped. The terrain otherwise wasn't good for a tent.

We made dinner and after that went out to see if we could get a fire started. Everything was quite wet after the rain, and Jarkko's knife (we only brought one bigger knife) disintegrated after only two strokes of batoning wood. I wasn't too hopeful, but there was quite a lot of (wet) dead wood and birch bark and we got a fire going.

Pancakes are better on a real fire.

The night wasn't cold, but it rained for most of the night. Porridge for breakfast is something one can do now and then, but it's not my favorite.

Packing down everything and start in the rain isn't really very inspriring, but what can you do?

My trusty Surly Icecream Truck. I've reverted back to a small front rack, after having used a handlebar bag for almost ten years. The rack definitely is better. The 27.5x4.5 tires work very well in this kind of terrain.

The fog started to clear up a bit, revealing the landscape.

The rain also eased up a bit.

A bit of downhill again.

The trail we rode on was an official route, and they even used quite some time and money on it some 5 - 10 years ago, since there were duckboards here and there. The mire duckboards where in good shape, but in many other places you couldn't really even see the duckboards under the vegetation.

After Vatjosjön the trail again became worse and snacks were needed.

Still some late bloomers.

The last part near Biellojaure got better.

Biellojaure. We were now back on familiar trails. The section Biellojaure-Kungsleden is, with the exception of the initial climb, the best fell cycling trail I've encountered.

Lunch at a spot I remembered from before. The sun came out and we erected the tent to let it dry.

The trail was now mostly on drier ground and in excellent shape.

Less water sources on this section.

The landscape opened up.

Picture by Jarkko Holopainen.

The blueberries looked good, but had no taste anymore.

The Syterskalet u-valley is a distinct landmark here.

A picture...

... and the making of it. Picture by Jarkko Holopainen.

Down and up. Picture by Jarkko Holopainen.

The up part.

And down again.

You do need to look at the map a few hours before making camp, to see what possibilities there are. Water is to some extent a scarce resource in September. The place we planned to camp on was fortunately quite nice.

This night we had falafels with couscous and harissa sauce for dinner. Quite good actually.

The moon was a little bigger than half, but did give some light to the landscape.

Continued here.

Sailing the Gullkrona Bay

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 09:04:00 +0000

My vacation has started and I wanted to the archipelago.

My vacation finally started after a rather busy summer at work. Too many things to do at the same time, and I couldn't find time for some extended weekends earlier in June, which I had hoped for. The first week I was actually to have a kayak guiding work for a few days, but we agreed to postpone it with a week due according to what the customers wished. It would have been perfect for kayaking, though. Fairly weak winds and a continuing heat (over four weeks of temperatures of 25-30°C, with only a few days slighty less hot). Less good for sailing, which I opted to do instead. Incidentally, the coming week has much stronger winds, perfect for sailing and less than ideal for kayaking.

Anyway, I started a trip for the home harbor with Tor, 16 years young, around noon on Thursday. We had a wind of 5-7 m/s from south, enough wind to get a decent speed and a direction that would keep us tacking the entire day.

The Airisto section went without problems, as did the following section after the Nagu ferries.

The final tacking section, after which we could sail close reached to the intended island for the night.

Closing in is much easier when you are not going solo. The intention is to land close enough to land that you can get ashore without getting your feet wet, not always easy with a sailing boat in the mostly rather shallow waters of the Archipelago Sea.

Landed afer a good sailing day. with 27 NM and only around 30 minutes of running the engine.

1.2 m deep, but the depth sounder is a bit forward of the deepest point of the keel. Still a bit tight, since the draft of the boat is 1.2 m.

Evening stroll, dinner and evening swim followed.

As it turned out, the boat was a bit close to land. During the night, the wind started to come from east, despite the forecast and the boat thus moved sideways a meter or two and the keel started to occasionally bump into an underwater rock. I had to get up and pull the boat outwards a few meters. Maybe the lesson here is to pull the boat out a few meters during the night, and then in the morning pull it in again, to be able to get ashore.

We got going again a little over nine in the morning, having easy sailing in broad reach.

Lunch stop at Kråkskär, which is becoming a favorite of mine.

The first tracks are obviously birds, the second tracks not obvious to me.

We decided to go a little south, before turning northwards again. The wind had now increased a bit and I decided to experiment with going only with the main sail. In broad reach the speed was quite ok.

Örharun

The tacking angle however was not good.

Turning back to northeast still got us in an angle where the mainsail only worked well.

There are a few guide books about nature harbors along the Finnish coast, and we aimed for one of them. Closing in, it seemed we got into a little competition there, but arrived at the spot before another boat. The drawback of sailing in July, when everone else is out... Basically another boat would have fit there, but in my opinion would probably have been a bit close. Obviously that other boat, and yet another one a little later thought that as well and continued to somewhere else. Alternatively they just look at our landing technique, which was a bit entertaining. The wind from the side was quite hard and I didn't take that into account when closing in, and Tor was forced to step onto a rather bad place. We got it sorted out, but it is a bit of a challenge to maneuver a long keeled boat in slow speed. The distance of the day was 26 NM and again no other motoring than getting in and out of harbors.

Just in case the wind would again turn and come from east, I put out a second anchor to account for that wind direction.

Dinner and more swimming.

A nice view.

I woke around midnight to some stronger wind gusts, probably around the forecasted 12 m/s, but the wind directions remained the same and the boat didn't move. Otherwise I slept very well.

The morning was actually a bit chilly and I had to put on a fleece, the first time in over a month. It quickly got warm, though, when the sun came out from behind the island.

Breakfast with coffee and fresh bread from the Omnia oven.

Looking at the forecast, the wind had gone down a lot and this would mean a lot of motoring. We started with motoring, since the headwind was too weak allow reasonable tacking.

A one hour sailing section. More that half of the sail boats still motored it.

We did try sailing a bit more, but soon have up and started the engine again.

The stove is gimbaled, so it is quite possible to make food underways. Of course, going by motor means no heeling, so it was even easier.

We did try putting up the sails a few more times, but in vain. There was simply not enough wind. A few sailboats going in the same direction did have the sails up, but moved quite slowly. And my boat is certainly no boat for light winds.

Back in the home harbor at around three in the afternoon after 25 NM, unfortunately mostly going by engine. I'm beginning to appreciate the decent inboard motor more and more, even the sailing is the real thing.

There will be no longer trips this summer with the boat. I'm still learning to sail, learning the boat and fixing the boat. Next year everything should be fine for some more demanding trips.

Korpo runt

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 18:30:00 +0000

I've continued to learn to sail and this time I went on a 72 NM weekend trip around Korpo.

There has been some day sailing in different conditions to learn to know the boat, once even in fairly hard wind, which was quite interesting. I've intended to take a vacation day and go on a long weekend sailing, but it hasn't been possible. For some reason this time of the year is always very busy at work, which is a bit of a shame, since the most interesting part of the summer is in my opinion up to midsummer. I did however manage to get out for one weekend.

I started from the home harbour a little over ten in the morning. The wind was at this point quite optimal, some 6-8 m/s, which gives hull speed with the main sail and genoa if the sails are adjusted correctly, though not necessarily when going close-hauled.

There was quite a bit of traffic on Airisto.

The beating (sounds strange, but that seems to be the English word for it) section.

Just before turning more to west there was a strange zone without any wind, which seemingly the others knew about but not I. I moved with less than one knot speed and ultimately decided to push myself out of it with the motor. A few minutes by engine was enough.

After that I sailed close reached and soon had to take in one reef, going pretty much six knots for several hours.

Sailing in the big lane.

I continued past Korpo and the turned towards SE, and after a while took down the sails and started the engine. The wind came directly from my intended direction and it was a bit narrow for beating, and it was also getting a bit late. Going by engine isn't the most fun, the speed is about 4.5 knots, and the engine sound is annoying. I think the propeller isn't a perfect match for the boat, since there is engine power left, it just doesn't translate to much more speed. That is in my opinion acceptable, this is a sailing boat anyway.

The well known nature harbours in the area were mostly occupied in this beautiful summer evening, but I found a place at Birsskär, next to Konungskär where I've been by kayak a number of times. There were three other boats at the island, but there was still plenty of space. I managed to land without any problems at all, which isn't necessarily easy when going single-handed. With almost no wind it was of course quite easy. The distance of the day was 41 NM.

Dinner and a beer followed.

The evening was quite nice.

I did a bit of reading before going to sleep a little over eleven.

I had slept for less than one hour when I woke up to voices outside. Another sail boat was trying to land next to me around midnight. It doesn't get dark at this time of the year, so there shouldn't have been any problems. The wind had now increased and came from another direction and I was a bit worried for the anchor, since I really should have had a bit more anchor rope out. I looked out for a while to see that the anchor was still set. The other boat tried a few places, but ultimately continued to somewhere else and I slept until six in the morning.

The night had been warm, but I still ran the heater for 20 minutes or so to get the moisture out of the boat. The morning was nice, as was to be expected.

I left at around eight in the morning, going by engine for a little under one hour, until I came to an area with both wind and room to maneuver. At this point the wind came directly from behind and I tried sailing with only the genoa, which worked quite well, going north between Korpo and Nagu.

After the northward section I raised the main sail as well, but the wind died out pretty soon. I used the situation to make coffee.

After a while I took down the sails and started the engine and ran it for a half hour until there was wind again.

There is obviously something I don't know about the wind patterns in the area, since I was know pretty much going yesterday's route in the opposite direction and there were a number of areas with very weak wind, even though the wind direction was the same as yesterday, the wind was just a tad weaker. I switched between sails and engine for several times.

It was just in the final downwind section up Airisto that the wind again was good. This beautiful old boat pulled up a spinnaker and soon disappeared out of sight.

I again went only with the genoa and had quite good speed. The head sail in a butterfly setup would probably have given a bit more speed, but the risk for an uncontrolled jibe due to an evasive maneouver would be quite big, since there were a number of other sailboats out as well. A preventer guy would take the drama out of that, but I hadn't yet looked at how to set up one.

While there is always more to learn even for an experienced sailor, I'm still in the beginning stage where I learn a lot of new stuff all the time and this is really fun. I was back home in the home harbour in the afternoon after 31 NM.

More sailing will follow, as well as more kayaking. The mountain biking is pretty much on hold now, I'm more into riding during the winter, but I still do gravel riding, which is great fun.

Österskär

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Mon, 31 May 2021 18:54:00 +0000

Four days of kayaking in the Brunskär-Österskär archipelago.

A kayaking trip was long overdue, but now it happened. The problem with having a many modes of transportation to choose from is the limited time to do everything. I do, however, consider myself to be mainly a outdoor and nature guy and thus not bound to a specific discipline, but there are of course practical aspects like having sufficient gear and skillset to do the interesting things.

A total of five local sea kayakers took the cars to Korpoström, for a kayaking trip of three nights. We got started about seven in the evening and had an hour of uneventful paddling to Konungskär.

I've been to Konungskär a number of times. It is a nice place and there is an open cabin there, something really nice during the dark and wet time of the year, but not needed now.

It was a nice night, but not particularly warm on the sunset side of the island, with the wind and an air temperature of maybe a little under 10°C.

We had dinner in a slightly sheltered spot, but everyone seemingly was very tired and at around ten I found myself sitting out there alone. I went to sleep at around eleven and woke up a few minutes before seven, Exactly at seven it started to rain and I quickly packed down my tent before it got wet. Due to the rain we had breakfast in the cabin.

It rained when we started. We had a first section with fairly good wind protection from a number of islands.

A first stop at Äskören, which has a memorial over Salomon August Andrée, who landed / crashed on the island after having flown his balloon from Stockholm in 1893. The S.A. Andrée story, including the failed attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon and resulting death on Kvitøya in Spitsbergen is a story well worth reading.

After that we continued past Brunskär...

... to the 9 km crossing to the Österskär islands. The wind was mostly against us and it rained for most of the time.

About half way there were some small barren islands, and we took a lunch break on Kallharu.

The wild pansy cheers up the archipelago from April to September, probably for longer than anything else.

We continued the crossing to Österskär and landed on the main island.

The village had seen better days.

Red campion.

We continued a bit with the aim of finding a tent spot with sufficient shelter from the wind, as well as a view towards the sunset. A somewhat futile idea, since the wind came from northwest, where the sun also sets. We did find an acceptable place, though.

Spring also in the archipelago.

The sun set behind clouds, but it wasn't still too bad.

The night was surprisingly silent and there were a lot less birds than I thought there would be. The morning was ok.

My closest neighbour moved quite slowly in the somewhat chilly morning.

Breakfast.

We decided to paddle in the Österskär islands during the morning and return to the tents for lunch.

Lots of mute swans.

We had lunch and packed the kayaks to make the crossing to the Brunskär side. The weather did change a bit when we started.

We could for a moment see Kvigharun, our first waypoint, a little under 4 km away and could confirm the compass course. The visibility was still not too bad.

After a while it became clear that the visibility was going down and we now went by compass only. Not ideal if there would be other boats out there, which was unlikely where we now were. The fog horns of larger ships could be heard in the distance, though. The forecasts hadn't mentioned fog as a possibility.

You actually can go very straight even in moderate waves by compass with a kayak. In this picture you can even see the point half way, when I decided to turn a notch to the north to maximize the likelihood that we would arrive at some sort of land.

The visibility was under 200 m, which really plays tricks with your eyes. Anything you see looks to be far away, until you suddenly notice that you are next to it.

We continued jumping from skerry to skerry by compass, but had now problems.

Well, maybe water in the kayak is a slight nuisance, if not a problem.

Back on the Brunskär side with Västerön in the picture.

The first tent island alternative wasn't as nice in real life as on the map, but there are many islands to choose from and we found an acceptable spot with a view towards sunset, though it seemed unlikely that we would see anything.

I made lasagne for dinner.

Camp Hilleberg.

I slept with one tent side open and during the night actually saw the moon, but in the morning the fog was there again.

A morning walk before the other got up.

The paddling back to the starting point went mostly in fog.

The closer we came to Korpoström, the less dense the fog got.

When we landed there was full visibility and the sun came out. It even started to get warmer.

A nice trip in good company. A little over 70 km of paddling, so we had had plenty of time.

Sailing again

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sat, 15 May 2021 12:38:00 +0000

A four day weekend had me go on a 65 NM overnighter trip with the sail boat.

The Ascension Day is a national holiday in Finland, and in conjunction with that I took a vacation day, giving me a four day weekend. The weather look excellent for sailing during Thursday and Friday, with warm weather and reasonable wind. After that quite a bit of rain was forecasted. Both of these forecasts were wrong.

I arrived at the home harbour on Thursday and got started at eleven. After getting out of the harbour, a lot easier than getting in, a 2 NM stretch on motor follows. With the right wind this is of course possible to sail, but it is a bit narrow and there is a bit of boat traffic there, so I expect to do this mainly by motor. In the picture I'm using the autopilot while stowing away fenders and ropes.

Hmm. Not too encouraging at Airisto, the first larger open sea area.

I did put up the sails and occasionally the wind filled them.

The wind was between 0 and 2 m/s, according to the weather station in the area, so the going was very slow, but with the autopilot I got from a collegue (thanks, Sami) I could do something useful, like making myself a cup of coffee, while still keeping watch all the time.

According to the weather forecast the wind was supposed to be 4-6 m/s, but it was barely moving.

After an hour or so of hardly moving at all I started the engine. The cruising speed with the engine is under 5 knots, i.e slower than by sails if the wind is over 4 m/s, and it is a bit boring.

While I do assume that the boat, being designed for British conditions, is under rigged for the slowest of winds, like under 3 m/ s, I noticed that the other boats didn't use sails either.

I did a few tries, raised and took down the sails seven times during the day, but after Stormälö the wind came back. As is visible from the picture, the sails still need reefing lines, but I have to figure out how they go first.

The bigger boat is clearly faster, but I'm going a bit too much into the wind to give it space in the fairly narrow lane ahead.

And just east of Sandö the wind died completely again, so I went by motor a little past Pensar. Now in the open Gullkrona Bay I had hoped for wind again, and the forecast agreed, so I put up the sails immediately when I felt a little wind, totally in vain, though. The weather was really nice and calm.

Time to start the engine, set up the autopilot and make some coffee again.

After Mellanlandet the wind came back, and the final 10 NM to Kråkskär went mostly almost against hull speed. Probably around 6-8 m/s wind, with a lot more in the gusts. I think my initial thought when I sailed the boat home was correct: Over 10 m/s is too much for the genoa, it already dipped into the water a few times and for that the jib is a better choice. The genoa is on a furler, but it is (probably) a cheaper version that doesn't allow reefing. It is easy to switch out the foresail on it, though.

The autopilot makes life so much easier when going single handed. I'm closing in on the destination and can prepare for it with getting anchor and ropes out without any hurry,

I've rolled in the genua and continue with the mail sail only the last bit. Kråkskär ahead.

After 32 NM I managed to dock without too much trouble, though it isn't really that easy to do alone with a long keeled boat that doesn't turn well. I first went close to check out a place, found a place not to shallow under water and not too steep above water and went out again to deploy the anchor. After that I slowly drove ahead towards the cliff, trying to have just enough speed to have to boat glide close enough for me to jump ashore. The boat weighs a little over 3000 kg, so there is some mass to take into account. After the autopilot taking the hassle out of raising and lowering sails, I think this is and will remain the most difficult part of sailing single handed for me. The place was nice, though, and had a few iron rings bolted into the cliff.

The evening is nice, and while the boat has a two flame propane kitchen, having a separate stove is still needed to be able to enjoy eating a nice meal outside the boat a nice evening.

The sunset was a bit after ten in the evening, but it doesn't really get dark at this time of the year anymore, so I still had time for a stroll around the island.

The boat is still a bit of a mess inside and out, there are lots of details to fix, but it does have the potential to be quite cozy during darker evenings.

I slept for almost eight hours and woke up to a nice morning. Coffee and fresh baked croissants on the Omnia oven (an excellent piece of equipment) followed.

The morning walk.

The spring has sprung.

Having a draft of only 1.2 m, the boat should have a plenty of possibilites in the archipelago. The easy places, like this one, might be a bit crowded during the summer, and there was one other boat there even now. I do need to get a working sonar, though, since you only want to do that much friction navigation even with a long keeled boat.

The weather forecast was again nice when I started the return trip. as was the wind.

I had arrived going outside the lanes just west of Mellanlandet when I came, and the plan was now to take another route just east of Gullkrona going back, but the wind did'nt allow it. Instead I went east of Mellanlandet and just at that point the wind died out completely againt, despite several forecasts from different agencies of 5 m/s wind from east.

And then it started to rain.

I didn't think much of it when I bought the boat, but having a (hopefully) reliable inboard engine is actually quite nice. Though it's not much fun going by engine, it does allow you a whole lot more possibilities. It probably consumes a little over 1 liter of diesel per hour, so it's not like you have to refuel all the time anyway.

Just south of Erikvalla the wind returned and I got around 30 minutes of sailing before motoring the last part to the harbour.

33 NM was the saldo of the day, but too much of it was by motor. The forecasts, from several different providers, had between 4 and 6 m/s wind in them for the entire period, except the night, but it didn't really happen like that. In retrospect a sea kayak trip could have been more suitable, but I have one of those planned for next weekend

I am sailing

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Wed, 05 May 2021 15:38:00 +0000

I bought an old sailboat.

When you turn fifty you're supposed to have a life crisis or just in general do something stupid, like switching out your wife or buying a Harley-Davidson. I like my wife and have no interest in motorized vehicles, but I still wanted to use the situation to my advantage and bought an old sailboat, in fact a little older than me.

The boat is a Halcyon 27, a British design from the late sixties. It is a small boat, 8.23 m long and 2.34 m wide, based on the old folkboat design. Being long keeled, it has a fairly low draft of 1.20 m, which should allow some flexibility in choosing nature harbours. It should also be able to handle weather quite well, with a keel weight of 1360 kg lead (total displacement 3048 kg). Inside it is quite narrow, but a standing height of 180 cm isn't bad in this small a boat. Boats this old have in practice lost almost all of their value, at least measured in money, and can therefore be had cheap, typically 4000 - 7000 € in Finland for this particular class, not that there are many of this model left. The more popular and similar Albin Vega also goes for around the same price. The cheap price and old age also means that they might need a bit of money/work/love. This boat had a fairly new inboard motor, a Nanni 2.10 from 2011, which has run only a little over 100 hours, so that part is ok. The hull also seemed to be in fairly good shape, with only some cosmetic work to be done. Inside there is also some cosmetic work to be done and I do think the boat could benefit from a new main sail. The roller genoa seemed to be in good shape, and the self-tacking jib also was in excellent shape. I will probably find out more things to fix, but this package actually cost less than my most expensive kayak. Keeping a sailboat is of course more expensive.

During last weekend I sailed it home from Dalsbruk/Taalintehdas to Hirvensalo, about 57 NM. The previous owner was with me for the first section to Högsåra, about 16 NM. Half of this section was by motor, due to the headwind and narrow shipping lanes. Incidentally, the main wind direction during Friday and Saturday was NW, which is the general direction between Dalsbruk and Hirvensalo...

In Högsåra I switched out the genoa to the jib, since I was certain that the jib would be enough for the forecasted 10 m/s (more in the gusts) wind. Being an almost total beginner in sailing I didn't want to have too much challenges, since I was going single handed.

I got from Högsåra northwards by motor, since the wind came from ahead and there is limited room in the shipping lane. The plan was to raise sails after Norstö and go WNW and tack somewhere east of Ytterlanden. (Please excuse any terminology errors, in practice I'm learning the terminology in Swedish, Finnish and English at the same time, and I'm not there yet).

After Norstö I turned west to check out the conditions, but the wind didn't seem reasonable for getting where I wanted, so I continued a bit further northwards.

While I am a beginner when it comes to sailing, I do now how to navigate with a sea chart and I know these waters well from sea kayaking. Also, I think I have a good feeling for the wind from the sea kayaking. Still, there is a bit of a don't try this at home-warning over the whole thing, going single handed sailing without an autopilot and not having any real sailing experience.

After Sandskär I raised the sails and shut down the motor. The wind came from NW and I first went a bit west to get a good line to the north. At this point I had already abandoned my plan A to go to Dalskär, since it wouldn't be reasonably possible with this wind direction. Instead I aimed for Högland, which I thought would give reasonable shelter for the night. A plan C would have been to continue a bit further still, to a totally sheltered place in Attu.

Going west I got the wind in a good direction, easily going over 6 knots (the GPS logged 6.8 knots).

The boat does seem to potentially have a good speed going close hauled, even without me really knowing how to trim the sails. Maybe the narrow beam, especially in the bow, helps this?

I turned north, going along the pearl band of islands between Sandön and Högland on the west side. I did one tack to the west, in order not to get too close to the rock garden of Äspskärs reven.

I took down the sails just before the small harbour. By now I was pretty much done, after 32 NM, and only took a small stroll after having eaten before going to sleep.

I got up before six in the morning and made coffee and fresh croissants with the Omnia oven.

The wind now came from WNW, meaning that I would go by motor for almost three hours. Raising and lowering the sails alone, without an autopilot keeping the course during the operation isn't much fun, so you don't want to do it too many times.

After Lillmälö I raised the sails, and had quite good speed across Airisto, mostly over six knots after the Linsor islands.

There was a bit of a drama when I lowered the sails just before Samppansuntti. Still no autopilot and the engine didn't want to run on low rpms, but I managed. Diesel isn't what it used to be: Nowadays it contains enough bio components that bacteria and algae can grow in the tank, clogging the fuel filters, which I now need to change.

The final challenge was actually getting the boat into its place on the pier. A long keeled boat isn't exactly nimble in close turns, and going backwards it doesn't react to the rudder unless you have too much speed in a tight environment. Going forwards it does actually spin almost around its own axis, since propeller stream hits the rudder directly. I got it parked, though, and the boat was now home after a total of 57 NM.

There is a bunch of stuff to do on the boat and figure out. I haven't e.g. still found out how to get tension in the mail sail. The boom isn't fixed, but is rather in a channel and needs something to pull it down. I don't think the kicker is the correct solution, but I'm sure I'll find out.

That's it. I do still paddle, the day after I got home I had a sea kayak guide job for a full 12 h day.