Linnansaari

Weather in this summer has not been that great, but fortunately there have been some good days too. Thw week started with two of them, and we decided to head for the Linnansaari National Park in the northern waters of Saimaa. Sarastus traveled well on the trailer without any issues. Its mahogany surface lured couple of locals, when we refilled the car at Lohilahti service station. They couldn’t believe, that the boat was twenty years old already.

We launched at Nuotniemi, which was situated at end of a bumpy sandy road. The slipway is a decayed deep concrete ramp, and there were some branched reaching low over it. Despite of these negatives, the location was excellent for us, because the winds were southbound tailwinds on Monday and northbound on Tuesday. That allowed us to broad reach most of the time.

At first we headed for Hietasaari located couple of nautical miles from Noutniemi. Its northeast beach had a patch of sand. There would have been more and finer sand at its west cape, but it would have been a less sheltered location. In the island we met a nice family, that had departed from Varkaus in their cruising motorboat. They shared with us some valuable information about Linnansaari destinations.

After having lunch and chatting we continued the journey broad reaching in a moderate breeze. Our top speed was 6.7 knots, that’s not bad for a cruising Wayfarer. Later we had to start close reaching, but managed to avoid tacking in the narrows between Linnansaari and Eevansaari. Our destination was Perpulanluhta bay at the northwest corner of Linnansaari island. We arrived at the bay only the genoa raised. It should be noticed, that there is a lesser bay south from Linnanvuori hill.

In Perpulanluhta there were four big motorboats moored at the pier and later in the evening two kayaks beached too. We moored at the sandy beach, and stayed the night in the island. We were accompanied by a mosquite choir.

In the morning we collected some bilberries, to be eaten with the porridge. After the breakfast we climbed to Linnanvuori, to see the view over the national park. There we met a couple, who had explored the national park during the last twenty years. They knew a lot about Saimaa ringed seals. According to them it’s not seen on the rocks that often, but rather swimming at surface, when it needs to breath. That was a pretty valuable hint.

We packed our gear into Sarastus, weighed anchor and started sailing for Iso-Tuunas island in light air. Near the island we saw a glimpse of Saimaa ringed seal swimming, as it swam farther from us.

Iso-Tuunas was a perfect island, at least its southwestern part. At the beach there was a buoy for bigger boats. We avoided the underwater rocks at the sandy beach and beached Sarastus there successfully. We had to conclude, that Iso-Tuunas was our favorite out of the three islands, where we visited in the national park.

We continued our journey broad reaching in a warm breeze. At Nuotniemi we pulled Sarastus onto the trailer and headed for home after the great trip.