The season 2010 was the third boating season for Suwena’s crew. Incredibly warm summer offered very enjoyable moments for all sailors. Here follows some highlights of Suwena’s last summer adventures.
Our original voyage plan was to sail around the Finland from city of Iisalmi, through Saimaa basin, down by the Saimaa canal to the Gulf of Finland and then continue sailing around the Finnish coast back to home city of Oulu. However some changes occurred.
The voyage began as planned in the end of May when Suwena was transported by the truck to city of Iisalmi. Suwena landed safety to the lake Porovesi 100 meters above sea level where our sailing voyage started. We got our first experiences for the locks ever and within our first cruising month we passed through 25 locks. Height of all locks was totally 123 meters. After the initial excitement has been relieved we noticed that we handled the locks well and there was no reason to worry. After these experiences we feel certain to plan the future canal passages such as Göta canal.
We sailed through the lakes and canals from Iisalmi to Kuopio and then through the Heinävesi route down to Savonlinna. From there we continued to Puumala and to Lappeenranta. One thing to note about Eastern Finland is a delicious and various kind of seafood. We thought that by the coast people would take advantage of wide scale of fish from the sea but now we must say by the lakes people cook the best seafood in Finland.
Our lake adventure took place in June before the Midsummer, and for our surprise the boating season wasn’t even began. Service, if available, was anyhow very kind and scenery was beautiful. We could believe how full the marinas will be during high season in July.
The most spectacular places we saw in Saimaa were waterfall of Korkeakoski, Valamo Monastery, the locks of Varistaipale, many beautiful anchorages and of course the city of Savonlinna which has been built to the top of four islands. We warmly recommend everyone to sail in Saimaa. Visiting in Saimaa must definitely be done in July.
To sail through Saimaa Canal down to Gulf of Finland was the most exciting leg. As the locks in the beginning of the summer voyage we found that the higher locks in Saimaa canal were easy to handle as well. Lock masters handled us through the canal very professionally. And Suwena sailed proudly out from EU through Russian waters back to Finland for celebrating the Midsummer.
The nightless night Suwena spent in the island of Kaunissaari near a city of Kotka. Then we continued to the cities of Kotka, Porvoo and Helsinki. After that we travelled to the south-western Finland where are thousands of beautiful islands to visit in Archipelago Sea.
In July we made some changes to our voyage plan when we got a berth for Suwena in ASS’s marina in Turku and we got confirmation for winter storage in Nauticat Yachts boatyard in Pöytyä as well. This change made the city of Uusikaupunki the northest destination on the coast where we turned Suwenas bow towards Turku.
In September we managed to have time to do two weekend cruises one to Korpoström in island of Korppoo and one to Parainen. In addition we took part in Elojuhlat in the island of Röyttä. Elojuhlat is one of the biggest boating parties in Gulf of Bothnia. The Röyttä trip we made by our dinghy Pikku Suwena while Suwena was waiting us in Turku.
During the season we got to learn many new seamanship skills: passing through the locks, anchoring and handling the dinghy. Last winter we’ve bought an outboard engine to our dinghy, so we made a lot of dinghy trips during this summer. Boarding dinghy and landing with dinghy were good skills to train for a future voyages. Leaving anchored Suwena waiting us required a lot of courage and very careful anchoring in order that anchor doesn’t start to drag when we’re away.
The strongest memories from our voyage we got from the warm and kind boaters in the Eastern Gulf of Finland. Also very positive surprise was the experience from the marina of HMVK, Helsingin Moottorivenekerho (Motor Boat Club of Helsinki) situated just in the heart of Helsinki. Despite of its name the marina is suitable for motor and sail boats as well.
The speciality of this season was the possibility to feel the difference of sailing by lakes and by sea. We visited totally in 40 different ports and anchorages so we saw small and big marinas as well as beautiful anchorages which everyone of them having own attraction and style.
In the harbours our folded tandem gave us a lot of freedom to move around. By bike it is possible to explore much bigger area than by foot. Even Helsinki by bike felt totally different kind of city compared with our normal trips made to our capital city by plane or by car.
You can read the stories of 2010 and look at seasons ranking. Sorry that our blog stories year 2010 are in Finnish only.
Log summary of Suwena 2010
- Nautical miles: 741 nm
- Engine hours: 145 h
- Diesel consumption: 1685 l
- Calculated average consumption: 2,3 l/nm (incl. driving, heating, diesel-hob and occasional battery charging)
- Fresh water: 1950 l
- Septic pump out: 11 times
- Ports and anchorages: 40
- Overnight stays: 66 nights from which 4 in anchor
- The locks: 25 locks with total height of 123 m
- Longest leg: 73 nm Juustila – Kotka – Kaunissaari
- The great-circle distance to the farthest point from home port: 321 nm Oulu – Peninsula of Hanko
- Southernmost point: 59N48.5 Peninsula of Hanko
- Westernmost point: 21E22.0 Näsby, Houtskari
- Easternmost point: 28E54.4 Savonlinna, the bridge of Kyrönsalmi
- Northernmost point: 65N20.8 River Ii delta Suwena’s winter storage 2009
- Dinghy fuel consumption: 9 l
The map of Suwenas year 2010 harbours and summer voyage.
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