I left at 5am Ulvön to cross over to Finland. It was grey, raining hardly any wind and the swell from the last few days made progress slow, as I had to start my journey with the help of “good old faithful”. But after an hour some wind emerged and gradually the rain stopped.
I have been a really lucky boy wind-wise on this journey. The wind seems to carry me to wherever I want to go. And so it was on the long leg to Kaskinen. As arranged, it came straight from the stern and the journey was an easy, albeit long one. I decided pretty early on to take down the main down as this seemed faster than gybing downwind all the way. I never reached 6 knots, but I had no problems at all. Well, that is not quite true. As I entered the channel leading to the harbour, I was VERY surprised that 4 cardinal boys were missing. My new charts and the plotter confirmed their existence, but reality disagreed! This was very disconcerting, as I placed my waymark exactly between them. And then, just as I passed them on the plotter, the wind decided to greet me and rose up to 20 knots, in some gusts pushing 30! This was some excitement after a long day, but since it was getting dark, I wimped out and took the sails down. At least the speedo got to show the 7 kts for a brief time.
I was greeted by Peter with croissants, bacon pasties, hot water and beer at 1:30 am, for which I was so very glad!
