I had quite the adventure this summer, taking three weeks to sail
along the coast of Finland up past Russia, through Russian waters,
through the Saimaa Canal and into and around the Saimaa lake region
of southeast Finland, and then back home.
I sailed to the Saimaa by myself, then my wife and kids joined me
for a week of sailing around the Saimaa, and then I returned by
myself.
Overall the weather was great almost every day of the trip (I hit the 3
best weeks of the Finnish summer just by chance). The trip was not,
however, without its challenges ;-)
On the second day of the trip, sailing along the southeast coast
of Finland, one of my rudders snapped (fortunately, my X has the
two). I limped to Kotka on the one remaining rudder, and was able to
cut down, reshape, and re-attach the broken rudder well enough to
continue on to Lappeenranta. More about my rudder escapade here:
http://macgregorsailors.com/forum/viewt ... lor+rescue
So then, after a makeshift rudder repair, just as I was about to leave
Kotka, a powerboat coming into a slip just opposite mine swung a bit
too wide and his stern hit my outboard, stripping out the steering
linkage cable. Fortunately it was a weekday (Friday) and the Mercury
service shop was open. So after about 5 hours of repairs, paid for by
the powerboat owner, I finally leave Kotka and I'm on my way again.
Yikes! Argh! When I get to the border to clear out of Finland, I
realized that I am a first class idiot and had forgotten my passport
at home! I always keep it in my laptop bag, and I had my laptop, so
of course I must have my passport with me as always. But I had
forgotten that I had taken it out of my bag to make a photocopy
and instead had put it away with the other passports rather than in
my bag since I don't travel so much anymore... idiot...) So the border
guard gives me a ride to the mainland and I head back home to
fetch my passport (boat, car, bus, train, bus, train, bus, taxi, boat)
getting back to my boat in only 20 hours, round trip (not bad).
The rest of the trip was thankfully "boring" (at least in comparison).
The Saimaa was gorgeous (well, all of Finland is) and we had a great
time, albeit a bit cramped with the whole family aboard. The trip back
home along the coast was far less eventful than the trip out,
fortunately.
And yet... just a kilometer or so from my home marina, I see a ski boat
fly past me just as I'm making a turn to follow the channel around an
area full of rocks and the ski boat continues at full speed right into
the area where the rocks are. I figure he must be an old time local
who knows where the rocks are, but only seconds after that thought,
BAM the ski boat hits a rock so hard it bounces completely out of the
water, ripping its outdrive off (I saw it fall into the water :-) So
being the only boat nearby, and only needing 30cm of water with my
foils up, I gingerly make my way slowly through the rocks and tow them
out and back to the marina. Amazingly, they didn't hole the boat nor
was there major leaking around the outdrive port. Oh well, I guess you
can't fix stupid... (though given my recent passport goof I guess I
shouldn't be too critical, eh? ;-)
It was quite the trip.
Anyway, here are some photos online:
http://share.ovi.com/album/patrick.stic ... ailingTrip
Cheers,
Patrick
