Sailing in Finland

Hello!

So this is my first post. You have to excuse me for some of my spelling mistakes that I might make, but english isn't my mother-language.

Thanks to convenient timing, my first post will be about traveling. So my summer holiday vocation was sailing in the northen part of Europe. Specifically Estonia and Finland. There was about ten of us, my family and a really close friend with her family. It lasted for 10 days and it was a trip that I will remember for the rest of my life.

Day 1

Our litttle adventure started from a port in Tallinn. We had to sail 18 hours across the gulf of Finland to get to our first destination, a city called Kotka, Finland.

The weather was perfect for sunbathing, but we couldn't get the sails up due to lack of wind. But honestly I prefered to sail smoothly rather than bounch at every wave.

So we spent our day between big cruise ships eating, reading and enjoying the sun which was suprisingly hot considering the location.

When the evening was to end I saw the sun go down with such colours I have only read in books before. It was just amazing to watch and it really made my feel like I was sailing on the edge of the world.

The beautiful colours stayed with us for quite some time after the sun-down but with the light went our luck too. About 1 am in the middle of the gulf of Finland, in the complete darkness with the only thing to show us the way was the moon, the boat's motor broke down. It went down with a boom, literally 2 loud bangs like gunshots and left us with a uncontrollable boat with 5 hours yet to sail.

 Day 2

I was waken up by my friend the next morning, apperently I had dozed of in the middle of the night, only to find out that the two engineers that we had on board, were able to get control over the boat with a metal pipe and had gotten us safely to the destination. 

So in the next 10 minutes I was kicked off the boat because the boat needed to be taken to be repaired and me and my friends were left to discover this Finland's city called Kotka ( by the way in estonian it means an eagle). 

 As it turned out Finns are really creative nation. We had only walked around a few minutes when we found a street full of interesting art.

 After a little walk on the "art" street, we found a little coffee shop, which sold the most amazing pastries and to my suprise I found out that Finns also know how to make a proper hot chocolate. 

 After our little breakfast we found a national park with a beautiful waterfall and later discovered it to be a very romantical park with many private and silent places, where to etc have a picnic.

Soon after, our boat returned better than ever and we were able to continue our journey to a small island called Santio.

We made it there in the evening and were able to take a little walk on the island, which was pretty much only pines and huge stones. The island was also used by the Finns as a border checkpoint (we were to be crossing to Russia and back to Finland the next day).

Day 3

Our next destination was a little island in the Saimaa lake, but to get there we needed to go trough the Canal of Saimaa. Before we got to the canal  I need to mention that we got to sail for the first time on our trip. It was only for about 10 minutes but it was one of the 3 times on the trip when we got the sails up add-all.

 Soon we got to the canal, which had 8 of these spaces that were meant to raise us up above the sea-level about 80 meters (the lake we were planning to go was located a little higher than the sea).

 To raise us, they had us go into a room like place and trapped us between two huge doors.

 The space between the doors was pumped full of water and we were raised with it.

For about a half of hour we started to rose and finally we were even with the ground.

When the space was full of water, they let us out and we did that exact same thing for 7 more times.

About half way through our passports were controlled in the Russian border checkpoint. There I was for the first time in Russia even when it just to sail through a few hundred meters of Russian waters.

In the evening we were finally in the Saimaa lake and ported in a city called Lappenranta.

Day 4

In the morning we found out that net to the port was a so called sand city,  where we found many awesome sculptures. Of my favourite I had to put a picture (Einstein of course).

 And because we are still kids inside we had to take a spin on the carousel.

About noon we headed for our next destination, which was an island called Sadamo. Because for the next two days we visited 2 island very similar to this one, I'm write about them together. 

Days 4-6

The islands that we visited often had only sauna and toilets on them. Because as Finns, Estonians are too great fans of sauna, we always jump to the opportunity to use a sauna.

 Even when we had to cut the logs and carry the water to the sauna, we got the job done and even the younger ones leaned how to use an axe.

 Due to lack of supermarkets we grilled almost every night and in almost every island we could find some berry bushes. It's amazing how every island had it's own local legends about wild forest animals and to my suprise the most popular beast was a moose.

Day 7

After 3 days of resting on small island we started to go back where we came from. So it meant we had to spend another day in the canal of Saimaa and to spend the night again on the boarder island Santio. Soon after we had left the port, we spotted a rarity among these lakes. Someone was trying to sail!! Soon after we spotted them they put down their sails and continued by motor. No suprise there because the wind was near to zero.

So we went  through the canal and we spent most of our day in the boat playing board games, because the weather was terrible (on the photo a name and the years that one of the "spaces" that lifted us had been built).

The evening was quite beautiful, but really cold. I spent most of it reading in many many blankets in the nose of the boat.

Day 8 

The next morning we headed to a small Estonian island called Prangli. To get there we had to sail about 18 hours, but for our luck the weather was beautiful, it only turned a little windy when the night approached, but nothing that we couldn' handle. Even I got to steer for 3 hours, but since it was quite late when I finished, the waves were quite big, I most of the time just screamed to the others that these waves weren't normal and, as good friends always do, they all laughed at me. :D

Day 9

I woke up because I could smell something that I wasn't a fan of: fish. So I woke up and got dressed only to find my friend taking the guts out of some fish. A good way to start a morning, huh. So when the fish were cleaned, I started to look for a place we could cook them until my friends stopped my and told me that we were going to eat that fish RAW!!! To my suprise, it actually tasted pretty good. 

At noon we hired a guide to take us on a tour of the island. As if my morning hadn't started suprisingly enough the tour "bus" that came to take us wasn't a bus. It was a WW 2 Russian truck, which had 2 benches in the back where we could sit. It mad the tour actually much better, since we drove through water and saw the coast too.

In the end of the tour the guide took us to his home farm. Showed us how they lived on the island, and since I had expected much worse, It didn't seem that bad to live there.

 In the evening we, as usual, went to sauna and spent the last night of our trip eating and having fun.

Day 10

The next morning we headed to Tallinn, but as we started our journey back we found out that wind was the fastest we had ever had. That was the day that I found out that I can get seasick pretty quick, so I spent most of the way my eyes on the horizon and close to the boat's edged in case my stomach was to fail me.

 Since the wind was finally strong, everyone else enjoyed that we could finally sail. My seasickness went away after we opened the sails and even I got to enjoy the last hours of hour trip.

 We ended our trip at the port's restourant, where we put a good ending to a perfect trip. 

That's all I have to say about my little adventure. It was one of the most memorable travels of my life and I hope that when you read this you will have the sailing bug, too.

Bookworm