Month: July 2004

Time for unloading and going home. It is raining, of course.

Not many pictures from today but there will be updates sooner or later.

We’re now east of Porkala (Porkkala). I estimate four hours to home port.

Heading east going 12 knots.

Jakob Ramsjö. Food.

We passed Jussarö. Last time I was there was in the army.

The weather continues to be grey and boring. The strong northeast wind does not really bother us as the wind is from the land. Easy going.

We are loose and going for oil.

The musical odyssey continues. Now it is time for blues in Makasiini. Nice.

**Update**: Here is a link to some “video” footage from the event.

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 (!).