Wednesday, 19. August 2009 : Back home
From Byholmen, we continued westward towards Helsinki, looking forward to meet our long awaited guests; the skipper’s daughter Andrea and her mate Lukas finally made it all the way from Vienna to the Baltic, to sail with us for some days.
Due to a miserable weather forecast promising five days of pouring rain, we hurried up and arrived in Helsinki a day before our guests.
Back in the NJK harbour, we were awaited by the crew of Anahita who we had met a couple of times before, cruising in the northern Baltic. They had reserved a fine berth for Sir Francis, and we finally had an opportunity to share sailing memories over a dinner at the NJK club restaurant.
Next day was washing- boat cleaning- and shopping day. Before getting serious with work, we started with a breakfast at the market place, where farmers and fishermen sell their products every day starting at 07:00.
Our guests arrived in the afternoon and, contrary to the weather-god’s forecasts, we enjoyed another beautiful sundown accompanied by a bottle of dry champagne of the best sort (thanks, Håkan and Ulla, for this treat and sorry you could not join us).
The following week, we slowly moved on along the Finnish south coast past Tammisaari (Ekenäs), and Hankö and up the Turku archipelago where we said goodbye to our guests, who by the time had been upgraded to “crew”. Fortunately, the sunny weather stayed with us all the time and we were able to offer the new crew a “sailing” experience that is not so common in these waters: hot day temperatures, water temperatures over 20 degrees and no wind, meaning Penta-sailing most of the time and afternoons with lot of swimming. afternoon drinks and sundowners.
The wind came back when the guests had left and we had some fine sailing days from Nagu back to Stockholm, via Bänö ö, Rödhamn, Arholma and Finnhamn. In Rödhamn, the wind forecast said 6-10 m/s southwest, right against our course for crossing the open water between Åland and Sweden, Ålands hav. This was not what we wanted to hear, especially as stronger southwesterlies had blown the last three days, which means uncomfortable seas. So, we went out of the protected harbour with an alternative plan - to turn back north to Mariehamn to wait for better winds.
We shouldn’t have worried: fortunately, the forecast was wrong again and the wind came from south east instead, giving Sir Francis her favourite going: beam-reach and quite comfortable and fast (in our opinion). However, after arriving in Arholma on the Swedish side, we met our berth-neighbour from Rödhamn who had left the harbour a half hour after us in an X42: he claimed he had arrived one hour before us. I bet he was lieing, despite his boat’s LYS of 1,39 (we have 1,03).
We then continued via Finnhamn to a small Marina on Värmdö. Thanks to our sailing friend Tobbe, we could borrow a berth for Sir Francis for a few weeks, which means some more sailing weekends in the archipelago rather than in lake Mälaren.
In total, this summer was definitely one of our best cruising summers so far. We have seen many interesting places, met friends and made some new new ones. Weather-wise we must have been extremely lucky according to the reports we regularly got from some of our sailing friends who choose to sail the Swedish East- and West Coast.
Southern Finland and Lake Saima are cruising areas we definitely can recommend to everyone who wants to get away from crowded harbours; and if you (like us) love to have a sauna bath before dinner, there sure is no better place to go.
