Sailing in Finland - an unusual summer

It is fair to say this has been an unusually water filled summer, even by the standards of a keen swimmer. Rest assured the physics posts will return imminently (particularly looking forward to reviewing my favourite topics from my recently completed astrophysics masters at Cambridge and a newly discovered moon, more on that later), but in the meantime, here is a little overview of a recent adventure this curious scientist took to Finland.

It began with the Cambridge University Yacht Club annual sailing camp, which included a week for beginners cruising around the Turku Archipelago, in southwest Finland. The destination in particular struck me as strange given the season, as this stunning country is usually associated with reindeer, snow filled forests and cosy winter cabins. It turns out Finland's beauty is not just seasonal, it is a wonderful place to visit in summer too (admittedly without the skiing), and I was constantly amazed by the expanse of untouched natural landscape. We visited several islands over the week, some of which were uninhabited, and even the ones which did have camping-like facilities had only a few dozen people around.

The sea was surprisingly warm and flat, sheltered by thousands of islands, and not anywhere near as salty as the English Channel, which I swam across with the university swim team a few weeks prior. We had ample wind to sail most days, and having never sailed before I was keen to learn the basics from the more experienced crew members. Our boat was called Skylark, and below deck it had 4 cabins and a small cooking area for making dinner (I was pleased when my dish of fish tacos went down rather well). There were two large sails, the jib sheet in the front and the main sail behind it, which both required several people to wind, pull or hold various ropes, and I tried my hand at a few of those. One particularly windy day, we had to 'tack' (change direction) quite regularly which meant the boom at the bottom of the main sail would swing about quite suddenly and violently, so we quickly learnt to keep our heads out of the way. I learnt how to do a clove hitch knot for the fenders on the side of the boat (buffers to prevent damage to boats if they touch each other when parking), and how to do the classic OXO knot around the cleats on the deck, which were useful for tying up the boat once we reached the harbour. One evening we didn't go to a harbour but dropped anchor in a beautiful bay, where we spent the afternoon jumping off the side of the boat, swimming, eating a picnic on deck and two crew members even slept the night in the sail, which I had sat in earlier in the day to finish reading my book.

The swimming was incredible, with a vast expanse of water stretching out ahead to islands in the distance and the occasional sailboat passing, and forests coating the rocky islands. Apparently bears live here, although sadly we saw none. Most of the meals were cooked by the crew, including some lovely fajitas, creamy pasta, roasted salmon and a memorable barbecue on the boat of skewers decorated with roasted halloumi. The local cuisine in Finland seems to include a lot of blueberries, which became obvious on the flight over when I was offered blueberry juice for the first time, to complement the blueberry muffin. Most days were sunny and warm, and we only had to stay put for one day for a storm to pass, which ended up being a nice day to rest.

The only minor blip of the whole trip was when my phone slipped out of my pocket into the sea as I filled the boat's water tank, which resulted in a few days without pictures followed by a hasty trip to get a new one when we were back in Helsinki. We grow so attached to these little rectangular devices- relying on them for navigation, communication with loved ones, memories from photos, payments, travel... in the end the situation was resolved and while I was stressed about it when it first happened, wondering how I would get home without my digital flight boarding pass, once that subsided it was surprisingly peaceful and forced me to be more present. Without it, I could no longer worry about the news, my friends back home moving away, missing out on stuff, in fact it reminded me of when I was a child, completely absorbed in my books and staring into the distance. I read about 200 pages in two days and finished my book, unhindered by distractions. Once I logged back in to my various social media accounts, I found the world pretty much exactly how I left it as it turned out I needn't have worried as I hadn't missed much, at least not anything so urgent it couldn't wait a few days until I got back. This if anything was the most useful lesson of the trip for me- you don't need to be plugged in all the time, it is ok to disappear for a few days, marvel at the natural wonder around you, and have some thoughtful time for reflection and deep thought, away from the emails and pings of modern life.

A Finnish adventure would not be complete without a trip to the sauna! We sampled multiple saunas over the week, gently roasting ourselves for a few minutes then plunging into the cool sea, then running back again to warm up, and so forth. I can see the appeal, and the Finns seem to have life pretty well sorted- lots of nature, not too many people, gentle sailing, relaxing in the sauna, followed by a nice salmon soup. The lack of people in this part of the country (and in general, the whole country, which has just shy of 6 million people, so about half of London’s population) means that light pollution was minimal, and I enjoyed staring up into the sky to admire the stars. We even got a photo with a 30s exposure on my friend Charlotte’s iPhone camera, which is slightly blurry as the boat was bobbing on the gentle waves at the time. I quickly grew used to movement of the water, so much so that by the end of the week even when walking on land I could still feel it, a phenomenon known as sea legs.

The week absolutely flew by, I found the when I looked at my watch again after what felt like 5 minutes, about 3 hours had passed. I’ve given some thought to taking my comp crew qualification next year so I can learn more about the technicalities of sailing, and am very much looking forward to booking on to another sailing trip next summer.