Santa Lucia 2011

 Santa Lucia 2011

Traditional paddling since 2010! Well, you´ve got to repeat an event if you want to call it a tradition. This year we were 5 paddlers who set out on a 2,5-hour-trip in the inner archipelago. Martin Wahlin and Henrik Fält came paddling in their kayaks from Amundö and Skintebo, while I, Mats Lindström and Håkan Stavmyr launched at Billdalsbadet. As you can see on the picture below the storms lately have destroyed parts of the Marina. We were lucky finding some hours of relatively calm waters on Sunday 11 December.

Mats Lindström at Billdalsbadet

What's so interesting? Killingsholmen?

Martin in his lovely Santa Claus hood and Henrik

Sheltered bay at Aspholmen

 We gathered at 13.30 and decided to go south for approximately one hour before having a break at one of the small rocky islands around. On our way we passed some old huts and paddled through some passages. We went in to Södra Småholmarna in order to see whether it was possible to come out on the west side since there's been quite high waters lately (not like in Anglesey!). Here HW would not be up to 10mtrs, but perhaps 1.0 above normal. Today it wasn't that high so we had to go out on the south side as usual.
Coming out of these islets we noticed that Graffiti can be found everywhere, not only on concrete walls in the city centre or in the suburbs.

"Honk if your horny"

Interesting to notice when somebody really struggles to paint Graffiti, tags or similar, is that they sometimes fail when it comes to spelling or grammar. It doesn't really matter, perhaps they do it on purpose in order to annoy people. Just a reflection out of the blue.

Landing on Great Leaf Island (Stora Lövö!!!)

We had some Santa Lucia buns and ginger cookies together with the traditional GLÖGG (no alcohol) before singing Santa Lucia in Italian: "Sul Mare Luccica/l'astro d'argento/placida e l'onda/ prospero e il vento/ Venite all 'agile/barchetta mia/Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia" etc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgDPc0wTxO8&context=C22cc3ADOEgsToPDskK79Ia6y8yoqUX1e1DN5ofF Mats recorded our song and we do apologize about our intonation and any inconvenience or song my cause to our paddling friends and the rest of the world...especially our Sicilian friends Gianfranco, Pepe and Francesco who organised a paddling in Siracusa on the same day.
If you prefer a better interpretation, don't hesitate listening to Caruso on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLNcxsykTX0

Martin is enjoying the taste of the home made Lucia buns with saffron.

After having sung we felt relaxed and pleased with what we had done.

 Well, the weather doesn't permit you to stay too long a time without exercising, so it was time to launch again.

"Hi, Look how macho I am managing to carry my own South African Kayak on slippery rocks!"

After some strokes you got the nice and warm feeling again. Time passes quickly when you're having a good time. It got dark pretty fast but we had brought some light (in the spirit of Santa Lucia).

Henrik "Santa Lucia" Fält

Mats & Henrik in a passage outside St Varholmen

 We paddled between Ryggåsholmen and Byggholmen before we said goodbye to Henrik and Martin at Skintebo. We landed at Billdalsbadet at 4.30 P.M and decided that this now was a tradition and that we next year might go to Sicily, if not at Lucia, definitely some other time.
Happy X-mas from all of us to all of you...

Well, that's me...getting older day by day!

  /Mikael Svalstrand, MAREMOTU SEA KAYAK BILLDAL
ps. Some extra stuff, 15 seconds of the Swedish version, while paddling... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOVo0E9cync&feature=context&context=C22cc3ADOEgsToPDskK79Ia6y8yoqUX1e1DN5ofF