Escape from Jurmo …to Utö
10th to 11th of July
And that is exactly what we did, having had a shower and a sauna, just before we left Hanko for ‘wonderful sunny’ Jurmo to explore magic stone circles from the bronze age. I was a bit suspicious of the small harbour of Jurmo, with barely a harbour wall to speak of and basically no protection. Nevertheless after our last day’s sail through the Finnish Archipelago Sea, Jurmo (Finnland) appeared with a habour as described. We saw a wall of masts on our approach and our fears came true – “no room at the inn” and one or two possible spaces were either too shallow or not allowed to moor against. The cross wind was strong and ER is difficult to turn through the wind at the best of times. There was very little room and we were being blown further and further into the corner with boats and rocks coming closer and closer and at that precise moment our bow-thruster decided to pack up! After some dramatic manoeuvering Madeleine was able to extricate ER in reverse gear from Jurmo. No damage done!
Of course there is always (mostly) plan B. And plan B lead us to a beautiful former military island and border crossing point, which had recently been released to pleasure boats. Utö (Finnish, there is also an Utö in Åland) turned out to be very well protected against the fresh wind from S and we spend a quiet night at anchor in this secluded anchorage. Its prominent lighthouse has always been one of the highest and most importnt leading light in that area. Now it seems to have become the latest craze for remote and 'exotic' weddings. Maybe Jurmo has to be seen end of May or early June, when there is nobody around…and in settled conditions.