cruising the finnish archipelago 1

after a few days of being in helsinki, aleksi asked if i wanted to accompany him to bring his boat, cendrillon (cinderella), from where it was moored near his mother's place in the countryside at västanfjärd. of course, i agreed straight away. he had already told me the story of how he had brought the boat in sweden from a ex-copper, and then sailed it from stockholm to finland... they had been four of them in the boat, alexi, georg, mikke and anna, and about half-way to marienhamn in åland, the boat started taking in a lot of water. they had to bail the water out with buckets and the bilge hand-pump, whilst aleksi had tried to plug the leak at the bow end. in the end, they had made a mayday call to the coast-guard who came with a helicopter and boat... they got towed into marienhamn where cendrillon got lifted out and a quick fix patch made to the underside at the bow end. after some months, aleksi and daniel had taken cendrillon from there to västenfjärd with the outboard motor, and this time, no flooding of the cabin!
so with this history, i should have been a bit apprehensive, but i was up for it. the weather forecast was good with favourable light winds, we just needed a car to get us out to västenfjäard... don't worry, something will turn up, said aleksi... and just like that, alex drove home that night in his newly bought second-hand car! alexi managed to convince him that it would be good to spend some time out in the countryside! we picked up the lasagnas from one of our favourite eating places, pizzeria mare chiaro, and also picked up georg, and i got the chance to drive; first, to tammasari to load up on food for the trip, and then onto västanfjärd.

aleksi's mum was fretting about the trip, obviously worried that the boat was not the most sea-worthy craft that ever took to the seas. cendrillon is a wooden skerry-cruiser. skerries are the the uninhabited rocks, islets and isles that make up the finnish archipelago. she was built over a hundred years ago, with wooden planks and a wooden mast... but has lasted the distance well. of course, she needs a lot of work to make her look her best again, and that's why aleksi wanted to take her to helsinki for the convenience of being close at hand.
we charged the batteries, filled up the petrol canister, and transported everything we needed to the boat. then back to the house to sleep. at first light, we had breakfast and aleksi's mum drove us to the boat.

the mist was rising up from the surface of the inlet, but it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. we got on board, i pumped out the bilge, we checked that the automatic bilge pump was working (this had failed on the trip from stockholm!) and the skipper took her out into the inlet with the outboard. as soon as we had cleared the inlet and had a little more open water between the skerries, we set the sail. the stove wasn't working too well, and georg tried his best with some petrol to preheat the stove fuel, but no luck. it meant we had to stop off at hanko to buy some marine oil, where in the process of docking, i got hit the mouth with the rope that aleksi threw to me. he forgot to tell me that was a large metal locking hook at the end of it!

from hanko, we took the line through the skerries and around hästö busö, and then onto the island of jussarö, which was to be our intended port of call for the night. the skipper let me take the tiller for most of the day, the winds were light, and we had to use the engine for some time, until a piece from it broke off.

aleksi asked me to tell georg the story of my last sailing adventure, those 5 days at sea between gibraltar and olhao, when one of crew went a little stir-crazy! so whilst georg cooked us a nice pasta lunch, i recounted my tale of woe, when instead of sunning on a beach in the canary islands, i ended up being witness to a a guy just losing it on a boat in the middle of the sea, and it was just a miracle that no-one fell overboard for at that speed and at that hour, for sure they would have been lost forever. i'll still save writing this story for another time.

we had to sail cendrillon into the bay at jussarö, and docking with sail power is not easy, that's for sure. aleksi missed the buoy on our first pass, and as we got cendrillon over to the pier, i jumped out whilst the guys took her out again to make another pass, georg later told me that he got the skipper to take the outermost buoy this time. with the stern end secure, georg jumps out onto the pier and with him, i help to brake cendrillon before she hits the pier. with the boat secure, we take a look around the island. georg tells me the history of the place... it had been home to many miners and their families, mining the iron-ore there. and then the army took it over, and used it for urban-warfare training. now there was just a coast guard station, and a boat-building yard there. we walked over to the beach on the east side, scrambling over the beautiful boulders there. by the full-moon light, it looked just amazing. we could see the cruise ships in the distance sail by. aleksi made contact with the kiosk owner on the mainland, and she agreed to come over the next morning with some superglue to fix our engine part. with georg, i made a big dinner of mash potatoes and fried veggies, and took to our berths. it had been a nice day's sailing.