Last week I was sailing in Airisto, an area south of Turku town. My friend, Jan-Erik, had rented a Bavaria 34 sailing boat and asked me and an other friend of his,Lasse, to come along as"gasts".
We started Monday morning by car from Helsinki and were in Kasnäs at about noon. After a short introduction to the boat we were ready and out at the sea.
Our first destination was an uninhibited island of Björkö, were we spent the first night, sleeping in the boat. Fortunately there were 3 cabins in the boat, thus each of us had a cabin of his own!
After a good nights sleep we plunged in the morning to the sea to have our morning swim.
Then we walked round the small island, or actually round an inner lake that was situated in the middle of the island. The scenery was very beautiful!
Then we sailed to the next island called Aspö. There we visited an old church that was quite near the harbour. The door was open and we went in to the empty church. There was an American organ there, and Jan-Erik played a few melodies with it, before we went away. It was raining, and the strand cafe was closed, so we lifted the anchor and hoisted the sails and continued to the next island, Nötö. It was still raining, but we decided to walk to the old church of this island. This time the church was about half a mile from the harbour, and as we were returning to the boat, in the yard of one small house, we saw a man with a scythe, and he started heaping abuse upon us and said he has got enough of the tourists here, and he made the impression of being a little bit dreadful. But later we heard that he was just a harmless village madman. We had the super in the boat and slept away soon after that.
Next morning the rain had went away and we sailed in bright sunshine to the island of Berghamn and after only anchoring there for an hour, had our lunch in the boat.
From there we sailed to the island of Stenskär, where we stayed for the next night. There were four other sailing boats there. We went first to the highest point on the island to see the fine scenery from there over the sea. And after that we went to the sauna that was available there.
We bought bread and fish from the little shop there and had a very good super.
After morning swim we sailed to the island of Helsingholmen, where we had coffee and coffee bread and had a long discussion (in Swedish) with the old man and his son, who were the only folks that were living on the island. From there we sailed to the island of Tunnholm, and it was our last overnight stop. We bought some handicrafts from an old lady, who lived there with her man, who was a fisher. And of course, we went again to the highest point of this island to see the magnificent scenery there. And then early to bed and early to rise!
On our last morning we had of course first morning swim and then breakfast, but then when we were ready to hoist the sails happened something that surprised us all. The rope or line with which we were supposed to hoist the mainsail, had escaped by accident to the top of the mast.
What to do in a situation like that? We had no other possibility but hoist Jan-Erik in a boatman chair to the top of the mast to bring the end of the line back to the deck.
After that special incident we sailed to the island of Högsåra, to the Kejsarhamnen, a harbour that the Emperor (Tzar) of Russia and his family had visited in their time. From there we walked to the other side of the island to Grandma´s Cafe and had a lunch there.
Then we sailed back to Kasnäs, left the boat there and drove back to Helsinki.
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