| The Åland Archipelago |
The background
After the finnish civil war there was a conflict about whether the Åland Archipelago would belong to Finland, Sweden or be entirely self-governing.
When the issue of independence first arose the people of Åland first refused to become independent, but wanted instead to be a part of Sweden. There is also no doubt that Sweden had some interests in the archipelago. During the winter of 1917/18, when both "red" and "white" finnish civil war troops had arrived a swedish expeditionary force backed by heavy naval units was stationed on the island. The official aim was to preserve peace in the region and protect the swdish population, but of course Sweden hoped to lay claims on the Åland islands.
In the early months of 1918, however the finnsih government invited aquite strong german force including two battleships to the island, whereupon the swedish force withdrew.
In 1921 both Sweden and Finland agreed to take the matter to an international court. Despite the fact that a referendum had shown 96% of the population to be pro-Sweden, the court decided that the islands should belong to Finland. There were som conditions that had to be filled though:
the islands had to be demilitarized, and the islanders had to be given the opportunity to preserve their own language and culture. As mentioned earlier the islands also work as a selfgoverning state in some matters, including education, culture, medical care, social servises, economical politics, police, postage, radio and television.
Åland today
Åland today is a very pleasant place, at least during the warm months.
The "capital", Mariehamn(10400 inhabitants) is a typical summercity.
A lot of bars and quite expensive, even by swedish standards.
Both finnish and swedish money works fine.
Åland consists of about 6500 islands, and about 40% of the population lives in Mariehamn. The greatest north-south distance on the main island of Åland is 50km, the greatest distance from east to west is 45km.
Åland from a sailors point of view
Both my trips there this summer have been more or less pleasant.
The first time we went there we got pretty rough weather during the crossing. Fortunately the wind was blowing from SW, which meant that it was blowing on our back, more or less. the wind was between 10-13m/s in the beginning, and the waveheight was around 2,5-3m. The waves were short and choppy.
Under those conditions my boat started to rush down the waves, then she ran her nose into the wave in front of her, getting green water over the foredeck, eventually rising againg, shaking the water off and rushing down the next wave. This was awesome sailing, and the average speed was over 6 knots.
When approaching the Åland archipelago it was discovered that we were to far north, which meant that we had to go for a while with the wind from 30 degrees. Simultaneously, the wind increased to about 15m/s. we met another, bigger boat, and now we could see how heavy the sea really was. That big ketch was going by reefed sails, was rolling heavily and the water blowing onto her deck was blowing off just as quick, horisontally. Anyway, wee finally made our way to Mariehamns West Port, where a nice sauna was waiting.
We then spent a week or so touring the archipelago. The weather was generally nice, but at one occasion we had to stay in port, because the wind was around 17m/s, which we felt was to much. At this point another problem arose; money. We were running short on it, and it turned out that despite the fact that the small village of degerby sported two banks, ht eonly credit cards that any of them accepted was Visa, Mastercard and Eurocard.This is a note of warning. If you're going to Åland, have plenty of Swedish or finnish money with you, you're gonna need it!
On the second trip to Åland, the weather was very nice, and we went by spinnaker the entire way across the Åland sea, which is about 30 nautical miles. In fact, the weather was so good that I suffered a heavy waterloss and was feeling naucious on the arrival to Åland.
The day after, we went to Mariehamns East Harbour, which turned out to be a lot better than the west harbour. Closer to the city center and more well sheltered. We then spent 2 nights partying there, and the nightlife turned out to be really good.
The trip back to Sweden turned out to be allright to. There were some doubts as to wether we should cross on that particular day, because there was a warning for mist on the radio, and the wind was weak and not to our favor. We finally decided that it wouldn't be any disaster if we had to spend the night at sea.
we went first north for maybe 10 nautical miles. Then we tacked and turned SW. At the same time the wind turned to almost north, which gave us a pleasant sailing for the rest of the day. We arrived in the swedish archipelago after 13 hours and 48 nautical miles.
When i looked out the day after I was quite happy we had arrived at the swedish side before nightfall, because the mist was so heavy that the other boats in the harbour showed only as darker shadows in the general grey.