Some Vitamin Sea

I needed to get some fresh sea air, after working from home. Time for a quick overnighter.

Working from home has its sides, but on the negative side is that you do spend a lot of time at home. While I have a nice forest starting from my backyard and many hours of trails, it is still not the same as the openness of the sea. The Saturday didn't start well, with a temperature just over freezing and lots of rain. The weather forecast promised sun for the evening, though, and I counted on that.

I arrived at my starting point at six in the evening and got going. The birches now have leaves, but you can still see the trunk. This is such a nice time of the spring.

The Bothnian Sea starts the show the first signs of the different geology, which becomes dominating up in the Kvarken area.

After this island I came out to a strange cross sea with white caps, and it didn't feel right. Thinking through this still showed that it would be completely within my limits, even counting the margins you need when going out alone in water with the temperature of 5°C, but I still changed course to another island a little closer. Maybe my ear problems affected this, I have a hole in the left ear drum and should not get water in it.

This island was also perfectly nice. Before landing here I checked with my smartphone that it wasn't a nature reserve (they generally do not allow camping) and that no birds objected to my being there. After landing, and before committing to this place, I took a little walk to see if there would be an acceptable tent spot there and,  more importantly, that there would be no problems with the birds. The birds take precedence, especially at this important time of the year for them, and you should make sure that you don't disturb them. In this case everything seemed good.

Up with the tent.

Beer in the cooler.

And time for dinner.

Even the rowan is getting leaves.

A nice evening.

Eiders flying by.

I stayed up until a little over eleven. The nocturnal concerto had started a bit after sunset. A female arctic tern kept begging for food through the night (the male must prove that he can support a family by feeding her for some time), there were whooper swans, geese, cranes, eaurasian curlews etc, but the one that always brings a smile to my lips is the trush nightingale. You really don't expect it out in the archipelago, but in fact you encounter it fairly often. A shame that one has to sleep, since it would be nice to be up and enjoy the entire night, which doesn't even get dark anymore at this time of the year.

Up to a nice morning a little over seven.

The sea buckthorne isn't found in the Archipelago Sea, but from here on it can be found when going northwards along the coast.

Morning coffee.

Going again. In the front the island I intended to go to. It will have to wait for another time and maybe also warrants more time than an evening and a morning.

Turning back south.

Selfie.

A bit stony.

Spring in the leaf trees.

And then a short crossing, in headwind this time as well.

Almost back. Something seems to be building up on land.

And there it is. I came back very much refreshed.