20 August

This day was spent just hanging around in the guest harbour really. The wind were still Southerly but were supposed to veer Easterly at night. Since Dave expressed some interest in sailing overnight we came up with the plan to leave at 10 pm. Hence we spent the day doing some laundry, filling the boat's tank with water, spending forever on the internet in the library and then in the evening we went to the pub for a couple of bears(Karhu, a local beer has a brown bear as logo) and a game of pool. Sadly I have to admit, that Dave beat me at pool, after going for the mean tactic of getting me drunk first.

At 10 pm we left harbour as scheduled, motoring for the first few hours in a dead calm sea. At midnight Dave took the first 3-hour watch while I slept off the beer.

21 August

When Dave woke me up for my watch at 3am, the wind was finally coming as predicted, and I hoisted the sails. At 5am I sat in the cockpit watching a spectacular sunrise, before I installed Dave at his next watch at 6 am. When he woke me the next time,at 9, he was just wild with the sun and the sight of an endless sea horizon, it did look beautiful though. So much for trying to get him to all the nice islands and different sights of this archipelago. The wind was light during the morning hours, then increasing in the afternoon providing us with a superb sailing experience. Throughout the day we could hear fighter jets and firing from military vessels, we thought that they were performing manouvers, however we also learned that a Russian jet plane entered Finnish airspace during the day. Later in the evening when we were heading into Katokari Maa-Ihamo we saw two war ships, maybe they were exercising, or fighting Russians? 'Maybe we will both get killed?! We made it to dock just before the light completely faded. A german guy, living further north in Raumo, invited us to a campfire for a chat and a beer. He gave us a sausage each!


22 August

In the morning Dave got talking with an english couple (from Southampton) in the next boat and Gerhard, the german guy, expressed his interest in crewing for me some other time. The English couple informed Dave that what we call 'pricks'(swedish) are in English called buoys or cardinal markers (this ruined all my efforts - Dave had been 'prick spotting' until now since he didn't have a clue what the english word was and neither did I). We left this fishing port where industrial noise reined. A fresh Northerly breeze allowed us to enjoy a fine broad reach at first and then a run dead downwind towards Nystad. We couldn�t find a good reason to get into Nystad harbour one day earlier than necessary, so we anchored at a gorgious place @ N 60�48.971' - E 021�12.999'. Kuusisto. A completely sheltered bay 8 miles West of Nystad. During the remains of the day we cleaned the entire boat. Another fabulous sunset was celebrated with a late cup of tea.

23 August

An early morning swim! At last! It' s weeks since the weather was decent enough to support this, one of my favorite habits while at sea. The water was a nice temperature too, since the bay is not very deep. As this was to be a fantastic late summer day (maybe even one of the very last?), and it was completely calm, we opted for a few lazy hours on shore. Sunbathing on a cliff that was warmed by the sun. At 2pm the seabreeze came quite suddenly, we sat sails fast enough and got another fabulous sailing trip, Dave's last during his stay onboard. A couple of hours later we tied up to a mooring at Nystad (Uusikaupunki). Dave booked the ferry for tomorrow's trip to Stockholm, after a check-up on the bus schedule from Nystad to ?.bo (Turku) where the ferries depart from.

Since a proper celabration was called for, this last day of Dave's participation in my cruise, we dressed up as properly as we could and 'set sail' to the town-centre in search of life (girls) and the now infamous Finnish 'teddybeers'. The number of bars/pubs were indeed limited in this town (15000 inhabitants, and according to the large number of yachts in the harbour,they all seem to own their own?!) but nevertheless we found one to have a couple of bears and a game of pool again. This time a could proudly beat Mr Gore, possibly he got a bit drunk this time...

Then we went to the smartest bar in town. It lived in a rebuilt old wearhouse at the harbour. Much to my content they had the Belgian bear, Leffe, a strong dark brew. A while later, a bunch of Finnish guys, on a company congress or simailar, entered the establishment and started buying us a number of GTs and vodka/redbull. Obviously we all ended up quite hammered, but as far as any of us can recall, we all had a good time.

Thank you guys!