Return to Stockholm: everything seems different now…
10th – 11th of July
When heading for Lake Saimaa in June, it was still unexpectedly cold, at least for me, and the harbours, towns and villages along our route were almost deserted. No event, no holiday activity seemed to start until July. To find berths or moorings was never a concern of ours. We could pick and choose. We were more concerned whether we needed warm socks for the night or two or three warm layers during the day.
This has now completely changed. The temperature is usually in the high 20s, no socks or warm layers needed any more and everybody seems to have a good time. The concern now are the swarm of motorboats coming at high speed at you in very tight spots and to find a mooring in a harbour when you need to replenish your ‘stores’.
At 8:00 a.m. this morning we watched the ‘bread line’ in front of the beach café before we left our idyllic anchorage in Långön (see picture of last posting). We headed for Hanko. “Oh. You want to go to Hanko?” asked our friendly petrol station attendant on the way in Barösund, “ there is the Hanko Regatta on, you may not find any space!” With these encouraging words, we set off and finally entered an absolutely full and buzzing harbour and town with a real successful Regatta feel with lots of not so distinguished looking and inebriated crews outnumbering the more serious owners by far. 
The entrance to Hanko is quite tricky with a great number of crocodiles*(*our name for the rocks just barely visible under the water surface, ready to ‘attack’ at any time).
Fortunately we were able to squeeze into a berth with a great number of partying youths already populating the quay and playing popular Finnish music, not very different in style except for the language. Tomorrow, after an early sauna and shower we will be heading for Jurmo (in the Finnish Archipelago).