April 2011
Finally opened a kayaking season after a hard and long winter. The weather had been really warm during Easter weekend, melting the rest of the ice even from the remotest bays and peninsulas in the Gulf of Finland.
Today, Easter Monday, was sunny, +16C on the coast (+20C 10 miles north from the coast), mild south-west wind 4m/s.
Went to paddle with a colleague from our sea kayak club. Did an easy 16km paddle in three hours, stopping once for a short break on Mäntysaari island.
Went first to Laajalahti bay, just looking for some ice to play with. We did find some and played like school boys cracking it by paddling through it. Bet the ice would melt during the day, so thin it was. As school boys, so did we get bored of it and started to paddle off from the bay.
After Laajalahti headed to Keilalahti peninsula and then under the bridge towards outer sea. Wind became stronger as usual, bringing waves up to 30cm (1 ft). However, it was nice and calm.
It's always difficult to wear right amount of clothes with you. Under drysuit there's some warm, but how much is a problem. Sun and paddling itself keeps you warm and sweating while wind keeps you cool, sometimes even too much if you've sweated a lot. However, drysuit season usually is not so long, so just keep going until water temperature raises in comfortable level.
Lots of different type of birds were floating and flying on the sea. Did spot only one small boat but plenty of kayaking people paddling here and there. Spring time indeed.
Here's paddled route (
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