Il Dolce Far Niente

27 August 2011

Two days sea kayaking trip to Espoo/Kirkkonummi archipelago, Finland

August 2011

After being a month off from sea kayaking, decided to make a two day paddling trip to archipelago near Helsinki, Finland. Weather was gorgeous, above +20C with sunshine and low wind.

After last weekend's wild water kayaking experience, sitting and paddling with a sea kayak felt strange. How quickly you adopt new scheme!

Wanted to stay overnight on some remote island (and there's plenty were to choose from). What's more, wanted to see how early autumn had arrived at archipelago, if at all.

Had forgotten smell of the sea, sound of willows, sound of sea gulls. After two hours paddling, all these things came back to head.

There were glimpses of autumn you could see. Trees were still green, but willows started to be mixed by green and brown. Most visual change was lack of birds, certain species, although some other species were more visible than before. Most of birds moved around in large groups. Amazingly some bird families had very small baby birds wheres some others, e.g. sea gulls had big ones.

Paddled outmost islands as wind stayed low. Islands looked more rural, barely had any trees and nature looked raw.

There were lots of boats on move, especially sailboats , was surprised about the amount of them. However, only half of summer cottages were occupied (not boats on their docks on islands).

Stayed overnight on Skorvö island, located quite near the coast line of Kirkkonummi municipal. This was the end of August and evening temperature stayed near +20C. Sea water had the same temperature. At night, Celsius level stayed the same. That's not common in Finland!

One negative thing when living in the city is that one doesn't see stars on the sky at nights, there's too much 'pollution from background lights'. Here on the island, sky was full of stars, all visible. Magnificent!

Evening 'dinner' was simple, some bread, mini tomatoes, blue cheese and bresaola slices. Followed by apple, banana and blueberries. Ending by dark chocolate. Instead of TV, watched stars and listened nature, not a bad thing to do so sometimes.

Birds did not wake me up next morning, as they would probably have done so in July. For breakfast prepared dark French roasted presso coffee, some rye bread and scrambled eggs. Energy and taste to carry me back to yesterday's starting position.

Paddling was great fun with tail wind. Paddled altogether about 57 km in two days. It's great to see how nature in archipelago had evolved since spring and summer to these autumn days. Looking forward cold and late autumn days to do a similar trip again.

Paddled route stored by GPS (View Larger Map and the same in Bing Maps with Bird's Eye View):

Enemy

Island destroyed by Great Black Cormorants

Hundreds of Barnacle Geese

New life

Great smell

Even paddler shoes need some rest sometimes

Coast Guard, I wonder why?

Like a Big Bang by Stephen Hawkings

Sniff, sniff

Neighbors

Reachable

Evening arriving

Somewhere

Who doesn't like sunset?

My new friends

Base camp

5 mins later

Naked sailboat

Checkmate

Wasteland

A Noble Family

Great Black Cormorants tasting City Life

22 August 2011

Experiencing white water kayaking, Pernoonkoski Finland

August 2011

Spent a weekend with fellow sea kayakers at Kymijoki river, experiencing white water kayaking on Pernoonkoski rapids. Had really good time with fellows, on the rapids as well as evenings at club house.

The rapids were located some 10 km north from the city of Kotka and about 150 km east from Helsinki. The place is home for a white water kayaking club called Kohina. Our sea kayaking club owns right to use the club house and their equipment. Recently (Kohina and our) club members had built a new club house there, called Kontti. A remarkable craftsmanship and crowdsourcing work, well done! The house looks really cool, have a full equipped kitchen, a sauna of course, plus plenty of space to stay there and have fun.

The Pernoonkoski consisted of series of rapids in about 1 km distance. All rapids were class I, II and II+, Torminvirta being the boldest. Although not high class ones they had some (life) dangerous stoppers (hontto in Finnish) which you had to avoid. There were no creeks, as all waters were wide. All rapids had some standing waves offering surfing places.

We spent lots of time practicing very basics like: learning and reading the water, braces (tuennat), easy eddy hops (akanvirtaan tulo ja lähtö), simple surfing (surffaus), hugging stones (halata), quartering (lossaus) or crossing and rescuing.

I had a speedy kayak by LiquidLogic (model: Remix). That was easy to handle and it was pretty fast. Here in these waters a good helmet was a must.

What can I say about spending two full days on such waters? Don't really know, except to say that it was a great fun all the time. There was no time to think about anything else, e.g. boring topics from work etc.
All practicing was fun, too, as it was so much different that usual paddling on flat waters. Bumpy rapids were highlights of course; up and down, up and down, paddling like a maniac if the kayak decided to capsize (well, it didn't). As my technique wasn't so good for these water, spending a little bit more power from muscles helped a lot, although I felt it in body on Sunday evening. A bit shamed about not taking enough photos.

A place to go again.

You didn't see the river but you certainly heard it, just around the corner!

Friday evening

My reliable buddy, we became good friends

Hmm, not sure what I was suppose to be filming

Order ...

... Disorder

Kontti, outside and inside

Sittaränni rapids

A fellow surfing

Fun at Torminvirta rapids

Why does it look so flat and easy here?

Good to end this blog post here

07 August 2011

Sunday hike in Salmi Outdoor Recreation Area, Finland

August 2011

Did a day hike in Salmi outdoor recreation area, visiting shortly in Nuuksio National Park, in southern Finland. Hiked some 20km altogether, all the way in the deep forest.

I've mostly spent Sundays in kayak this summer. Why? Weather's been so warm and sunny that salty water has attracted me most. Haven't done any hiking at all, which was really a shame. Have to admit that after the 10 days sea kayaking trip to Archipelago National Park I haven't got motivation to paddle on nearest waters around Helsinki. Among very windy weather forecast for today I had a perfect excuse not to go on the sea but instead spend a day in a deep forest.

Decided to have a day hike in Salmi outdoor recreation area, some 30mins drive north from Helsinki. While writing this must say that it was a good decision to stay Sunday in there. Salmi is located in Vihti municipal but is owned by the city of Helsinki. It is easy to reach by bus as Helsinki city bus transports there.

Light rain continued while I drove to Salmi but ended soon after arriving. Haven't been in Salmi for a while. Was a bit disappointed to notice that all hiking routes off from there were made on sandy surface, almost like mini roads. Perhaps usage has been so heavy that erosion of natural surface was too much.

Went first to Lake Iso-Parikas. Sandy mini road ended and I started to circle the lake via its west shore. Small and narrow path circled around the lake, just a meter or so off the lake. Stones raised tens of meters high just off the path. Smell in the forest after the light rain was very nice, bringing up perfumes from different trees, moss etc.

Had forgotten of how attractive a forest could be and Salmi itself was close to wilderness type of forest. If I was asked which one I liked more, a sea (while paddling) or a forest (while hiking), I wouldn't be able to prioritize them other than this; had I been paddling my answer would be the sea and while hiking my answer would be the forest.

Continued hiking towards Kattila. Near lake Kaitlampi had a quick lunch; nuts and raisins with water and some sports drink. Kattila belongs to Nuuksio National Park. The city of Espoo buses drive here, as they did today (right into the middle of the National Park on Sundays, pretty good service!). Parking lot had lots of cars, bet they were picking up blueberries in the forest.

My route was still towards more south. Wanted to see a Giant's Kettle, that was near Kattila. Its diameter was about one foot and was about two feet deep, full of water. Probably created by the last ice age, although it looked like artificially made.

From there continued sandy road until Högbacka, from where turned to north, back towards Salmi. Return was constantly interrupted by sights of big blueberries. Sights quickly transformed into tastings. Face and fingers got some blue color, but who cared. Circled Lake Pikku-Parikas. There was yet another small path just off the lake. As Finnish name of the lake hinted, it was a small cousin of Lake Iso-Parikas. On the north shore a good smell of open fire reached my nose as people prepared there Sunday lunch there. Kids were eager to jump in to the lake on any minute.

Nature offered lots of super food. I ate quite amount of blueberries, some wild strawberries, some raspberries and even some lingonberries. There were fresh mushrooms everywhere (which I left untouched).

Happy but exhausted when arrived back at Salmi. It was a great day in the forest. Sun shined after light rain and temperature stayed above +20C. No question would a two or three day hike in there been better (as it would have) but even glad spending a Sunday there (what an anti-stress!).

Hiking route in Google Maps stored by Garmin GPS (View Larger Map):

The very same route in Bing Maps here (select Bird's eye view and start to zoom).

My Gear today
Shoes: after yesterday's 10km barefoot run decided to take a bit thicker shoes, thus Salomon's SpeedCross 2 shoes were natural choice. Socks were Falke's running socks.

Shirts: learnt some time ago that woolen baselayer was the best for me, especially when my clothes got sweated or just got wet due to e.g. rain (or while paddling). Thus only 100% Merino wool has been my choice. In summer time thinner woolen the better, coming thicker as air cools down towards winter. Have used Icebreaker's superfine 150 models some time. This time used Smartwool's Microweight Crew, a long sleeve shirt, very thin but warm and cool.

Pants: were Haglöfs' Intense model. Had some extra clothes in the backpack, all Haglöfs: Shield Jacket, Ozo Pullover and LIM Pants (two latter Gore-Tex).

Backpack: My backpack was Deuter's Race X.