Eva enters the blog (again)

Last summer I had never sailed before, only accompanied on occasional sailing trips. When Jakob and I joined a sailboat last late summer, a new chapter in my life began.

During the year, I have prepared by taking a driver's license and participating in a one-week sailing course in Croatia during the spring. When I got home from the sailing course I felt fired up but still very much like a beginner.

So this summer's month-long sailing adventure from Holmsund, over to Finland, down to the Åbo region, crossing via Åland and home along the Swedish coast feels like a big and exciting adventure!

It began magically at 1:00 p.m. on June 29 when, on an unusually hot day, we set course for Kaskö, Finland's smallest city. Our starting distance was a 105-minute journey over almost a day, just because we wanted to feel like we were (finally) on our way and up and running.

Admittedly, we couldn't sail as it was completely windless, but in return we got to experience a calm and sparkling sea and a speeding wind that cooled down nicely in the heat.

We shared the management. At first we changed each other every 30 minutes. During the night we took it in turns to sleep so then the steering passes were also a little longer.

Although the day was amazing, words are not enough to describe the experience of my night shifts. I got to experience both a blood-red sunset over Sweden and a sunrise over Finland. For hours I sat wrapped in a pastel-colored magical seascape where sky and sea merged.

I felt gratitude, calmness and breathlessness in front of all the beauty, and sometimes a little twinge of fear when I thought that I was sitting there all alone on a big ocean. What would I do if a giant sea monster appeared and dragged me into the depths? I laughed at my crazy fantasies.

The sense of wonder came when I thought about what a fantastic planet we live on, mostly covered in blue and green oceans, how beautiful it must look from space, and how strange it is that the water doesn't just disappear into space . I felt sad when I thought about how we humans are destroying our beautiful oceans. So many big emotions!

I realize that I was "beginner's lucky" to experience all of this in a single day and am curious to also explore other and tougher types of weather, and sailing conditions. After rain comes sunshine, they say. But the reverse also applies, after strong heat often comes rainy weather.