Vindon our sails

We have been watching the weather forecasts for the past few days as today has been predicted to be the last sunny day of our trip and since we brought our boats with us all this way and we have been waiting for an opportunity to get out on the water it seems that the stars were aligning. We were very happy to wake up to the blue skies and calm water outside our window. There was no great rush though as we had all day. So at about 11ish we started getting ready, it is a bit of a hassle getting the boats organised, pumping them up etc but we each took on our roles and we got mostly done and then realised we were one paddle short. Luckily the campsite where we are staying hires out kayaks and so we were able to get one from here. Then we were all ready to go except for our last minute safety checks, we had a 10 minute conversation about which of our several waterproof containers we should put our van keys in, amongst several other considerations. I feel like the Titanic was able to get out to sea quicker, although to be fair that didn’t end so well, so maybe it was a good thing to be so cautious. I clipped up my life jacket and noticed that it was for 60-80kgs, after all the cakes we have been having lately I wouldn’t stake my life on being within this range, although apparently I was going to have to as it was the only one we had.
We were ready to go, finally, so we set off. It didn’t take us long to get our rhythm going and it was not too tough as there was not much wind and the sea was reasonably calm, although Leggy decided she wasn’t a big fan of being on the water so she wasn’t much help to Tate so they were a bit slower than us, meaning we needed to let them catch up a few times. There are a few small islands around here, although some of them are not much more than rocks. Fun fact, Sweden has the most islands of any country in the world, today we kayaked around 5 of them. After about 30 minutes on the water we spotted a beach and made for it. I was very thirsty and asked for some water, at which point we realised we hadn’t packed any. We were all agreed that it was the water man’s fault. Then a discussion ensued where Allegra explained how you could boil sea water and collect the condensation if we were really desperate. I checked, but unfortunately we had not brought the kettle either. Never mind, we had another spectacular sandwich for lunch with a little rower’s chocolate as well, which is surprisingly similar to walker’s chocolate. We relaxed for a short while but a couple of members of the crew needed the toilet, not the sort that the sea could be useful for and so we had to head back to our campsite which wasn’t too far as we could take a bit of a shortcut. This allowed the crew to relieve themselves and also some water to be collected. Back on the water we made for an island although once we got up close we didn’t fancy the look of it too much but no problem, we could see another beach in the distance and made for that. We pulled up our boats and rested up on the rocks, I even jumped in the sea for a bit, although it wasn’t that great as there was a bit of long seaweed about and it was a little discomforting to swim through. So, back on the boats it was, heading for our original lunch spot which was a very nice setting, an island in a figure eight shape with a beach on either side of the narrow part and some grassiness and pine trees in the middle. We mostly just lay about, I could almost have fallen asleep there. Time to head back though and Jess was keen to swim, but she discovered the same issue that I had earlier with the seaweed so decided the boat was the best option.. We had some even calmer conditions for our return so we were back soon enough, feeling very wind blown and like we had had a day on the sea. Which of course, we had.
After getting back and getting everything packed away, which is even more of a hassle than getting it out we decided that we should make use of some of the other camping entertainment we had brought. So we had a quick game of Kubb with the twins wiping the floor with us then some frisbee, we decided to count our throws and catches to see how high we could get, a miserable 12 was our best. The problem was we had to throw it to Jess every fourth go and I kept throwing it too hard. Then Allegra stepped on the frisbee, it broke, and that was that. A quick kick around of the football and we had made use of everything, so it didn’t feel like such a waste of time to bring it all.
We are moving on tomorrow but have really enjoyed our time here at Vindon, it’s a really lovely spot and the weather has been kind to us and we have been able to really make the most of itRead more