Since arriving back in Sweden after our trip to Bornholm and back, we have spent the last 10 weeks sailing, exploring and enjoying Sweden and it’s beautiful east coast. But two days ago, we set sails and headed away from this coast that has been our home for so long – the course was set to Finland, and our plan was to sail there through the night.
In Örnsköldsvik we met two Swedish sailors that are sailing and living on their beautiful 49-foot steel boat ‘Ariel IV’ built in Vejle, Denmark. The boat has been around the world three times, the last two times with its Swedish owners, that are now exploring the Baltic Sea. In Örnsköldsvik we agreed to sail to Malmön at the eastern end of the Örnsköldsvik fjord and grill there together on our last evening in Sweden (for now at least!). As it turned out that they were also planning to head to Finland next, we had some nice discussions about the weather and the possible routes.
After these preparations, we left peaceful and picturesque Malmön Friday at around 5 pm. Paul and I decided to do 2-hour shifts, and the first two hours I was steering us out of the Högakusten archipelago into the open water of the Gulf of Bothnia. The weather was quite calm and wind was coming from the south, but we knew that it should later turn to the north and be quite strong, but we felt well prepared. As it got darker, it started raining and we reefed the main sail (as to not have to do it in darkness) and prepared for fresh winds. And as soon as the darkness was surrounding us, the waves and wind really picked up and we had quite a wild ride towards the east. Luckily we had radio contact with the crew on Ariel IV several times, and it felt very comforting to know, that we were not all alone out on the dark water surrounding us.
It was a really exhausting night – the waves were too big for us to even try out using the autopilot and therefore the two hours of steering were quite tiring, sitting in the dark, riding out the waves and slowly getting soaked and cold from the rain. In the two hours of break, we tried getting some sleep in the saloon, but since the boat was moving so much in the hectic seas, there was a lot of movement and loud noises that made it quite hard to find enough peace to really sleep well.
At around 3am we saw lights from a lighthouse – a Finnish lighthouse! It was such a relief and happy moment! We had chosen 6 harbours along the Finnish coast, and the plan was to sail as far as we could between these – the lighthouse was just around the first harbour, and although it had already been an exhausting night, we agreed to keep sailing. This meant changing our course from east towards the south, and as the daylight was slowly coming back again, we sailed in fresh winds and big waves along the Finnish coast.
We had adjusted to our 2-hour rhythm quite well, but we also both had to admit that the two hours of break did not seem sufficient to make up for the energy spent during the two hours of sailing. As we approached the last of the 6 harbours on our list, we felt happy and relieved to have mad it so far, but also we agreed, that we could not have kept sailing like this for much longer.
We arrived in Kiili/Kilhamn at 1pm (2pm Finnish time) and I got to set my feet on Finnish ground for the very first time in my life – what a strange feeling to arrive in a foreign country this way. After catching up on some eating and sleeping, Paul and I are extremely proud that we managed our first night sail so well!
In numbers, our trip over the Gulf of Bothnia was:
- 20 hours of sailing
- 115 nautical miles
- 16 hours of pouring rain
- Average speed over ground of 6 knots
- 2 very tired sailors 🙂
Now we are excited to explore Finland and its coast, before heading via the Åland Islands back to Sweden in some weeks.
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