Thursday June 28: I had used the layday of Thursday to catch up on work and get out the latest edition of my newspaper. Engrossed in work for ten hours in the harbor’s kitchen I hadn’t really taken must notice of what the other boats were doing. Which was clearing out en masse. I also hadn’t read the weather forecast…..call it a rookie mistake if you must but I would have stayed in situ even if I’d known a big cold weather system was coming. I had to get my paper to the printers and if it meant kicking our heels in the harbor for a few days then so be it.
The wind started to rise about 10pm and six hours later I was awoken by a clanging halyard that I went topsides to fix in just my skivvies. There was a swell from the north driving straight into the harbor. Mooring lines were straining and it felt 15 degrees colder than when I had turned in. There followed a few more hours of restless kip before waking at 7am to a full-on hooley, as the Irish so poetically put it. The skies were grey and full of mischief and the air was frigid. After coffee and bread and jam I checked the mooring lines and then headed for the kitchen where I worked morning and afternoon while keeping a weather eye out for the boat, which was now just one of two remaining in the harbor. The wind continued to build to around 30 knots which had Arcturus ducking and diving at her mooring lines, one of which finally gave up the ghost and snapped. We replaced it with the heaviest line we had and ran two extra spring lines. The boat continued to buck and rock but at least she stayed off the dock. The forecast suggested the winds would ease by midnight, then we would get hit by another another northerly front barely 12 hours later. We had planned to head to the north side of the archipelago for some anchoring out in Lansmansgrund, which Andy and Mia had recommended, but that was out of the question. After some debate and checking Navionics we found a small island due east with a south facing harbor that looked completely sheltered from notherlies. We decided to chance our arm with an overnight sail leaving at 12.01am The ferocity of the winds here made me doubt I will return this summer. The Finnish side of the water – at least the Aland area – is really WILD with much less shelter and seems tremendously exposed to northern winds howling down from the northern Baltic. The anxiety that is always in the back of my mind while sailing was very much front and center on this day, and I began to think longingly of the calm and shelter of the Stockholm archipelago. A front like this really tests your resolution and I at least was out of my comfort zone by a long, long way…..
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