Elk and Beetroot carpaccio served with horseradish and cheese
Oven-baked salmon with whitefish, bacon, bread with lemon and herbs. Wine sauce, fennel and asparagus
Lingonberry granite
Lightly smoked lamb with herbs, potatoes fried in butter, cherry tomatoes baked in oven with garlic and balsamico
Chocolate fondant and white chocolate mousse with buckthorn & strawberry sauce.
Coffee
All served with a generous sized never ending wine glass. We got liquor made form arctic berry’s with desert and also some cognac with the coffee.
All this was served in a restaurant with the most expensive roof ever imaginable. Baltic yachts officially opened their new factory on Friday afternoon. They put on a light snack during the afternoon and gave guests a tour of the new facility. Guests were also invited to enjoy the beautiful dinner mentioned above at the yard in the
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Snow
There has not been much snow about the last few weeks. With the longer days and some finer weather the temperatures have been warm (er – like edging above zero) and the sun has been melting away all the snow and ice on the roads. So in an attempt to make the most of what snow there is before it disappears I went to Ruka last weekend and went Snowboarding for the first time.
I went up there with Barny (one of the Crew from Visione – a boat being Refitted at Baltic at the moment). We left Baltic at about 1615 and with pretty clear roads the whole way up made it to check in to our hotel at about 2230 which was pretty good time for the trip. After checking in we checked out one of the local pubs quickly and then got off to bed so we could hit the slops first thing in the morning.
After a very nice European breakfast we got the to the ski hire place just as they opened at 0900, this wasn’t difficult as it was the next building across from the hotel. We collected some gear we were out waiting for the lifts to start by 0930, just enough time for Barny to give me a quick snowboarding lesson before we had a real slope to look at. After taking the lift to the top of the main runs and strapping myself in, Barny persisted with a lesson and kept giving me pointers as I half slid and half fell down the slop a couple of time. After this I figured he probably couldn’t help much and I just needed to practice. So I stayed on the gentle slops while Barny went to explore the hill (there aren’t really any mountains in Finland).
.JPG)
We meet up about 1300 and found some lunch, I had been falling allot but was managing to stay relatively in control and I could stop well enough. Barny told me I had to go and check out this other run so I followed him round to one of the other lifts and up over the top of the hill was an Igloo with a Bar inside. We sat and had a Hot Chocolate with Minttu which was very nice, surprisingly it did not feel cold inside, as the walls obviously keep the wind out very well. I was a bit disappointed that the lens on my camera kept fogging up so I didn’t get the best shot from inside.
.JPG)
After a full day of falling/boarding I was very tired and bruised but I had great fun. We got cleaned up and warm and eventually went to find some dinner which ended u just being at the hotel, but was still very good, and almost exactly what I wanted. .JPG)
Again we were up in the morning before the lifts started and were greeted with light snow and less than 100m visibility at the top of the hill. I had much more success and enjoyed myself even more, much less falling on my second attempt. By the time we had to leave I had managed to go down over half of the runs available and most of them a few times. I got some air over some bumps without hurting myself and even weaved through some trees.
Although the drive back was quicker it felt longer due to tired and bruised mussels. I was very stiff while at work on Monday but gradually loosened up over the week.
It started to snow here last night and it still hasn’t stopped. I went for a ride this morning in about 50mm of snow which was fun although very slippery at times. The snow is easy enough to ride in, what’s under it is the problem. Randomly hitting frozen puddles or completely iced up bits of the path made for an interesting balancing act at times. When the paths were wide it was even more difficult as the extra light meant that you could not distinguish the highs and lows of the ground in front of you because it was all bright white. But it was fun and it’s nice to not have to worry about washing the mud of the bike, just let the snow melt and it’s clean!
I went up there with Barny (one of the Crew from Visione – a boat being Refitted at Baltic at the moment). We left Baltic at about 1615 and with pretty clear roads the whole way up made it to check in to our hotel at about 2230 which was pretty good time for the trip. After checking in we checked out one of the local pubs quickly and then got off to bed so we could hit the slops first thing in the morning.
After a very nice European breakfast we got the to the ski hire place just as they opened at 0900, this wasn’t difficult as it was the next building across from the hotel. We collected some gear we were out waiting for the lifts to start by 0930, just enough time for Barny to give me a quick snowboarding lesson before we had a real slope to look at. After taking the lift to the top of the main runs and strapping myself in, Barny persisted with a lesson and kept giving me pointers as I half slid and half fell down the slop a couple of time. After this I figured he probably couldn’t help much and I just needed to practice. So I stayed on the gentle slops while Barny went to explore the hill (there aren’t really any mountains in Finland).
.JPG)
We meet up about 1300 and found some lunch, I had been falling allot but was managing to stay relatively in control and I could stop well enough. Barny told me I had to go and check out this other run so I followed him round to one of the other lifts and up over the top of the hill was an Igloo with a Bar inside. We sat and had a Hot Chocolate with Minttu which was very nice, surprisingly it did not feel cold inside, as the walls obviously keep the wind out very well. I was a bit disappointed that the lens on my camera kept fogging up so I didn’t get the best shot from inside..JPG)
After a full day of falling/boarding I was very tired and bruised but I had great fun. We got cleaned up and warm and eventually went to find some dinner which ended u just being at the hotel, but was still very good, and almost exactly what I wanted..JPG)
Again we were up in the morning before the lifts started and were greeted with light snow and less than 100m visibility at the top of the hill. I had much more success and enjoyed myself even more, much less falling on my second attempt. By the time we had to leave I had managed to go down over half of the runs available and most of them a few times. I got some air over some bumps without hurting myself and even weaved through some trees. Although the drive back was quicker it felt longer due to tired and bruised mussels. I was very stiff while at work on Monday but gradually loosened up over the week.
It started to snow here last night and it still hasn’t stopped. I went for a ride this morning in about 50mm of snow which was fun although very slippery at times. The snow is easy enough to ride in, what’s under it is the problem. Randomly hitting frozen puddles or completely iced up bits of the path made for an interesting balancing act at times. When the paths were wide it was even more difficult as the extra light meant that you could not distinguish the highs and lows of the ground in front of you because it was all bright white. But it was fun and it’s nice to not have to worry about washing the mud of the bike, just let the snow melt and it’s clean!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Ice
I went for a walk yesterday out to a small café located on an island (Måsskär) about 10 or 15km’s outside of Pietarsaari. This doesn’t sound that out of the ordinary I know. The bit that makes it worth writing about was that there is no bridge out to this island, yet I still walked the out there.
I drove around to the fishing Harbour and after having a quick look at the fishing boats sitting in the snow I found the small sign pointing to the island. There is also a sign right next to it advertising a snowmobile taxi to get you there, but I wanted to walk. The path is well marked with snow poles drilled into the ice about every 50-100m so once you have the starting point it is not hard to follow. This was the first time I’d been out on the ice so I was a little nervous.
At the shoreline there is a couple of metres of slush about 50mm deep because the ice is cracked at the shore. This is of course due to the fact that unless the water freezes completely the tide will still move the layer of ice up and down (a little). So after talking myself into believing that this was the case I continued to follow the snow poles further onto the big expanse of white (I did let a group of four people go first though). It is about 2km over the ice out to the island in almost a straight line. In one place there were rocks sticking out of the Ice I passed a number of fishing/buoys. Once or twice there was a big Ice block sitting near the path which was obviously a sample cut from the shelf and showed that the ice was about half a meter thick.
I made it to the Café by 1330 and had a relatively cheap lunch followed by a ‘Pig’ and a Coffee which was recommended as a specialty by the owners. The Pig was basically a Jam donut but shaped kind of differently. I learned that the building was originally constructed in the 50’s as a pilot house and the space used for the café was originally used by the coast guard. The Café was decorated with some old marine navigational equipment, including some replica Viking instruments which were very clever. On one wall there were a number of charts of the surrounding waters, and another wall housed a bit of a shrine to the building, filled with newspaper articles about it’s construction and life. Some interesting photos showed a small truck being pulled from a hole in the ice in apparently 10m deep water. The truck hit a soft patch and fell through loaded with sand while the were building the pilot house. They managed to construct a big frame on the ice and winch the truck back out within a day or two.
I had a quick look around on the island before I then walked back to the Car. I turned on the GPS a bit after I was back on the ice, the red line in the image is pretty much all on the ice.
The yellow line is a ride I did on the mountain bike last week, about 50% of which was on snow mobile tracks or single track (which is very tricking in thick snow). That was allot of fun. The blue line is a ride I did today, we were only riding on the roads today though as the snow on the tracks would have been too soft to get anywhere. It didn’t rain at all but we got very wet, we went a little further than last week and ended up doing over 60km. I expect to be a bit sore tomorrow.
I drove around to the fishing Harbour and after having a quick look at the fishing boats sitting in the snow I found the small sign pointing to the island. There is also a sign right next to it advertising a snowmobile taxi to get you there, but I wanted to walk. The path is well marked with snow poles drilled into the ice about every 50-100m so once you have the starting point it is not hard to follow. This was the first time I’d been out on the ice so I was a little nervous.
At the shoreline there is a couple of metres of slush about 50mm deep because the ice is cracked at the shore. This is of course due to the fact that unless the water freezes completely the tide will still move the layer of ice up and down (a little). So after talking myself into believing that this was the case I continued to follow the snow poles further onto the big expanse of white (I did let a group of four people go first though). It is about 2km over the ice out to the island in almost a straight line. In one place there were rocks sticking out of the Ice I passed a number of fishing/buoys. Once or twice there was a big Ice block sitting near the path which was obviously a sample cut from the shelf and showed that the ice was about half a meter thick.
I made it to the Café by 1330 and had a relatively cheap lunch followed by a ‘Pig’ and a Coffee which was recommended as a specialty by the owners. The Pig was basically a Jam donut but shaped kind of differently. I learned that the building was originally constructed in the 50’s as a pilot house and the space used for the café was originally used by the coast guard. The Café was decorated with some old marine navigational equipment, including some replica Viking instruments which were very clever. On one wall there were a number of charts of the surrounding waters, and another wall housed a bit of a shrine to the building, filled with newspaper articles about it’s construction and life. Some interesting photos showed a small truck being pulled from a hole in the ice in apparently 10m deep water. The truck hit a soft patch and fell through loaded with sand while the were building the pilot house. They managed to construct a big frame on the ice and winch the truck back out within a day or two.
I had a quick look around on the island before I then walked back to the Car. I turned on the GPS a bit after I was back on the ice, the red line in the image is pretty much all on the ice.
The yellow line is a ride I did on the mountain bike last week, about 50% of which was on snow mobile tracks or single track (which is very tricking in thick snow). That was allot of fun. The blue line is a ride I did today, we were only riding on the roads today though as the snow on the tracks would have been too soft to get anywhere. It didn’t rain at all but we got very wet, we went a little further than last week and ended up doing over 60km. I expect to be a bit sore tomorrow.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
A Bit Slack Lately
Although I seem to spend too much time in front of my computer, I’ve been slack about uploading photos recently. I’m still getting used to using my new camera so many of the shots I’m taking are not very good. But there are an awful lot of them to sort through. I may be a bit trigger happy occasionally. But I’ve just gone through a bunch and picked out some good ones from while I was back home and some more recent ones from over here. They are in no particular order and most of them are from the old camera. But they are uploaded here.
This one is from the new camera while I was playing with it one night. It cracks me up. Enjoy.
Spring
Well, officially winter is now over, and if you’re wondering it does seem very odd for me to be saying that in the beginning of March. Last week was quite cold but this week has been progressively getting warmer. Today the local high temperature was 2 degrees and the overnight low was only minus 1. The change is quite noticeable, by the time I was on my way home from work today just about all of the roads had thawed out and I went for a run and found that many of the paths had slush on them instead of snow.
The last couple of days I’ve also noticed that the snow seems moving off many of the roofs in town. One of two things is happening which both look really cool. With the warming weather the snow is melting in one way or another and either the whole sheet of snow covering the roof is sliding gradually down and curling over the edge forming 200mm thick white curtains hanging on the buildings. Or the snow is melting to water against the roof and then the run off is re-freezing as it leaves the roof forming quite impressive lines of stalactites hanging from the edge of the roof.
I am hoping that it gets cold again (yes it is a strange thing for me to be saying). Last week I was lent a pair of cross county skis and so far I’ve only used them for half an hour. I didn’t really have time to get the hang of them and the shoes I was provided are too small and don’t match the skis which did not help. I found a cheap pair of shoes in the supermarket yesterday which should match the skis but if all the snow is going to thaw out it may not be worth buying them. The forecast for next week is colder than today but only barely with forecast highs of 0.
The last couple of days I’ve also noticed that the snow seems moving off many of the roofs in town. One of two things is happening which both look really cool. With the warming weather the snow is melting in one way or another and either the whole sheet of snow covering the roof is sliding gradually down and curling over the edge forming 200mm thick white curtains hanging on the buildings. Or the snow is melting to water against the roof and then the run off is re-freezing as it leaves the roof forming quite impressive lines of stalactites hanging from the edge of the roof.
I am hoping that it gets cold again (yes it is a strange thing for me to be saying). Last week I was lent a pair of cross county skis and so far I’ve only used them for half an hour. I didn’t really have time to get the hang of them and the shoes I was provided are too small and don’t match the skis which did not help. I found a cheap pair of shoes in the supermarket yesterday which should match the skis but if all the snow is going to thaw out it may not be worth buying them. The forecast for next week is colder than today but only barely with forecast highs of 0.
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