My stay in Obbola became a bit longer than planned. After the first night at the buoy I moved into the little club marina. I was back and forth about where to go from here, but after talking with the the local sailors, I decided to skip going south on the Finnish side. The waters there are very shallow, so either one has to go far out at sea or strictly stick to the buoyed fairways. The latter alternative would most likely mean a lot of motoring since the prevailing wind is from the south and with diesel price at 3 euro per liter I ruled that out.

I was tempted to go all the way up to the end of the Bothnian Bay, but that would mean a long transport sail until I reached the archipelagos up around Luleå and Haparanda, and then probably beating against the wind when returning.

Strong winds gave me the whole weekend and Monday to ponder upon these alternatives, but today Tuesday I decided to start going south again.

Obbola is 20 km from Umeå, the biggest city in Northland with about 90 000 citizens. It is an university town, but also with big industries in the nearby towns. Obbola, and Holmsund on the other side of the Ume river estuary, have big paper mills, so the surroundings are a bit industrial here, but one doesn't have to go far to see beautiful nature, both inland and at sea.

Westerly winds are forecasted in the morning tomorrow, then backing to southerly, so I will try for an early start and hopefully reach Järnäsklubb before the windshift, only 23 miles.