31.07.2005   I have returned, victorious! Or at least alive. Now, some of you might ask, and rightly so, "Where have you returned from, you retard?". And I admit, I have failed to properly address the matter of my departure on the blog. I might have mentioned going to Öland from time to time, though, and that's that. Sailing to Öland, even. And I did. Sort of...   Anyway, now, what with the time that has passed since my last update, writing seems to have become an almost impossible task. The only reason, except for guilt and a certain sense of obligation, that I am doing this is because I have just come back from a nice little impromptu party, almost, in a sense, a reunion. You know, the kind tinted by guilt for not having seen the people you used to be friends with for a long, long time. Too long. Raking your brains for reasons that might have stopped you from seeing them more often, and finding no plausible ones. And now I find myself in a contemplative sort of a mood, no doubt helped along nicely by a few whiskey colas.   So yeah, I sailed off into the blue yonder, like I always dreamed of doing in my younger years. Was it everything I imagined it to be? No, the simple answer would have to be. Was it worth it? Yes, yes I think it was. I shall now recount the trip in a moderately detailed way, so if you happened to be one of the readers that abhors my sailing stories, you better avert your eyes...   I sailed off on the 1st of July, my crew composed of a guy called Joose. It was a fairly dismal morning, gray, and a tad rainy. But fuck, what can you do. We rendezvoused with our companion, S/Y Turska, skippered by Mr. Z, known and loved for the comments he sometimes writes on my posts. On we went, mostly under drizzling rain, past the Helsinki and Espoo archipelago, until I got a call from my girlfriend telling me that I appeared to have taken both of our home-keys... Which was nice. A 4-hour detour, plus having to call my mum to come pick the keys up and pass em' on... What a glorious start to the trip.   And it got worse. I was soaked, and we still had hours to go that day... Needless to say, we were dead tired when we finally reached the natural harbor we spent the night in. The situation was made worse by the fact that my mental health was playing up, me having foolishly given up my medication some months before the trip... And the sudden stress of a totally new, utterly unfamiliar situation, coupled with impossibility of finding an easy way out of it, made me one sick boy for the next two weeks or so.   We got to Hanko the next day. Weary, once again. I was struggling to maintain a grip on my sanity and enjoy the trip at the same time. I failed. All I did in Hanko was sleep. Next day we were at Z's secret island base, and got to enjoy some R&R, plus my first wash. Very nice... And after a while we pressed on again... In a few days time we found ourselves in Rödhamn, our last stop in Finland. There I got fabulously drunk, which made me feel like hell the next day, and didn't help my mental balance at all, I might add. It took me about a week to recover. We motored over to Sweden the next day. The sea looked oily, with nary a breeze to ruffle its surface. And that day was no exception. Already at this early stage I must point out that we were plagued by a lack of wind. Fuel consumption began to be a problem, as well as a very large slice of my overall budget...   Ah, yes. We arrived at Sverige relatively early, our first stop being a gas station. Where I proceeded to pump about 60Eur worth of gas into my tanks. I was dispirited and grasped by a strange sense of unreality, feeling somewhat removed from my surroundings and unable to enjoy and appreciate that momentous occasion...   The rest of Sweden went by quick. I must say I was disappointed with the Stockholm archipelago, after reading so much about it, watching the glorious glossy images and hearing all the praise heaped on it. Partly, I guess, the fault lay in the poor quality of Swedish charts. Lacking in depth markings around many of the islands, not to mention marked fair water channels, the charts were useless for exploring the more picturesque islands of the archipelago. Oh yes, it was around that time, near the Dalarö castle, that it was decided that we would forgo sailing all the way to Öland, and go to Gotland instead. I must say that I was the main reason, perhaps the only one, that decision was made, or even considered. But it turned out to be, in my opinion, a good one. This way we shortened the journey time by a few days, bringing it down, in the end, to 26 days. In my case. But I digress.   We soon found ourselves in Nynäshamn, after sailing through endless rafts of blue-green algae, our point of rendezvous with our friends that were to bike with us around Gotland for about 5 days. A nice guest harbor, nuff said. It truly felt wonderful to see some new faces. That night was a happy one, and the next morning we motored on to Gotland. The way there was long and uneventful. The weather was awesome, meaning really hot and almost unbearably sunny. Very little wind, but we did manage to do some motor-assisted sailing, cutting down our fuel consumption for the whole 15 hour trip to around a mere 15 liters! It was late, and already dark, when we arrived in Lickershamn, a cubbyhole of a harbor on the north-west shore of Gotland. Boy was I glad to step ashore.   After spending a quiet night in Lickershamn we moved on to the jewel of the Baltic, Visby. A great town. I was really glad to be back there... 5 long years after my first visit. We bumbled about for a day or so, drank a few pints, then rented crappy (well, they weren't that bad really) 7-Speed girly bikes with baskets, for about 60 Eur a week, and rode off, planning to circle the southern part of Gotland within the next 5 days.   And it was a relieving thing, to be away from the boat, to change the pace and way of life for almost a week. It was a mite more uncomfortable, mind. No more luxurious sleeping quarters, no mattress (and I forgot my sleeping pallet at home, had to sleep on bare earth). But the scenery was more varied, the comraderie more pronounced and the time flew by quicker. I had a good time, all in all. I am by no means a great fan of biking. The most I can say for myself is that I enjoy getting off the bike much more than getting on it. And I did skip one leg of the journey, about 60Km, while my buds explored the southernmost bit of Gotland as I was waiting for them in a restaurant near Burgsvik. That was nice, good, if expensive, food and beer.. But got a bit boring after 8 hours passed.   As we got back to Visby, the weather took a turn for the worst. We sailed back over to Lickershamn, but could go no further, as the weather reports threatened us with a thunder-front stretching smack-dab in between Gotland and the Swedish mainland. So we stayed in Gotland for 2 more days... And instead of meeting our replacement crew in Nynäshamn we received them in Visby. One of them happened to be an old classmate now studying in Cambridge. Haven't seen the bugger in years...   We made it back to Åland in 3 days, very fast, what with the size of our boats. Made a few speed records along the way, in wind speeds of up to 12 meters per second, with only a jib to power us along. Blowfish pulled an impressive 8,9 knots surfing off a wave, while Turska went further and stopped just a tad under ten knots, at 9,6. Needless to say, it was a very quick passage. As we were a few hours away from Rödhamn, we were caught in a torrential downpour. That in itself, after 12 hours of steering standing up, was not nice. I didn't even have rain pants. But then came the thunderstorm. That was plain scary. We changed course, and went north to Marienhamn in order to escape from the storm.   After that it was all plain sailing. Granted, the weather was not nearly as good as we had going to Gotland, but at least it wasn't raining. All the time, that is. On the 26th I was moored securely on Z's island, with every intention of leaving the boat there instead of spending extra 3 days sailing it all the way back to Helsinki. 26 days away from home was quite enough...   Phew. See, I tried to make it obscenely brief. And it still took me 2 bloody days to write this up. Not counting the first two or three days I spent drinking, being an asshole, fighting with my girlfriend and having a murderous hangover. All in that order. It still feels weird, being at home. Work is not helping at all. But enough for now. I think, after over a month of dormancy, it is time to upload this update...   And no links today, either!

S/Y Turska and S/Y Blowfish at anchor. I can't believe all that blue... Stone pillars at Gotland. Going home!

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