Episode summary:
I travelled to the Åland Islands to spend a day sunbathing and exploring the forest on my very own islet. This is the perfect place to slow down and enjoy nature. The islands are also somewhat quirky: they are technically autonomous and part of Finland yet most people speak Swedish, and they have a weird flag rule.
If you are asking yourself ‘where are the Åland Islands’, ‘are the Åland Islands beautiful’ or ‘are the Åland Islands worth visiting’ this podcast could help you out.
Listen to a podcast about spending a long, mild, carefree summer day on a tiny islet in the Baltic.
Transcript – S3 E2: Rowing to a secret Baltic island
This week we’re sunbathing on an uninhabited islet in the Baltic Sea.
I’m not sure this islet has a name. I can’t find it on my map. That’s fine. In fact, it’s perfect. I love the idea of a little speck of land so small nobody’s bothered to name it. It gives it an air of mystery and exclusivity. In winter, when sub-arctic temperatures freeze parts of the Baltic solid, I’d be able to skate to it from the mainland with ease. But this is late summer and the weather is barmy. So I’m heading to it in a small rowing boat across the stretch of water known as the Kalmaiviken.
I keep a steady stroke. My oars rise and fall and swoosh the water, creating a kind of mantra – a regular, satisfying, watery beat. I circumnavigate the islet first, pausing to observe how the granite superstructure slopes down to the dark water in parts and is overtaken by clumps of reeds in others. As I row along the shore of the back side of the islet – at least I consider it the back side but for all I know it’s the front side – I see there are in fact two islets, one even smaller than the other. My tour is also practical as I’m looking for the best place to land.
I end up mooring by a small rocky beach in the channel between the two islets. From here it’s a two-minute walk through grass, scrub and fir trees to the summit. I call it the summit but it’s really only 30 feet or nine metres above sea level. I lay out my towel in the sunshine, unpack some cured salmon and black bread, and settle in for a thoroughly therapeutic afternoon. There’s little to disturb me but the sigh of the bullrushes in the breeze and the distant call of an eagle hunting further out on the Kalmaiviken. I’m guessing of course because I can’t see the bird but it is making what I’m pretty sure are eagle-y sounds.
A quirky archipelago
I’m in the Åland Islands , midway between Turku in Finland and Stockholm in Sweden. There are more than 6,700 islands, islets and skerries in this archipelago. Some require most of a day to cycle across, while others are little more than large boulders shyly poking their foreheads above the high tide line. Geopolitically, the islands are part of Finland, yet the vast majority of locals speak Swedish. When I was buying my cured salmon from a fish shop this morning, I apologised to the girl behind the counter that I didn’t speak Finnish: “Anteeksi, en puhu Suomea”. It’s about the only phrase I know in Finnish. In perfect English she replied: “No problem, nor do I.”
Yet the Åland Islands are also autonomous. They have their own parliament, car registration plates, flag and internet suffix – .ax, if you’re interested. There are some fabulously quirky laws here too, including one which dictates that every boat must fly the Åland Islands flag during daytime and it must be promptly taken down at sunset. I realise I rode across the Kalmaiviken and around my little islet with no flag. Shameful.
Exploring my little islet
After an hour or two and a bracing plunge into the chilly Baltic, I explored my little islet further. It doesn’t really have paths as such, but I found my way through the birch trees to the northern end – all of five minutes away – and then the eastern side which led me back to my rowing boat.
En route I found a life-buoy hanging in a wooden frame… and a name, ‘Saltholmen’. So this place does have a name after all. I wonder if the smaller island is called Little Saltholmen; I found out later that yes, it is. ‘Lilla Saltholmen’.
Channelling Tove Jansson
Throughout this blissful day I felt at any moment I was going to bump into the ghost of one of Finland’s most revered authors, Tove Jansson. She’s most famous for creating Moomintroll and a host of magical characters who live in Moominland but she was a fantastic nature writer too and wrote ‘The Summer Book’, which I read as I settle down on my towel once more. She writes with incredible colour about the joys of doing nothing on a tiny islet in the Baltic, as the long, mild, carefree summer days continue. Being here, on Saltholmen, I understand exactly what she means.
© copyright Matthew Brace
