All at sea - blogging from the Baltic

Viking Line ferries have wireless internet - hurrah! Hence blogging from the middle of the Baltic is now technically possible. I left Helsinki amongst some pretty dramatic summer thunder storms.

Out at sea it is calmer and the sunset was rather pretty. Tomorrow, Sweden and then the rest of of Europe.


The ferries between Sweden and Finland are always slightly bizarre experiences - I don't think that they show either country in the best of lights, but perhaps it is all the more truthful for that reason. I quite enjoy it as a once-a-year type of experience - but I think my idea of hell might be being condemned to being in a Baltic ferry disco listening to cover versions of Abba song for the rest of eternity.

Learning to ride

This month's Guardian Bike Podcast has a wonderful report at the end of an initiative to get mums riding bikes in East London (it starts about 20 minutes into the programme). The area of Tower Hamlets is, I think the poorest area of the UK and has a connected problem of child obesity. Local authorities are trying to promote cycling and walking to counteract this to some extent. They found that many parents were very supportive of their kids doing this but had no experience themselves of ever riding bikes themselves. Almost all the women concerned were from Bangladeshi or Bengali families, and said traditionally women just didn't ride bikes. But their clear joy and excitement is just lovely. If you ride it will remind you just what a simple pleasure cycling is, and if you don't - I'm sure their pleasure will still bring a smile to your face.

High summer on Kustavi

The summer slides by. The days started getting shorter over a week ago although you wouldn't notice it yet. There is something about the almost non-existent nights that seems to stop me from sleeping at normal times, I stay up into the early hours then want to sleep late into the morning. But summer is a time to do things, so this weekend I went to Kustavi, an island just off south west Finland to brave the heat and climb.

Orchids at Pärkänvuori

The first stop was Pärkänvouri with its plentiful moderate routes and enough shade and breeze to stop the heat from being oppressive.

Me in a crack at the aptly named Kräkiniemi, Apollo, 5 (HVS 5a)

After a good afternoon we watched the first half of Germany beating Argentina whilst eating burgers in a petrol station café before heading to a camp-site to pitch our tents. After a refreshing dip in the sea we headed to Kräkiniemi for a full evening of climbing. The evenings never really end, and we left the crag at 11 pm and headed to our tents.

Sunset at midnight over Mussalo

Time for tape - Tony gets ready to do battle

Sunday morning dawned clear and hot and the sun was on my tent at 4 am. I ignored the building warmth and went back to sleep until a more reasonable hour. We brewed coffee on the Jetboil and ate cornflakes watching the turns dive for fish out on the water. We decided to head to Riskeläisvuori to climb, on the basis that if it got too hot we could go for a swim in the sea below the cliff.

Using the tape. Tony on Pajavasara, 5 (HVS 5a).

Anni topping out on Volter Kilpi, 5- (VS 4c)

Tony enjoying Jätekuilu 5- (HS 4a)

We did a handful of routes - as ever with Kustavi, some were hard for the grade whilst others felt easy. My highlight was leading Jätekuilu, a technical chimney climb deep inside the cliffs big fissure. Falling off it - well, out of it more accurately - would be hard, but upwards progression came from wiggling more than climbing. I grazed my nose at the narrowest point. Cavers will understand.

Summer, it's hot and there are lots of mosquitoes, but otherwise its great.

In the afternoon we did one route at Haukvuori, but as most of the cliff was like an oven in the sun we went back to Pärkänvuori but to its imposing and shady north side.

Trad Master. And Tony.

The fissure of "Trad Master" has to be perhaps the best line in Finland. Utterly nuts, but a route that deserves some international attention.

Me starting up Friends will be Friends, 5 (HVS 5a)

Tony climbed one powerful line and then I tied on to try "Friends will be Friends". This turned out to be a great route, starting with a wide crack to layback and jam before narrow cracks cut back left across an overhanging head wall.

About to finish Friends will be Friends

I'm rubbish at anything overhanging, but the hand jams and the gear were so good up there that even I couldn't fall off. A fitting end to a great weekend. Thanks to Anni for taking the photos that I appear in.

Mid-'summer'

Today is the longest day of the year but midsummer didn't seem quite the right term for this morning. It was grey, cool and drizzling as I cycled in to work and I arrived with wet socks and soggy butt. Delightful. Why is it called "midsummer" when most of summer comes well after it? Why not "mid-year"?

Soggy Kruununhaka (downtown Helsinki)

Saturday climbing

I went climbing at Haukkakallio on Saturday with Tommi and Hannamari, some friends of friends who I had promised to give a day of unofficial 'guiding' to. Haukkakallio is great for beginners as it has a number of perfectly nice but reasonably easy routes to start on, and my 'instructees' put in a fine performance and got a good number of routes each. Another pleasant surprise was Anni and Toni turning up at around lunchtime, having gotten up a bit late for their plan-A crag further to the north. Apologies to Tommi and Hannamari for not getting any photos of them. My excuse is that I was too busy belaying!

Anni in the harness she borrowed from me because, being quite pregnant, hers no longer fits but still cranking hard on Spanalot 6a. Please feel free to make the obvious joke about how my donut consumption means my harnesses fit pregnant women.

Toni on one of the crag's new additions Jontikka 5+ (HVS 5b-ish?).

Yours truly about to plop unceremoniously off a new sports line Massikka 6b whilst trying to on-sight it. I'm wearing a pair of Scarpa Force shoes that I just received to review for UKClimbing. I climbed comfortably all day in them and they worked fine on the routes you see above - so not a bad start.

Tony on Jontikka 5+; just so his climbing mates can see he can still trad climb! ;-)

Dedicated readers of this blog (I love you!) might remember the missing pizza post from a couple of years ago. Basically in my continuing love/hate relationship with Finnish roadside food, I noted a petrol station café near Loviisa that had seemingly a menu of four things according to the hoarding sign on its outside: "Steaks, pizza, burgers, lunch". But when we went in they didn't actually do pizzas. The original picture I took is this:

Well, we dropped by the same place yesterday on the way home from the crag and I happened to notice the pizza listing is now missing. I wonder how many disappointed pizza fans had to point this out before someone got the can of yellow paint out?

But not wanting to be only snarky and negative, I heartily recommend their home-made donuts to all passing hungry travellers. Mine was great, and with at EUR 2.50 for the coffee and donut combi-package, a steal as well.

Yummy.

6 year olds are hard to impress

A discussion with a six-year old:

6 Yr-old: "Do people eat other people?"
Me: "No, not any more but there used to be people who did - they are called cannibals."
6 Yr-old: "What do cannibals do?"
Me: "Well, they eat people."
6 Yr-old: "Yeah... but what else do they do?"

On Somalia and relatively cuddly pirates.

This week's bedtime reading - because this is just what a crazy guy I am - has been the most recent International Crisis Group report on Somalia, called "Somalia's Divided Islamists". It is, as ever, fascinating and once again reminds me that first thing to understand about Somali politics is that don't really understand Somali politics. Fortunately the Crisis Group has some people who really do and can thus help the rest of us.

Anyway - on a vaguely related note - this week's This American Life was on the theme of hostages. They open with an interview with commercial hostage negotiator and anti-kidnapping trainer. Ira asked him where in the world was the best place to get kidnapped if you really had to get kidnapped and held hostage. His advice was Somali pirates seem to be the least interested in hurting their hostages of all the various political and professional kidnapping rackets around the world. Perhaps they know that pirates these days are the fun-loving characters of a million nautically themed childrens books and want to conform to the stereotype. Expect eye-patches and comedy inflatable parrots next.

Climbing at Angelniemi

Angelniemi is a crag for all season - the most reliable ice around Salo in winter and some great sport climbing in summer. Anni, Tony and I went over from Helsinki and met Dave who was coming from the west.

I decided that if I want to get some good photos it time to get serious and try something a bit more technical so took a spare rope and jumars with me. I'm pretty happy with the results and, to be honest, jugging up and sliding down the rope a few times was good fun.

Dave on Lähetysseura ("The Mission") 7a+

Dave and Tony both put in cracking efforts to climb this very nice looking route up a fine red wall of granite.

Dave again on Lähetysseura, 7a+

Tony's turn, same route

Lähetysseura from below. 20 metres of powerful and balancy granite wall climbing.

Tony on Kaisanprojekti ("Kaisa's Project"), 6b

I fell off the crux of Kaisanprojekti last year and bashed my hip up, so both wanted to do it and was a bit scared of it at the same time. A long sling clip-sticked to the crux bolt sorted that out and I found a ridiculously tenuous stemming method to avoid laybacking the crux that I'm to pathetically weak to do. I got it on my third redpoint attempt including the use of the the "crouching tiger, hidden dragon flying kung fu move" higher that totally made my day.