Our position is 60:06.031N 19:56.974E

Distance covered 8.7 Nm

It was a beautiful morning the next day and it seemed a shame to leave the clear waters and freshly baked bread at Rodhamn, but we were keen to enjoy the delights of the biggest metropolis in the Alands, and also shelter from forecast bad weather later in the week, so we set off on the short sail up to Mariehamn at midday.

 Regretfully leaving Rodhamn – this passage is too shallow; we had to go in round the back

The wind was light and from behind so we motor-sailed with just the jib up the twisting track between the many rocky islands to the East harbour. The marina is big but this early in the season was not very busy and some people were tied up alongside the pontoons, in spite of instructions not to. We had read that the choice was buoys or poles for the aft mooring, but on arrival there was no sign of any buoys and we had to revise the skills we had developed last year in lassoing the poles as we went by and kicking fenders over once through. Soon we were safely tied up and enjoying a late lunch. We had chosen to go to East Mariehamn as it was more convenient for the next part of the cruise and also less disturbed by ferries and cruise ships.

Some islands were joined together by roads

Some house owners built their own sea defences. Houses weren’t as close to the waterfront as in Florida as well

Approaching the East harbour

Safely tied up between the dreaded poles

Mariehamn has a population of c 11,000 and is the seat of the Aland Islands government. It was founded in 1861, and became a fashionable spa resort in the early 1900s. There are some attractive houses from that period, but its main industry was seafaring. A navigation school was founded here in 1868 and even today merchant mariners are trained in Mariehamn.

 This house was owned by August and Johanna Tronberg who made a fortune through shipping and donated their house to the state

They also funded the building of the main church in Mariehamn

Gustav Erikkson, a famous ship owner of the 20^th century, based his fleet of fast sailing barques here when they were not carrying cargoes to and from Australia, USA and Europe. His family still live in the islands and Peter Pye’s book, A Sail in a Forest, about cruising in Finland and the Alands in the late 1950s, talks a lot about his legacy. Peter met members of the family when in Mariehamn. The big windjammers were carrying cargo up until 1949, although the fleet was depleted by then. One of Eriksson’s fleet, Herzogin Cecilie, was wrecked off the coast near Salcombe in 1936. We enjoyed visits to the maritime museum and the museum ship Pommern, moored in West Mariehamn.

The maritime museum and the museum ship Pommern

  This bird developed a taste for salad dressing