This was supposed to be about the Mammoth March. About 25 hours of epic struggling, riding the bike on roads of different size, trails and non-trails and searching checkpoints over seemingly endless mires. Unfortunately, I was not well enough to participate. A persistent flu had me make the choice to opt out. It simply didn't make sense to start pushing myself far beyond the comfort zone when not being in perfect health. It was the sensible choice, but seeing the GPS tracking of my team mates Toni and Jarkko really had me wanting to be there. Ultimately they didn't make it to the finish. After almost 26 hours of struggling they decided to call it in.
While I wasn't well enough for the Mammoth March, a light kayaking overnighter was no problem.
This was also the last weekend of the year with daylight saving in effect. After this the sun sets too early, making the dark evenings very long. As it turned out, Vigu course mates Anna and Louise were also going on a kayaking overnighter, so I joined them. Louise had started earlier, but Anna needed to sleep in, so she started with me from Granvik in the afternoon. It was a beautiful fall day.
Soon after the start we had to help two Russian fishermen who had got lost. Since they just were on the wrong side of the island they needed to go to, it was easy to point them in the right direction. After this we continued paddling in the nice fall archipelago.
We had only one and a half hour of paddling to the island where Louise waited for us. Out arrival coincided with the sunset.
I put up my tent well outside (10 m) the nature reserve.
The place was a really nice one. During summer I would probably consider it a little too close (150 m) to a summer house, though it is in an area clearly separated from it.
It soon got darker.
The moon was almost full, which would have given a good light if not for the clouds approaching.
The dinner was nice. An excellent sallad with spinach, Roquefort, crème fraîche, walnuts and pears was followed with Pasta Carbonara.
For dessert I made a chocolate cake eaten with whipped cream, to celebrate that I now had paddled a full 1000 km this year in a sea kayak.
I went to sleep quite early. (My blue tent is colored yellow by a candle.)
I got up at 7:30 and turned the clock back one hour to 6:30. It was still dark, with about one hour to sunrise. Eventually it got light enough to take some pictures and I took a stroll around the vicinity. The girls were still sleeping in their tent.
After breakfast we started packing our kayaks. The wind was clearly picking up now, though it didn't reach the forecasted 9-10 m/s.
We started paddling again around 9:15.
We had a nice tail wind, but the waves weren't big enough for anything else than an occasional surf.
In this section, the waves were surf sized, but we had them from the side.
Checking out the sector beacon near Svartholmen.
Back at Granvik after a little less than two hours. Anna took a shortcut.
That's it. A nice overnighter in good company and possibly the last kayaking overnighter of the year.
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