Lokala.org

Today we have walked around in Hangö and done some shopping too. I bought a breathable raincoat with matching trousers. The weather has been giving hints in that direction all summer and I finally upgraded the outerwear to something more comfortable.

At the moment we are still stuck in the rain and the wind in Hangö and have quite a bit of time at our hands with nothing to do so I’m collecting a few of the pictures I took yesterday.

Here we are cruising peacefully through the islands south of Nötö, going for Vänö.

On the picture on the left you can see a couple of the markers that mark the navigable routes. On the right is one of the vessels that maintain the routes. It was carrying material for markers on deck.

The Iron meltwork in Dalsbruk was founded in 1686. A side product of the process of extracting iron from the ore is a glass-like substance called slagg in Swedish. I don’t know the English translation. The slagg was used as building material in the surrounding archipelago. The picture below is from a wall of Kulturhuset, on Vänö. It was built in 1893 using slagg.

After visiting Lefa we headed for Hangö. The company was nice and we stayed quite a bit longer than initially planned. To reach the harbour before the dark we speeded away at around eight in the evening making a steady thirteen knots. As always on this trip we drove into the clouds leaving a sunny area behind us.

Making the best of our captivity while we were held prisoners by the weather gods in Hangö (Hanko). Time to be tourists again. We saw the city from the water tower before the weather turned all rainy and gray. No-one of us had been the the tower before. An impressive view. In the horizon, vaguely visible to the naked eye, stood Bengtskär lighthouse proudly. Through the binoculars it was more visible.

After we’d been exposed to very hard winds up in the water tower, it was time to check out some shops, buy ice cream and have something to eat. I’m quite shure that the whole crew can recommend Makasiini resturant (I think that was its name, they serve food under the Skärgårssmak-logo) in the old harbour buildings. The food was great, the service good (and quite pleasing to the eye too) even though I found a fly in my brandy (!).

Out of pure coincidence we managed to catch a glimpse of the Lada with flowers.

The rain in Spain stays mainly over our heads. Surprised? Not!

We are currently stuck in Hangö. The wind in combination with the trimaran you see on the right is locking us in. The manoeuvrability of Träbåten in combination with the strong northern wind means that we would quite likely end up stuck to the trimaran.

Either the wind conditions change or the trimaran leaves before we can get out of here, let’s see. We may be in for another night here and try to get out really early tomorrow.

The weather in Hangö (Hanko) is sunny. But the sunshine has its price. The wind is blowing quite hard, as the forecast promised. And the clouds seem to have decided where they want to be: in the east. That’s the direction we’ll be heading today. There seems to be no clouds at all in the west,where we came from. On the positive side though must be said that it isn’t raining, which is nice.

After some problems finding a place to park and doing the actual parking, we have landed.

A sudden phone call, about half past five, took us some nautical miles north from our course to meet Lefa. So we sat there and chatted for a few hours and now we continue towards Hangö (Hanko).