Day 8
The wind the wind.
The dingy, (aka the bow thruster) pushes
and pushes and pushes: finally peels us away from the Coastguard pier against
the wind. Then very very narrow channel in the wind. It is a great distraction
from the impending end of our voyage. The channel markers exiting HogHolmen
seems the same width as the ship, a serious obstacle course with the wind
pushing the ship sideways. We exit safely and hoist one sail and inner jib. The
wind is strong, and then the first jibe. Fun times.
The seas have a little chop to them, a
great distraction, from the end. Suddenly everything shifts: The mast was
pulled with enough force, it rotated! However magically it seated back into
position – just rotated perhaps 15 degrees. A handful of us watched in a flash,
standing under it – 6 feet from it as moved. It was almost unclear if we had
seen it or not. Wish I had that video but the cracked screen phone stopped
working. My phone with all the photos is dead, and this is almost
over. It’s overcast and depressing, no more phone and no more ship.
What is the point of life... Lauri shims the mast in with blocks and
off to Helsinki we sail.
We come upon some beautiful smaller old
boats, it must be great to be out in one of those tall ship races where all the
boats are historic. To look around and only see these old giants. There’s
something inherently heroic about these vessels. I will miss this ship, and we
are not done yet.
Welcome to Helsinki! Such a busy harbor
with all the enormous passenger ferry/cruise ships. The downtown/tourism hub of
Helsinki is of course surrounding a little harbor with a couple islands at it’s
mouth. The NJK yacht club has this old palace on one of the islands. It looks
like a castle. Beautiful old white wood building with onion top turrets in
copper green. Nothing like a fairy tale ending to a magic journey.
We tie to the NJK dock and I don’t want to
go ashore.
Inside, the old building is full or
paintings, trophy’s and memorabilia. All I can think of is how much maintenance
this building must require and how cold it would be in the winter with these
single pane windows. Turns out this structure is closed in the winter. It's
also fun to imagine in winter the little protected harbor often freezes over
and you can walk across it. Inside the building there is a beautiful library -
it would be great to sip some of their nice Cognac and pour of the books. The
wrap around veranda - enclosed of course - is covered in burgees from all ages
and places, even a burgee from Saltaire, Fire Island! The mention of Fire
Island only slightly warms my heart which is heavy to be on solid ground. The
food is fine with lovely company. We sleep on the Svanhild one more night.
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