At some point in time. most teenagers don’t want to join their parents for holidays. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s going to the summer house, sailing or even a trip abroad. Time passes, and suddenly the kids are all grown up and want to return to the abundant serving of food, wine and the peace and quiet of the outdoors.

So we had planned for my daughter to join us in Mariehamn for a few days of sailing back towards mainland Finland. As her partner had a work trip simultaneously, she brought her own dog aboard as well. He is not so accustomed to boat life, and is quite timid during his sail. We had a few beautiful days of cruising through the Åland Islands and into the Archipelago Sea.

We dropped the kids off and it was time to get back into remote work mode. It’s nice to start work at the end of July. Most other people are still on vacation, and you can scroll through your mails and other backlogged work at a leisurely pace. Quickly you have to pick up the pace so that you’re up and running when everyone else comes back.

We did have some blockers coming up in August. Somehow we both had managed to place in-office meetings on several different occasions over the coming weeks. So we had to plan carefully where to be and when, so it would be possible to get to Helsinki. We had to visit Turku again, go to Dalsbruk and stop in Hanko. It also meant really early wake ups for the commutes.

Making the process a bit more challenging, the forecast was promising strong winds again. We needed to find a safe place to be holed up for a few days, close enough to get to the following point where one could with reasonable effort get to Helsinki. Everything is 2-3 hours away by car, so it’s not too bad. But we didn’t have a car and public transport usually goes via Turku. In Dalsbruk, I actually found a rental car, so getting to Helsinki wasn’t that bad. Getting back was more exciting. The break fluid started leaking, and driving on the motorway without breaks, is not something and insurance man working in the claims department was enjoying. Didn’t have to pay for the hire though.

We decided to cut our trip “short”. The last week of August was spent in the Helsinki area, because of office visits, and the first week in September was looking even busier. Why bother, we thought, and so on Sunday the 27th of August we docked in our own spot, in our home marina. A little over 12 weeks of cruising life was over. For the first time in years, I actually didn’t have a physical reaction. I had attained a peaceful state of zen, even though I could have continued. A great experience and we really hoped that we could repeat this in the future.