We were up early to limber up for the trek to the showers and having been thoroughly woken up, we felt that we might as well move on, our destination today was the harbour at Kastelholm, 15 miles away. It was slightly overcast initially but quite warm, to become hot later when the sun broke through and the gentle ENE breeze enabled us to average 4-5 knots under sail, so quite an idyllic morning was spent and we arrived at Kastelholm by 12:30.

Kastelholm is situated up a side channel off the almost 100% enclosed inland sea area of the islands called the Lumparn and which was formed as the result of a meteorite collision sometime between 0 .5 and 1.2 million years ago. The vegetation bordering the Lumparn, certainly in the southern parts, consists of dense woodland and these trees, combined with the reeds and rushes that occupy the shallows, make the whole area reminiscent of the Norfolk Broads. I didn't have that much time to consider the scenery, however, as the chart plotter was showing depths of less than a metre under the keel and I was quite nervous at times but we did get in safely, tying ourselves stern to the jetty for easy access.



Soon after we were in, another boat arrived, a Halberg Rassy ketch dating from the 1980’s and helmed by a silver-haired gentleman on his own, so I went to assist with the warps, not that he needed any help as he was obviously experienced in handling his boat. Anyway, after a brief misunderstanding whereby he thought I could understand Swedish, I was invited on board for a beer which I declined, instead inviting him over for aperitifs at 18:00 . More of Lennart Borgström later.

Kastelholm, as the name implies, has a castle. It was built during the late 1200’s to protect the Åland islanders from the unwelcome attention of antisocial foreign elements. It consists of a large granite tower and surrounding brick walls and is in fact, one of the largest medieval castles in Finland. It is one of the biggest tourist attractions in these parts and an additional draw for the hordes is a collection of old Åland buildings, dwellings and farm buildings, that are lovingly preserved and made available to the public, free of charge. All this we discovered by accident, once more, as all we did was set off for a walk to stretch our legs!

We spent a good 45 minutes wandering in and around the various old buildings, delighting in amongst other things, the swallow chicks that were noisily begging for food.. One thing that fascinated me was the smoke sauna. Apparently, it normally was used for preserving food but once a week, the fires were stoked up and the whole village would make use of the hot, smoky interior to clean themselves, using stripped birch twigs (presumably this is where the idea of saunas and whipping with twigs comes from ) . Another interesting exhibit was a farmhouse, owned by someone quite well-to-do. The main bedroom was where the oven was, presumably this was the warmest part of the house and the beds were like large bunks, two across and two high, so the whole family could keep warm. Not the most private of arrangements….

We then went on to the castle. As luck would have it, there was a medieval fair in full swing, with music, jousting and many, many participants dressed in the correct attire for the period. The castle itself was surprisingly well preserved and once again, there were multilingual signs dotted about providing one with interesting facts, such as the imprisonment of one of Sweden’s kings and his wife, one King Erik XIV. I don’t know what he did to deserve imprisonment, but it would have been miserable in the cold, dark castle. From the ramparts one could get nice views of the surrounding waterways and also, from the high ground, a view of the harbour and the two x 18 hole golf courses across the water, where once kings hunted elk . Julie & Rosemary had the opportunity to try on medieval hats (in the children’s section!) and equally childish, I was taken with a display of all of the emblems of Kings and knights, one in particular (see photo).

We’d had a lovely afternoon, once again particularly so as it was unexpected. We also had a great evening , for much the same reasons.

The unexpectedness of the evening started with fish, of the smoked variety. The harbour operation in its’ entirety has been taken over by a couple, the wife of the partnership owns a craft shop in Mariehamn as well, and apart from being clean and well-managed with accessible internet, they sell some goodies, including smoked fish at a given time in the early evening. We bought a perch and another, unknown fish, both of which we had with salad later in the evening. Now the perch was quite nice but the other fish was delicious. Later that evening I enquired as to the fish and the lady went onto the internet and showed me a picture with the Finnish and Latin name of the beast, which I then used to find out more, thanks to Wikkipedia . The name was Coregonus lavaretus and its’ common name is the whitefish. So what I hear you think? Well the exciting thing about the whitefish is that there are races of said fish in numerous deep water lakes throughout Europe and the nearest one to us at home is lake Bala in North Wales, where it is known as the gwyniad. I’ve known about these mysterious fish all of my life and I was really excited to have come across one, even though they are pretty common hereabouts.

However, before we had the encounter with the fish, we had one with a fisherman, one Lennart Borgström, who came over at six with a hot dip, which was delicious, recipe c/o his daughter and is as follows :- one pack cheddar or similar grated cheese, one carton of Philadelphia or similar cheese, one jar of salsa (choose your own heat as you prefer, Lennart had used medium) , one pack frozen spinach and finally Parmesan cheese, all ingredients put in a pan and melted. It was really, really good! And now for the fisherman part and the bit that excited me the most .

 In my youth, I was an avid fisherman and saved up for ages to buy my fishing tackle, in fact I still have one of my reels, an Intrepid Surfcast. Intrepid was an English company that made workmanlike reels but the reels that I lusted after, which were way beyond my price range, were made in Sweden by a company called Abu. And here, in the flesh, was the grandson of the man who founded the company that was later to be called Abu and the son of the man that took the company into the reel market and who made it the household name (amongst fishermen anyway) worldwide. Lennart ran the company for 20 years up until the 80’s, moving to America when Abu merged / took over its’ American distributor Garcia when it went bust and the company was named Abu Garcia thenceforth. Sadly, when his father died he was forced to sell due to the then ludicrous Swedish taxation rules (even the government behind the scenes thought so, offering to lend Lennart the money in which to pay the death taxes rather than seeing the company be acquired by foreign capital but that was the route that Lennart felt forced to take) .

One of the beauties of working for / owning a company that makes a product that is used by the great and the good, is that you get to meet them. In his capacity as CEO, he met presidents, kings, queens, every magnate in the northern hemisphere it seems as well as a smattering of film stars, eg John Wayne. As such, he was a raft of amusing anecdotes and a fascinating pre-dinner companion. Keen for it not to end but not having enough fish to make it a fivesome for dinner, we accepted his invitation for after dinner snifters on his boat, where the conversation continued until late. Once he’d left Abu, not content with sitting about and now based in the USA, he set up a number of companies, capitalising on his Scandinavian links and some of these come to mind, one was a soundproofing company, another was set up to sell scanning equipment at airports and another was for pop-up oven thermometers. Now in his early 80’s I think he has stopped being an entrepreneur but he has so many interests I am sure that he won’t be idle. It was a very great pleasure to meet him and I shall treasure the book he wrote, which details the history of the Abu company and which he kindly gave me a signed copy.