Third end of May kayaking trip

The third end of May trip of the local kayaking club, Saaristomeren Melojat, took place last weekend. This time I had planned a route at the east part of the Gullkrona Bay and a total of ten paddlers participated. Most of them had been on earlier versions of the trip.

May Archipelago

Anna, a Vigu mate,  had bought a new Hilleberg tent and wanted to test it. Since you naturally don't test a Hilleberg tent in your backyard we went for a little kayaking overnighter. Below are a few pictures from the overnighter.

Toni's ITI 1000 party

This winter a friend of mine, Toni Lund, did 1000 miles of Iditarod Trail Invitational (ITI), the world's longest and toughest winter race. He pushed his bike for more than half the distance between Anchorage and Nome in Alaska. It was the ultimate test of winter endurance and survival with a fatbike and he did it in 26 days. Being a bike mechanic by profession, he hasn't had time to write about it yet, with the spring being an extremely busy period in bike shops. For those who understand Finnish, there is a radio show and TV show featuring interviews with Toni.

Finding a date for a little party featuring some riding and an overnighter that would suit everyone in our little group of riders is becoming increasingly difficult with everyone being middleaged and having many obligations, and we couldn't get everyone this time either. But three of us (me, Toni and JJ) met up in Kimito on Ascension Thursday to take a look at the best trails of Kimito.

Ekenäs Archipelago National Park

Time for another scouting trip, this time to the Ekenäs Archipelago National Park, for a weekend outing with a group in the end of September. The area was not completely unfamiliar to me, have done some boating there in the nineties and even some paddling in the inner archipelago at the end of the eighties. Things had changed since then, though.

Another spring kayaking scouting trip

The weekend suddenly was free again, after we had decided to postpone the outing celebrating Toni's riding of the 1000 mile ITI. The weather seemed fine in the forecast, so the only option was to go on a scouting trip with kayak, to look for suitable tent sites for a paddling club trip at the end of May. Jukka joined me.

Spring kayaking

The beginning of the kayaking season 2018 was rather humble, but this weekend had more possibilites.

The beginning of the kayaking season 2018

By now I should already have been on a scouting trip in the Archipelago Sea for some upcoming kayaking club trips, but there is still ice everywhere. Open water can only be found around the shipping lanes, which from which the melting has begun.