It is respectable to have no illusions, and be safe, and profitable and dull.
-Joseph Conrad-



Is it respectable to have no illusions, and be safe, and profitable and dull?
-Lauri G. Strengell-

MAY / JUNE 2008

MAY Ok, I'm sorry. Allright, I'm not. But it bugs me a bit that I haven't been updating this site much. I could give a lot of reasons, but nevermind. Here's a rushed summary of the rushed month of May - my last month of being employed.

The events are pretty boring and if you must know, revolve around getting the boat ready. The refit got out of hands, completely. When I arrived in Finland, I knew that she needed a bit of work and good clean. What I didn't know was that she's going to fill with water (read Aliisa sinking or that I'm going to fall in love and get married with a wonderful beauty-loving Libra, Annina. (No, I don't take astrology too seriously, but still have a keen interest in it. Well, I don't take much in life too seriously...)

Aliisa's water tank
I dreaded this moment. It was pretty awful when I looked in eight years ago and it hadn't gotten any better. Result: quick clean, epoxy fix, new inspection hatch and then cover all in epoxy again. Next step: remove and replace tanks, some day... In the meantime, we drink water from this tank. I have done so for 10 years now.

The last panic has been very controlled. I've managed to do my best and almost stick to one thing at a time. Still, the work load of cycling to the boat at 7am, going to work at 0930, returning to the boat at 1900 and go to bed at 0200, took its toll. I got a flu late May and unlike any other flu I've ever had, it continued forever. After a sinus infection and 10 days of antibiotics, it moved down and now it's in my lungs, being attacked by another course of stronger antibiotics.


After our flat in the suburbs was sold, we piled up all our gear next to Aliisa, at Yacht Club Sindbad. We were lucky with the weather, though the nights required a borrowed heater in the aft cabin.




As the interior was now looking pretty smick, clean and clear of clutter, we decided to keep decoration to the minimum. "Two yachts in a bottle", a beautiful led glass work by Pertti Duncker traded places with the old PNG bird of paradise.



April 2008

20 APRIL

The idea that life matters, sure is appealing. But does it?

Dunno why I put that heading there. It's a question that pops in my mind every now and again. It doesn't mean that I see life as worthless. If I did, I would have killed myself long time ago. No, life is very interesting. I can't wait to see what it brings me next. But does it matter? Ha!

I heard on the radio that we are having some sort of "consume less" week. A week that we are supposed to consume sensibly. Like there is one day that we are supposed to say nice things to our darlings and friends, one day for moms, one for dads, and one day to go hungry and donate the money to the poor. Jeez, and then all the other times we can be complete selfish assholes, rape and beat the shit out of planet earth and not give a flying fuck for all the hundreds of millions of people who's living standards are nowhere near the living standard of a cow in Europe. The world would be a lot better place if every person on it had the living standard of a european cow.

Back to business. That is the boat. The temperatures soared and we managed to spin some old paint off the deck. The long days surely make this world a better place. I've been bad-mouthing this latitude quite a bit, in fact, I think I've managed to offend some finns. (sorry) The truth is that summer in Finland is wonderful. If only everyone would have the brains to drive those new anti-climate-change eco city 4WD diesel vehicles, life would be even more wonderful. (I'll give you mouthful of my opinion about the current motorcar advertising and how biodiesel and big cars are supposedly saving the planet. I might, in the same story, give you my opinion on a few other things. Just so you know.) ... where was I?...Oh yeah, the boat. It's called Aliisa:


YES! Interprotect 2-pack epoxy primer has landed on the deck. Things can only get better. As expected, Ansku is only too happy to do the painting, as long as I do the grinding.



And I do the grinding. A pain in the ass really. She needs a blasting but I can't afford it. So I'm left with a couple of angle grinders, paint scraper, cheap chisels and a hammer etc. The progress is slow, but sure. If I didn't have to work for money, this whole refit would be a laugh, really. (Brand new Lewmar Ocean hatch in the foreground. Oh yeah!)




10 APRIL The first dry and sunny day on my week off from work. Ansku took time off work and we had a late start. With great fuss and hurry, we managed to grind and prepare the very front of the deck and put the first coat of paint on it. After 5pm the air quickly cooled down to 3 degrees C, but for those few hours it remained warm enough for a quick paint-job.

March 2008

So, where did March go? Who cares. I spent it waiting for spring. Jesus Bloody Hell let me tell ya, This beautiful country of Finland has been put waaaaay too far north. It is a living proof of the amazing and limitless ability of humans to adapt. Somehow the people of Finland are walking past travel agent windows that are filled with posters of tropical beaches. Somehow the people of Finland watch the world on TV and internet etc. and are fully aware of the existance of tropical latitudes. Yet, they don't leave. What makes a man accept something as his destiny? Trust me, once I get my ass out of these latitudes, I'm not coming back in a hurry.

The novelty of reaching a frozen lake above 60 deg north has worn off.
The novelty of Finland has worn off.

So, March went, much like February. Progress in Aliisa is steady but very slow. Depression is always around the corner, playing cat and mouse with me. Fortunately it's not the debilitating type, just makes the tiniest of tasks difficult. It makes a normal day feel like I'm under enormous pressure, running out of time defusing a bomb. Oh, sorry, that's anxiety. I hav'em all, including the enormous joy and excitement of life. Hmm... am I describing manic depression? Nevermind. Bollocks! Back to the story:

Ultrasonic testing the hull
I've got this idea for the future, and it involves setting up my own business and measuring the thickness steel / aluminium hulls on boats. Haven't decided which machine to buy for the job, so I got one for a test-drive. The Olympus MG2DL was a nifty little package. The test machine was not calibrated and I'm not sure if I managed to do everything correctly, but Aliisa's steel hull looks like 3mm plate. (The surveyor in 1998 said it was 4mm under waterline.) The plate was consistently less than 3mm but never less than 2,6mm. Thin? Maybe, but It'll do. It'll have to do.


Aliisa's re-fit news

If I hadn't accepted cruising in an unfinished yacht, I would still be in home port. Now I've slipped into the craziness of trying to finish her again. Sure, I'm under pressure to make the yacht worthy for my wife. Annina is a great lover of things beautiful and her sailing experience is mostly in 50+ ft charter yachts with all luxuries onboard. I've taken too much pressure to present Aliisa as something she's not. In all honesty, she's coming along ok from the inside. The outside is still untouched, and looks hideously horrific!

Old engine panel going
The old "engine switch panel" was pathetic. I'm still no professional, but I like fiddling with electrics. There's always sparks flying and it's fun. ha ha.



New engine panel ready
The new is better, but we'll have to wait until the third attempt, before it's perfect.



The head is now painted, the old Jabsco toilet bowl replaced with a Brydon RM69 model, the hoses replaced and as the icing of the cake, a thirty-dollar plastic folding door installed for added privacy. If I was in sales and marketing, I could call the end result a new soothing enviroment for a complete bowel-emptying experience in a mind-purifying private setting enhanced with the latest materials for your convenience and pleasure. (Cordless drill by Makita. The best.)




It fucking came again! Just when winter was over, Helsinki got hit by a blizard of snow. As I'm writing this, 9 April, the snow is long gone but spring is hardly here. Today, +3 C, very windy and no chance of starting any painting outside.




Time to replace batteries. The old Trojan Deep Cycle were in service for five years and at the end totally dead. The new family is a bit bigger. 4 x 115Ah = 460Ah house batteries, plus one 80Ah starter battery. They are all EXIDE Nautilus Free Line marine batteries. They will be working hard, with two laptops for entertainment, SSB radio for e-mails and communication, as well as an old poorly insulated fridge guzzling up the amps. On the charging side - which is more important - is 4 x 60W panels, one of which has a broken glass and therefore not performing fully. The engine has, I think, a 105 Amp Bosch altenator.




A man who has not gone through the hell of his passions
has never overcome them either.
-Carl Gustav Jung-



February 2008


Tha last (?) visit to Isla de Mama (Ãitsaari) revealed some left behind stores. Some of the tins still in storage were from Cairns. I think all the macaroni from Phil's and mine trip to PNG in 2001 were eaten in the English channel 2006. After a quick inventory, we had about 30kg of old food stock to take away.


February is long gone and I'm only thinking about April. It's mid-March and high time to update February heading. To be honest, things are dragging along. I'm feeling tired and uninspired. I love my job in Maritim, but when I come home I feel bored with life. I surf the net for different trivial info or entertainment (and really appreciate the 1Mb broadband, the cheapest basic stuff that many people in Finland now have in their mobile phones. Annina usually cooks something absolutely amazingly wonderful and either eat with candles and all, or just eat in front of the TV while watching the news, Friends and Simpsons. I drink one, two or three beers. (Oh, and I do the dishes) Sometimes I stay up later and have a vodka orange, but mostly I just stay up until my eyes won't stay open any longer. Annina goes to bed earlier and falls asleep almost as soon as her head hits the pillow. I envy that. I sleep intermittently and lightly, with lots of dreams but waking up tired.

By the way:
All men dream, but not equally.
Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of their minds,
wake in the day to find that it was vanity.
But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,
for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.
- T.E. Lawrence -



winter cycling
Thanks to the relatively mild winter, I've been able to use a bicycle through the year. Just under 10km to work means over an hour a day on the bike. Good for the wallet, good for the environment and good for me!



Annina takes it easy, Aliisa's wheel awaits covering with hide, and the little one-room flat is on the market. The blinds in the windows block out the snowy view, replaced in our minds by swaying palms on a sandy beach under the warm sun.
I'm sure you know the image I'm talking about...



So, it sounds pretty grey and miserable. So it feels. For some reason, I have had no real enthusiasm with the boat. Still, after a few hours of swearing and kicking in side Aliisa, I start to calm down. I might have one beer and play good music, loud. Very loud. Then I feel at home again and start slowly achieving little things. You see, despite a lot of effort, I my concentration is not very good, I scatter my energy onto different things and manage to fiddle with little shit for ages.

March is a promise for better weather. If nothing else, longer days.

January 2008

How fucking difficult can it be? It can be awfully difficult - for me - to get out of bed and get dressed in three layers of clothes, jump on my bicycle and ride 8km to Aliisa. As I climb the ladder, the wind hauls in the boat yard. The winter storm is on, 45 knots from the west, but there's no real winter. Not one flake of snow, the temperature +2 degrees C. Still, inside Aliisa is all but inspiring. It is cold, dark, moist and messy. In order to work, I must keep every hatch firmly shut. How do the Finns ever do this kinda shit, and whenever they manage to get their boats ready and sail out to the big blue, why the hell do they ever come back??!!

I remember, back in Cairns, when I was preparing Aliisa for the trip to Finland. I didn't realise then, what I had. I was living onboard, as I had been since February 1998. The temperature was never less than 15C, usually 25-30 during the day. I woke up onboard and had my coffe at 6am, sitting out on the deck. (Thank's Paula, for all the help too..) I was hard at it by seven and both lunch and dinner was easy at the club next door, the hot shower and laundry next to the boat too. Even when I was working for money, I could do little jobs and continue little projects every night when I got home, with a glass of wine and good music.


Aliisa's mainsail cover under work. I picked up the fabric from an industrial rubbish bin in Port Douglas, Paula designed and made it to a sail cover, sowing by hand. Battered by wind and some of the seams torn, Ansku is giving it a new lease on life with her "new" portable 1970's model sowing machine, which will travel with us onboard.


We hope now to not have the damn winter at all. I like snow and I was quite looking forward to a real winter. But now, all I can think of, is to move back onboard, get the boat ready and go. Ansku is getting ready to sell the flat and we've decided to move onboard in May. So, today I started to pull the aft cabin apart. It is time to get the bedroom ready. The galley is almost finished and the saloon will be liveable soon. The rest of the dirty work is in the front and outside, plus some electrical stuff inside.

Well... there's tonnes more. I'll let you know as we really get to work and stop whining...




Inside Aliisa 20. January 2008. I tend to get paralysed with anxiety and desperation when I step in. I only see the whole chaos and all that has to be done. I seem to be unable to see one - just one - job and concentrate my efforts and thoughts to it. When I manage to do this, I get things done. Other times I fiddle and fuck around, getting very little done. I'm definitely at my best writing job lists. I am sooooo good at it!


SOME OF THE JOBS AND CHANGES FOR ALIISA

2006 2007 NEXT: Departure