[Paddlewise] swans and sweat, a trip report

The coming of spring has been late, but finally the ice has 
melted.   I did pass the weekend paddling along the SW 
coastal line & islands: both days in full sunshine and calm 
waters, total of 30 miles.  Water temperature was about 
35 to 38 F.  The Nordkapp moved like a hot knife into 
butter.

Someone told me that Finland was during the weekend the 
warmest place in Europe, but surely that  did not warm the 
sea water...  I was checking the weather each morning from 
the radio,  carrying among other things a GSM phone and 
equipped with a PFD, pogues, a paddle-float and a brand new 
two-piece dry-suit. The trousers of the dry-suit are not 
breathable, so I might call the inner climate of my 
dry-suit rather tropical :-) after the trips. Still, I did 
spend  quite a  long time before going out, considering the 
situation: my route could have been nearer the coast.  
Finally, because of  the lack of wind I chose to go further 
out and check the views.

I counted seven other kayakers, a great number of swans and 
geese.  Especially the young swans, born last summer, were 
looking extraordinarily funny because their feathers were 
not pure white, more like dirty brown combined with 
white ones.  And how clumsy the swans are: I am always 
admiring the way how rising from the water and starting to 
fly takes such much energy, time and hell lot of splashing 
and continuous squawking.  Really  h e a v y  birds! I was 
once unexpectedly confronted with two of them, because I 
was not able to notice their close presence behind some 
rocks.

Four of the kayakers told me that they had spent three days 
trying to paddle to an island, rented to their club since 
the early seventies, 15 miles away. Before the 1st of May 
it was almost impossible becouse there was so much floating 
and packed ice, they had to stop and stay overnight at some 
islands.  Then the wind turned and the ice left during one 
night, though there was still some occasional large chunks 
of ice floating around us.

Not very much traffic, only the semi-professional 
fishermen with their small aluminium boats trying to catch 
sea salmon, which is moving at this time of year to warmer 
and shallower waters.  The sea was quiet  and crossings 
were safe, until I found in the midst of a nice and 
comfortable Sunday afternoon between two islands two 
jet-skiers zigzagging and making awful noise.  It could be 
heard from a distance of five miles, and it took exactly 
same distance and a lot of time to paddle away to get lost 
of mymore than aggressive emotions. I hope it is possible 
to get a kayak equipped with a rocket launcher...



Cheers,

Ari Saarto

"Home of the Famous & Traditional Scandinavian Skinny-dipping [TM]"
Finland - Europe
GSM +358 - 50 - 526 5892
fax. +358 - 3 - 828 2815
e-mail: asaarto_at_lpt.fi
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