Sometimes, very seldom, this happens: Someone puts me in a speedboat, hands me a can of cider and off we go. With speed, loud music and people I barely know.
My people, the Ostrobothnians, are a boat people. To me, the archipelago is largely an unknown world, even though I can see it from my window every morning.
And such a lovely world it is, vast and intimidating and beautiful. The endless vista of open water, the strange marine birds and the seals, the millions of uninhabited islets with rocky beaches or smooth cliffs. The fresh, salty air. The feeling of being helpless in a world not made for humans.
The silence, when you disembark on an island, as if you were a hundred miles from civilisation. The strange and beautiful labyrinths laid out with stones on many of the outer islands, ancient and mysterious. The stories of shipwrecks, the centuries of perilous fishing and of setting off towards unknown shores in search of something, the tragedies.
On the island of our destination, the autumn colours are vivid, the air smells of paradise and the woods are filled to bursting with mushrooms and dark red lingonberries. The sun is warm but a light mist is swirling eerily among the ancient graves of the shipwrecked. We feast on grilled meat, hot potato wedges and black coffee in one of the old fishing huts and try our luck navigating one of the old labyrinths that could be up to a thousand years old.
Someone should put me in a boat more often.
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