[Paddlewise] About the Baltic Sea crossing (TR)

Dear PaddleWisenheimers,

because maybe all of you have not been able to visit
the PW web-site I decided with Jackie to publish my
travel report also here - the pics can be seen at

http://www.paddlewise.net/photoalbum/photoalbum.html

Your´s

Ari
(Finland, with full November storms around here...)

----------------

Wet business at the Baltic Sea: CROSSING TO NAISSAARE
ESTONIA 2001

It was a wet trip from the very beginning. The waves
were sharp and splashing over the decks when we were
leaving the coast after the passport control. We
paddled slowly against the wind, water was slowly
oozing to my seat, and my woollen underwear was slowly
getting moistened.

I gave some warm thoughts towards my partner Rita who
had patiently taken so many cold splashes of seawater
against her face sitting at the front seat of our
double during our expeditions. The news that that I
would be having the same seat during a 30 km crossing
to Naissaare and taking pictures had made her make some
sarcastic remarks  (between uncontrollable busters of
laughter) how I would be now tasting my own medicine.

The old flat freezer bottle, which had so faithfully
served me during many trips, was washed from the deck
during the first mile, and I did not even notice it. I
had not tied it to the deck bungies and I had to regret
my foolish decision. After a few minutes two small
plastic cider bottles filled with water were floating
by - someone else had suffered a similar loss. With my
paddling chump Markku we saved the other to the front
deck.

No one seemed to be missing the bottles, though.
Everyone was paddling patiently against the wind in the
middle of elbow-high sharp waves and hot sunshine. It
was the end of June and getting hotter and hotter after
our start at 9 a.m.

I decided to save the cider bottles for later need,
because I had made myself a new "energy drink" from
seawater, juice and the water I had in my extra bottle.
It tasted awful. Markku borrowed me a string to keep
the bottle on deck.

We were all able to anticipate that the crossing was
going to be a little bit rough, with sun and estimated
gusts up to 11 m/sec: the forecast had promised us max
11m/sec (max. 22 knots if I can estimate correctly)
headwinds... Besides the obvious smell of neoprene, the
air seemed to be full of testosterone ­ we had only one
female kayaker in our group. The fleet consisted of 22
singles and two double kayaks, plus a smallish 25-ft
boat following us. Some of us had arrived to Porkkala
peninsula late last night after a 40 km trip from the
capital and we were now facing a 30 km crossing of open
water and after a break at Naissaare a 25 km trip to
Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. We were going to cross
two busy boat routes heading to Helsinki and St.
Petersburg at the east. Two groups of Estonian and
Lithuanian competition paddlers were fighting over a
prize of 1000 Euros somewhere south of us ­ they had
left the passport control in a rush when we were
putting our small flotilla together.

We made our last landing to a small islet to relieve
ourselves. The leader of this crossing Yrjo asked if
someone was willing to turn back. No reaction ­
everyone was willing to go.

When we were proceeding more towards the south, open
sea and Naissaare Island the waves developed slowly
something, which was estimated as 1,5-2 m (5ft, maximum
of 7 ft) swells. Some of the tops were breaking
slightly, but the wind was not anymore increasing it´s
speed.  It was getting hot; most of us were enjoying
the sweaty safety of neoprene long johns and paddling
jackets. An old lighthouse in the horizon to my right
seemed to stay forever in the same place as if teasing
me about our slow proceeding.

After the first hour, two of the kayakers had capsized
in the waves. We had corrected our course and the waves
were now hitting the sides from SW. The rescuing
operation succeeded well and in good order: the kayaks
were put side by side, and the capsized paddler got
into his kayak feet first, climbing from the empty
space between the kayaks. In spite of the waves, the
emptying of a kayak with a hand pump seemed to go all
right. After a while, when we were paddling towards the
main group from the rescuing scene, we saw a white
bottom of a boat at our left. An older paddler, whose
foot braces were broken, had stayed close the safety
boat with the kayaker who was in charge of taking care
of the tail of the group. He probably capsized when he
was trying to get into the boat, or the small jolly
boat behind it. Because everything seemed to be under
control we paddled forwards and passed information
about the events to Yrjo. I noticed that my camera lens
was wet and tried to dry it with a small cloth. This
was definitely not the situation where I would like to
try to take out my other camera body, which was lying
in a waterproof bag under the spray-cover.  I had
forgotten my wet woollen underwear a long time ago.

I was getting worried together with Markku. The group
was spread in the waves to a large area and seemed that
the communication with the whistles was not possible
anymore. What if there would happen several similar
capsizes at the same time?

Later, weighing the situation, it has been considered
that the dividing of the group into smaller cells
happened at that time, during the first rescue
operation. The navigator in the head of our flotilla
was experienced but young kayaker, and he was not able
to follow how the situation was developing behind him.
The main group was also fighting the swells and anxious
to proceed further, because the wind was pushing us
back towards the coast and the Porkkala peninsula. The
group started getting divided, first into two, then
into smaller groups. Because of the time spent to the
two first rescue operations the tail of the group was
not able to inform the main group that it should wait
and we all should get closer to each other.

The waves were hitting the kayak side now in direct
angle of 90 degrees from the SSW. Later, during the
afternoon the waves turned to hit the right back
quarter, which seemed to be very uncomfortable to some
kayakers. Aware of this, we started cruising in the
middle of the main group and in the right, where some
of the kayakers were keeping their bows slightly
towards the wind in a much more comfortable angle. This
felt surely safer to some, but it was also leading some
of the paddlers out of range of whistles or possible
hand signs. They were in danger and we had to paddle up
there several times to remind them.

We, Markku and I, rescued the kayaker who had capsized
first three times during that afternoon. He seemed to
have a lot of trouble with the stability in his plastic
single, which was noticeable too light. First we used
the method described above, with the hand pump, but the
pumping seemed to take a lot of time and precious
energy even if there was two people taking turns at
pumping. The next two rescues were modified x-rescues,
where the bow of the light but water-filled kayak was
only slightly taken onto the deck of our supporting
double, just to let the water out from the cockpit. We
finished the rescue with the hand-pump, after the
capsized kayaker had climbed back to his single from
the space left between the kayaks. I was keeping the
bows towards the waves and supporting with the
stability, and Markku was giving directions behind my
back and helping this mate to finish with his pumping.
We paid some attention towards giving him time to rest
and refuel. A kayaker with stability troubles has most
probably very little time and possibilities to enjoy
energy bars and even fresh water during a long
crossing.

Later we found a kayaker who had lost all his water
bottles and had paddled more than an hour without any
refuelling. We gave him the above mentioned water
bottle, which we had found. After more than five or six
hours, after we had crossed the busy boat routes with
several merchant vessels and a small tanker passing by,
we got finally a sight of the Naissaare lighthouse in
the horizon. When we were getting closer the coast the
swells finally seemed to calm down a little. The group
had divided into small cells, but the crossing of the
routes had gone well. Still, two paddlers were heading
slightly to the right, but we did now only keep an eye
for them. We had had enough of all this nursing and
they were within our reach.

Finally, after 9 hrs of paddling in stead of normal 6
to 7 hrs, we landed the beach where the water was
almost calm. One by one, back and thighs aching, face
slightly burnt and bladder ready to burst, we tried to
walk. Some of the paddlers fell down at the waterline.
They had no feeling in their legs. It felt nice,
though. Everything had gone all right in spite of
disorganisation and I had hot chocolate mixed with
strong coffee in my thermos waiting for me. I was not
totally satisfied, though. When I was walking inland to
relieve myself, I did find out that there was a certain
angry species of yellow ants, which had settled in the
woods, and ­ouch- they were really angry and willing to
biteŠ

A helicopter was flying slowly over the beach and three
frontier guard officers were waiting for us to check
the passports. Only the day after, when we paddled to
the capital, Tallinn in a calm and hot weather, we
found out at the harbour that two of the competition
kayakers had capsized. The other one was still in
hypothermic condition. What the frontier guards had
also not told us, was that from the both sides of the
Finnish Gulf the officials had launched a massive
search operation because of us. Somewhere, somehow,
after receiving the message that there was two paddlers
in water, one in front of the Tallinn lighthouse and
the other in front of the Naissaare island, they had
mistaken us all as a one group. The competition
paddlers were ill equipped, some of them wearing only
t-shirts or sport jackets under their pfd´s.

When we were heading back to Helsinki by ferry next
night we were already in the news.
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