I will write about my big kayaking adventure from one island to another island that is located in the archipelago. Stockholm has an archipelago that consists of many islands - The Stockholm archipelago of 30,000 islands, skerries and rocks fans out 80 km east into the Baltic Sea from the city.
It has been in my wish list this summer to explore more of the archipelago, and this kayaking trip will cross 3 items off my bucket list:
1) Kayaking over the huge sea from one island to another
2) Camp in the archipelago
3) Sauna and a dip in the waters
The 2-days adventure was to kayak from Ingarö to Nämdö. Ö (pronounced as 'er') means island. We will spend the night at Nämdö. Then, we will paddle back to where we started on Sunday morning and be back at Slussen in the afternoon.
On a beautiful sunny Saturday, 13 of us gathered at Slussen bus station and took bus 428 to Björno Naturreservat (Nature Reserve) which is located on Ingarö. We walked to the place where one rents the kayak from. I have decided to rent a double kayak because I have serious doubts on my kayaking ability over the huge sea. I freaked out when small waves approached me during one of my kayaking sessions in Stockholm. Lucky me to be partnered with an extremely strong Italian guy who is a swimmer and paddles so fast! A double kayak costs SEK1100 which means I paid half of SEK550. We brought our own food, sleeping bag and sleeping mat. I shared a tent with the Italian guy, Dario. Amazingly, the kayak is wide enough to fit lots of stuff. I bought a bigger drybag just to fit in my sleeping bag and sleeping mat.
We are ready now to paddle on the huge wide sea.
The weather was perfect. Sunny. Blue skies. Minimal clouds. I got a bit of suntan too.
We did a 2-hour kayak to our lunch break where we stopped at a random island. A 2-hour kayak felt like forever. We rested for 1 hour. I did not realise kayaking can be so tiring that I wished I brought more food - pasta and pasta. I had two sandwiches instead.
After another 2 hours of kayaking, we reached our destination - Nämdö. Yahoo! We reached by 5pm. Dragged the kayaks to the shore. Set up the tents. Spent an hour to and fro the sauna and the lake - from sweating hot to freezing cold. I did it 3 times, each time longer than the other. It was my first time doing this and this is what Swedes love to do. Take a sauna and dip themselves in the cold waters afterwards. The first time, I had my foot inside and I had to run back to the sauna. The second time, I soaked my entire self in the waters but for 2 seconds only. The third time, I soaked myself for 5 seconds. Haha! An improvement.
We sat around a fire that one of them made to grill their food. They chatted and I was cold although I was in my fleece jacket.
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