The Real Finland

Midsummer is a time when the real Finland shines, I experienced midsummer last year on my, the 3 day weekend when the town of Pietarsaari (and most others in Finland) shuts down and everybody leaves to go to their summer houses. Last year it made for a lonely weekend because of that, but this year I was invited to join some friends at their summer house and it made for a much more enjoyable weekend.

So after finishing up at work on Friday relatively on time, I got home and packed some clothes quickly and we were off. Unlike most of the people at work who seem to have summer houses on the water just ten minutes drive from their regular house. We had five hours of driving ahead. After four and a half hours we turned off the main roads and drove for another half hour on narrowing ahh, roads (more like tracks by the time we reached the house).



The house was situated on one of Finland’s many lakes. There were no fences so I’m not sure how much of the property belonged to the one house, but there was enough land to support seven sizable structures. There was the house, outhouse, garage/shed, sauna, outside kitchen, a free standing single bedroom closer to the lake and boathouse and of course the boathouse itself. On top of this there was a Separate BBQ area, a bonfire area, and a small jetty/pontoon arrangement which was easily erected conveniently metres from the door to the sauna.




The house, as many houses in Finland was painted red on the outside but was mostly varnished pine on the inside, including the furniture, all very natural and modest. Interestingly most of the decorations inside were either local photos or souvenirs from Papua New Guinea. Although there was electricity it was only used for the lights (which didn’t need to be on very much) and a couple of luxury appliances, namely the coffee machine. The cooking was either done in the outdoor kitchen, the BBQ, the big old stove in the kitchen or the fireplace in the living room (all wood fired). There was a trapdoor in the kitchen which allowed entry to a cool room below the house which was easily working just as well as any fridge.




The weekend was filled manly with eating and drinking, relaxing in the sauna perhaps with a dip in the cool lake water. We played some cards, lazy Frisbee and threw sticks for Mano (the dog). Small breaks in the schedule were made do check out the sunset/sunrise if we were so lucky for it to be clear enough (as it rained some of the time) and we did briefly take out the boat to check the it didn’t leak (too much!).

It made for a very nice weekend, even when you include the 10 hours driving, and perhaps I understand the Finns a little better for it.

20 Euros

I worked out today that the refund you on many of the drink containers in Finland if you recycle them (at an appropriate place) works out to be about 10% of the purchase price of the drink (for cans and small bottles at least anyway). I hadn’t taken the recycling out for a while and that combined with the remnants from the weekend meant that I had a boot full of containers which came in at a bit over 20 Euros to spend, so I had to think a bit harder than just picking up the milk!

Big Boat Sailing

Yesterday afternoon I knocked up work a little early and went out on a quick test sail of Visione. I had the opportunity to go on Thursday but I got realised half an hour lat that I’d missed it as it started raining outside, Friday was a much better day for it anyway, clear skies and more wind. The boat was launched in 2003 but has just undergone a full refit so looks brand new.

Visione is a 147 foot lightweight cruising yacht with a displacement of nearly 120T, of which the lifting keel makes up almost half. The boat is styled to and aimed to perform like a racing yacht but fitted with a quite luxurious interior. After leaving the dock we motored most of the way out of the channel and then pulled the sails out. The main was raised via remote control. As all of the winches on the boat are hydraulic, the remote allows the controller to check that the sail is unfurling properly and feeding into the sail track correctly. Once the main was up the Jib was unfurled, both the main and jib sheets run to captive winches and are also controlled by push buttons. After sailing for a little while we put a reef in the main as there was more wind once we were out in the open water.

We sailed around and tacked a few times, even when taking there was still little for the guests (I guess that is the idea) to do as everything is pushbutton controlled it makes handling very easy. We sailed upwind at about 11-12konts quite easily, in about 16-18knots which meant that it was quite cold on deck, especially when we were shaded by the massive sails. After an hour or so of sailing the geneker went up and the Jib was furled and we started reaching back towards the harbour. This didn’t last long though, we gybed once and after a few minutes on the new heading there was a very loud noise, similar to some very close growling thunder. The sail started tearing from the leach to the luff at about ¼ from the top, it then tore most of the way down the luff. The sheet was pulled in to bring the remains of the sail as close to the boat as possible and then beginning at the bow we all began to pull the sail from the water.


Once it was all back on deck we lowered what was left hanging from the mast and then managed to pack it all back into its sail bag (not very neatly). The process took about 20 minutes and then we headed back in with just the main and jib. The jib was furled as we entered the channel but we sailed most of the way to the dock under the main.

The biggest difference to the boats I’m used to sailing is how slow things happen, the motion of the boat over waves, and its reaction to changes in the sail trim and steering are very graceful. I’m not sure that I could get used to sailing on a boat like that for too long, it was very nice (it would be much nicer in a warmer climate), but there wasn’t really anything to do. I could probably manage as one of the crew with something to keep me occupied. But then I probably don’t need to worry about that as I’m unlikely to get the opportunity to sail on a boat like it again any time soon.

Riga

I spent the weekend in Riga (Latvia). I left work half an hour early on Thursday and drove 4 hours down to Tampere where I had booked cheap Ryanair flights for the weekend. Cheap is exactly what they were, just like ridding a bus, only it took much longer to get on and off. I meet up with Oliver at the airport who had flown in from Norway and we made our way into town and found the hostel we had booked pretty easily. The website booking we made had not worked properly so they were not expecting us, they had been a month earlier. This proved not to be a problem as they had similar accommodation available anyway (it actually worked out cheaper I think). The weather was mostly sunny and 20-25 all weekend which was lovely.

We spent Friday investigating the old part of town, which was smaller than we had expected, full of quaint little (and not so little) old buildings, and old churches. Riga is located on the River Daugava and the central (old part) of the city is on the east side and surrounded by a narrow man made waterway that splits from the river. We enjoyed sitting out in the sun in one of the squares at a restaurant for lunch and visited the Latvian Photography Museum. The photography museum had two expositions and a history section which included examples of Latvian made spy cameras and examples showing the development of local photography. One of the exhibits showed prints made in the 70-80 and highlighted manually created effects which are mostly all done with computers. We had dinner in another square where the restaurant served us some of their home brew, which was very good.

Saturday was spent in a similar way to Friday; we walked around in circles finding little streets that we had not walked down yet. We got lunch from a supermarket and ate in the park, where we were told off by a police officer for sitting on the grass! He did have a point, the sign that said no walking on the grass was only 4 meters away. The Latvian War Museum was mostly interesting although as this sort of thing usually is a little depressing. The afternoon finished with a cruise down the river, which was only an hour long but it was nice to sit down for a while. For dinner we found a pizza place which was the best value for money we found all weekend.

On Sunday Oli had to get back to the airport after breakfast so after seeing him off at the bus stop (so I knew where to get on) I did some more wandering. I went to the observation deck in the spire at St Peter’s Church, which gives a great view of the city which is otherwise very flat. After a late lunch I saw the Latvian Museum of Occupation, which was as interesting as the War museum and about as depressing. I then had to get off to the bus stop to get my flight back to Tampere and then my long drive home, which was made easier after an hour by which time the sun was low enough for the trees to keep it out of my eyes. Then the last two hours I was driving towards red sunset. I have a feeling that the amount I was driving north was neglecting the speed of which the sun was dropping below the horizon. I got home about 1am still in plenty of light.