Oulu
Oulu – once we were beyond the heavy industry and docks that lined the river on the way in – was instantly likeable. We tied up right in the centre of town, where a few pontoons had been laid out in an old stone-lined dock beside the main square. Wobbly wooden warehouses watched over us, and the waterfront was thronged with people sitting around in the evening sun. It's a big university town, and bicycles outnumbered cars by ten to one.
Some sort of festival seemed to be going on. The morning after we arrived we found a demonstration of log paddling going on in the harbour. A wiry old chap in rubber boots, checked shirt and cowboy hat was standing precariously on a floating tree trunk with nothing but a big stick, slightly flattened at the ends, to balance with. He paddled around for a while, his companion hovering around in a pretty clinker boat to pick him up if he should fall in, and did tricks like running on the spot, the log spinning beneath him. An impressive skill, if a little unlikely to come in handy often in life. We gathered that until very recently logs were often floated down the rivers to the pulp factories and sawmills on the coast, and being able to stand on a log and run around on it without falling in helped your employment chances.
Later a fleet of colourful long wooden boats arrived, with 10 rowers in each. Live bands, of variable quality, squawked away in a nearby bar. We had an excellent lunch at a stall in the market square by the marina. If we'd found Finnish fast food pretty disappointing up to now, this more than made up for it - a platter heaped high with elk meatballs, potatoes, wild salmon and deep fried fish - probably the same species that we had been given by the couple in the old fishing village, but far tastier when prepared by someone who knew what they were doing.
Jamie and Carrie were leaving here, heading north by train to see the Arctic circle before returning to Helsinki to fly home. I had a day on my own before the arrival of the two old hands who would be joining me next – Brandon, who had only seen Teal as a forlorn, neglected carcass in Alderney, and Peter Wynn.
They were flying into northern Sweden, as I had hoped to be slightly further round the coast before the crew change. We weren’t sure how easy it would be for them to get round – the coast is sparsely populated and although public transport exists, it is not particularly frequent. But they were lucky, catching a bus north from the airport at Lulea to Tornio on the Finnish border, then sharing a cab with a couple of girls who also were heading east from Tornio to the rail station 15 miles on at Kemi, arriving just in time to catch the last train to Oulu. This happened also to be the one that Jamie and Carrie were returning from the Arctic circle on, so they were able to catch up (and for Jamie to hand over the loo key from the Oulu marina that he had accidentally taken with him) before they stopped at Oulu and the train continued overnight to Helsinki.
It took a while to get out of the port, mostly due to me cutting a corner and putting us aground on a mudbank in the river. After trying ineffectively to kedge off I jumped over and pushed - and found that the water was delightfully warm. Beyond the pierheads we had a stiff beat to windward until we reached a bend in the channel that allowed us to sail free for a while. Then the wind gradually dropped until we were once again becalmed. We were within rowing distance of a little harbour that was charted on a nearby island, and a hour or so spelling each other on the oars got us there.
The little harbour was owned by a nearby yacht club on the mainland, and there were two or three other boats there enjoying the sunny evening. An inebriated Finn helped us tie up, and invited us to come and join him later on his friends boat. After a quick look around the island we did so, and had a long evening drinking wine and beer with the Finns, getting to bed around sunrise – 2am. Our fame had preceeded us. One of the many people who had stopped and chatted to us in Oulu had been a friend of the owner of the boat we were on, and had told him to keep an eye open for us as we headed north. The boat was the antithesis of Teal, a sturdy, stumpy, steel motoryacht with all the luxuries of modern life. The owner (who had designed it himself) told us he was about to have a couple of masts fitted. I can’t imagine they would have much effect on a heavy bathtub like that, but perhaps he is now able to enjoy the bliss of a quiet passage under sail on the odd occasions the wind is strong and from astern.
The mosquitoes tormented us during the night. The Arctic mozzies seem to be bigger and more vicious than those from warmer climes – perhaps with the short summer they have to pack all their biting into a shorter season. We slept little, and although there was once again very little wind we set off to escape as soonas we were awake. After a couple of hours of slow progress a sea breeze set in and for a few hours we had a lovely sail, mostly through open waters but here and there ducking behind little low islands and rounded rocky outcrops. Slowly the wind swung round to head us, and once again died away. By evening we were once again utterly becalmed a couple of miles from shore. We were however in shallow water, and there being no other boats in sight and no sea to speak of, we just lobbed the anchor over the side and settled down to enjoy the evening. Peter and Brandon took the canoe for a paddle to get some pictures of the boat, and we made an ensign staff so we could hoist our flag above the top of the mizzen, and shaved down the handle of the new paddle that Brandon had made the night before he had left the UK and had brought with him for the canoe. Then we opened some beer and got the guitar out.
Around midnight, as we were thinking of getting our heads down for a bit, the wind began to fill in again. It was only a gentle breeze, but we had experienced so many flat calms recently that I was determined to use any wind we could get. We hove up the anchor and set the sails in record time. By 5am we were safely tied up in Kemi.