Greetings from Åland
Hello Kaisa and Christoffer!
We found your message in a bottle under a pier in Mariehamn on Saturday July 18th. We had just arrived at Åland, and stopped at Mariehamn on our way to Eckerö where we started out a one-week sailing trip.
The message in a bottle was a happy surprise, as we hadn’t really packed anything to read on the trip. There are also many similarities between your paddling trip and our sailing trip. There were a few passages in the story that especially spoke to us sailors:
“There is no denyining it: When we leave the shores behind us we enter a world vastly different from the one we have come to know as our own – here, the laws of the land apply no more. Suddenly the ground is moving, and we are moving with it. It can be unnerving, just like freedom in some way always is. But once we let go of fear and learn to trust that the waves will carry us we will find ourselves dancing on the waves of joy.”
and
“The end of a journey is rarely as wondrous as the journey itself.”
The story also includes things like hope, frustration, joy over little things, becoming enchanted by seals, exceeding oneself and reaching a meditative state, which are also familiar to us from sailing trips. We also admired the illustrations and the richness of the English language.
Thanks for sharing your story with us! We wish you tail wind for your next trip!
