After midsummer, we travelled east, visiting guest- and natural harbours on the way. While in the Sottunga harbour, we weathered gale winds and heavy rains, but we managed to stay away from any bad weather while at sea. In the beginning of July, we sailed down to Karlby on Kökar, a largeish island in the southeastern part of the Åland archipelago.

While on Kökar we rented bikes and explored the island a bit, including a visit at the Kökar Hembygdsmuseum museum and lunch at Peders Aplagård.

After two nights on Kökar and with the northerly winds not seeming to abate in the near future, we decide to use the “iron genoa” to go north to Sälsö, and on the 11th we sail east to Jungfruskär, the westernmost islands of Finland proper, in the middle of Skiftet that separates Åland from Finland.

Jungfruskär was truly beautiful, and is managed to keep the landscape as it was when it was used for farming and grazing back in the day. The paths around the island were easy to walk, and we picked a huge amount of bilberries, enough for both dessert and a breakfast smoothie. We ended up staying three nights, before continuing east to the natural harbour at Stora Hästö. There was not much room for a sailing boat in the rocky bay, but we managed to make shore at the tip of a cliff, and were rewarded with yet another beautiful island with a well-prepared nature track running around the edge of the island. With amazing flat rock surfaces facing the ocean, we took the oppurtunity for some morning yoga on the shore before breakfast and leaving for Korpoström on the 15th to take shelter for a couple of days from the rain and wind heading our way.