In response to our recent post about the Swedish Post Race (‘The Swedish Tawe Nunnugah?‘) we have received this very alluring description of ‘Small boating in a small part of the Finish Coast’ from Mark Pearse. Thanks Mark!
I am lucky enough to have spent time in Finland, & even luckier as that includes quite a bit of time on their remarkable coastline. But jumping back 20 years: soon after marrying a Finnish girl we were on a plane crossing the Baltic Sea towards the Finnish coast & the view gave some idea of just how different there the water / land relationship is. In Australia, if you stand on the east coast facing east, near where I live, in front of you is water with very little land – & behind you is land with very little water. My aerial view from the window was of the dark Baltic waters, with growing numbers of islands. Soon there was more land than water & I realised soon we must have crossed the coastline. Then the land was dotted with islands of water….like the coast but in reverse.
The facts of their beautiful land tell the story: about 80,000 islands & 180,000 lakes. Four of the lakes are over 1,000 sq km. The south western archipelago alone has 20,000 islands. The land/water interface length must be very large indeed.
My wife’s family has a summer cottage in an area rich with islands, & naturally is only accessible by boat. Many happy hours have been spent on this wonderful waterway, rowing, fishing & sailing the dinghy. It takes a couple of hours to circumnavigate one of the larger neighbouring islands, &, incredibly, I usually hit a least one unmarked rock with the centreboard. I think the way it works is that locals with motor boats learn where it’s safe, & others take the main passageways.
This photo covers an area about 2.5 x 4 km, their family summer cottage is on a small island between the two larger islands. There is no mainland in this photo, & in winter it’s possible to ski from the mainland to the cottage.
Getting ready for some Nordic boating fun:
Although not all their seacraft are quite so seaworthy….
Here’s a really lovely rower nearing completion, being finished (I think) in pine tar:
The fishing is good:
