Utö & Märket

Utö

I spent a nice weekend on a Utö - lighthouse island on a Baltic Sea with a full moon on the sky. This weekend trip was organized by Finnish lighthouse society and there were alltogether 34 members enjoying pre-winter athmosphere on this remote island. Weekend was packed full of guiding and stories about the Utö lighthouse, the island and the people living there.

When lying on the rocks in the darkness, looking the full moon and the light of the lighthouse and hearing the roaming of the waves hitting the shore I felt like I would have been another universe, far away from our civilisation travelling through the space guided by sparkling starts on the sky.

Tomorrow I'm heading back to Märket - lighthouse and acting there as a volunteer worker for the Finnish lighthouse society. It's the last week of this season, before the lighthouse will be closed and left empty. New members are coming when the winter is over on May...

You can follow our daily life on Märket from the diary.

Rope work

My first rope work "rope circle"

I started to work with the ropes by making rope circles. Not too complicated in the beginning... I'm hoping one day to be such a skillfull person, who is able to make e.g. my own rope ladder. Until then I need still a little bit more practise!

Rope circles, ocean plait mat and 4-strand round crownplait

Last sausages at this summer ?

Starters

Are these last sausages at this summer? Well, they might be or might not.. It all depends how long this summer will last and how hungry I am :) The first snowfall was already seen, but after all the sailing trip to Baltic Sea was a pleasent experience. We had wind speed from 1 m/s up to 12-14 m/s, sunshine, snowfall and cloudy. The sea was quiet, we only saw couple of other sailing boats and very few birds, e.g. swans, couple of seals and one mink.

On a harbour at Katanpää

When coming back from 3-day trip to Uusikaupunki harbour, we sailed the boat onto a dockyard for lifting up the boat to the ground for maintenance and storage over the long and cold winter time. The boat will be lifted back to the water after half an year, when the sailing season starts again in Finland on May.

On a steering shift

Sailing

Jonie sailboat

This was the weekend for the sailing on the Baltic Sea. We started at saturday morning from the Uusikaupunki and headed towards the south in a cold weather with occasional snowfall.

Lunch :)



During the day we had sunshine, snowfall and cloudy weather. Few seals were greeting us on our way. There were only one other sailboat we saw during the day.

On a Vuosnainen harbour

Rope work supervisor

The studies in Rovaniemi were continued during this weekend. The main theme for this 4-day period was to do Rope work supervisor module I (KTO 1 in Finnish), which is the first module in the series of mandatory modules of Finnish Climbing Association to become an authorized Rope work supervisor.

We headed into Hiidenkirnut, which is a rock climbing place near Rovaniemi and started practising belaying, knots, bouldering, rock-climbing and abseiling. After first day of climbing my fingers are sore, but the mind and body are very focused on learning more climbing techniques and rope work. The day was great and full of laugh due to the teamspirit and the attitude and joyfulness of the other students!

Thank you guys!

I'm speechless! After travelling previous winter and neglecting totally physical excercise I wasn't a good shape at all in spring. I hardly was able to run 12 minutes and it felt awful.

During this autumn I have broken my records in half-marathon and now in Pirkan Hölkkä. What's amazing is that I literally smashed my previous record time for over half an hour!! I just can't believe it.

How this has been possible? Well, this was possible only because of my friends. I have had a pleasure to exercise with You all the summer and autumn in a very versatile and fun way. I have enjoyed every moment and I have suffered a bit too :) But that's the name of the game, no pain, no gain.

Big thanks to everybody: Haapis, Kaitsu, Leevi, Janne, Järppä, Greg, Opa, Häkä, Jani !!!!

Looking forward our next gathering, let's break yet another record then...

Why the sky is blue?

Indeed, why the sky is blue and not black as the space? Well, this and lots of other's interesting questions are being answered in the book "Miksi taivas on sininen?" written by the professor of the physics, Göran Grimvall. I warmly encourage everybody to grab this book from the library and read it through to understand better the phenomenons of our everyday life.

Questions like:
- Can you see the full moon during the day?
- Why the sound against the wind doesn't proceed as far as to the tailwind?
- How can you forecast the weather by looking an airplane's condensation trail?
- Why the waves are coming to the shore always at 90 degrees angle (perpendicular)?
- Why the mountains far away are blue?
- Is the wetsnow (nuoskalumi) heavier than newsnow (uusilumi)?

are not trivial and require the understanding of the physics to be explained correctly. All in all an excellent book to start a journey to the nature's wonderful world...

In addition of wondering and thinking of the phenomenons of the nature I have studied how to make different knots used in the climbing, how to survive in the winter conditions even without sleeping bag, how to make a various shelters from the snow, etc. I have been writing my personal plan for the studies (HOPS = Henkilökohtainen opiskelusuunnitelma) and my personal plan for the proofs / tests for the degree (HENSU = Henkilökohtainen näyttösuunnitelma). From time to time I feel like a student!