I do believe I’ve finally reached the end of my posts about Helsinki last May! This last one is about my boat trip around the bay and the islands. I said a couple of posts ago that I like to see a city from the water. If a boat trip it possible, I will almost always do a boat trip and the one I chose for Helsinki was… well, it was the one departing next from the quay next to the Market Square. There was no real thought process. I went out with Stromma on their City Highlights tour.
It was May. It was mostly sunny. But “Baltic” means “freezing cold” for a reason. Most passengers sat inside but I’m a deck kind of girl. I sat outside and I was going to stay there, come rain or shine. I did stay there come rain or shine. But I was glad to grab one of the blankets left folded in piles on the seats and if I’d been using my brain, I’d have grabbed a second. And it did rain. I shoved my bag with its non-waterproof contents under my feet and under the blanket and sat there with gritted teeth, determined that the rain wouldn’t beat me. It didn’t. But the air was cold even on land, so it was freezing out on the water, and the rain really didn’t help. If you’re going on a Helsinki boat trip, take warm clothes and waterproofs, even in summer.
We headed west out of the city towards Munkkisaari, the peninsula which blocks the cruise terminal from the sight of the city, on the shore of which is Löyly, the big public sauna. Then we squeezed back between islands into the area visible from the Market Square and skirted along the edge of Suomenlinna and a couple of more peaceful islands, apparently used as artist’s retreats and quiet places where you can appreciate nature.
We crossed the bay over towards Kulosaari, which I think is the island where all the rich people have their car-free summer homes, round nature reserve Mustikkamaa, where the zoo’s car park is, and round the zoo before following the coast of Katajanokka back to the Market Square. Sounds quite simple. Took an hour and a half or two hours and gave us a close-up views of the King’s Bridge project that’s going to connect several of the islands by tram and bike to the mainland. Most of them are going to be car-free, for what it’s worth. New infrastructure, new bridges – doesn’t necessarily mean more traffic.
Helsinki is like Venice – or perhaps more like Stockholm. It’s all built on interconnected islands. Tourists don’t generally make their way further than Suomenlinna so it can be easy to not notice that. I would barely have noticed that if not for the boat trip. Island after island, some just rocks sticking out of the water, some still small enough to be visibly islands and some large bustling city districts that happened to not quite be joined to the other districts. They each have their own individual character which widens Helsinki beyond merely the Neoclassical peaceful city centre that you picture when you think of Helsinki. Yes, there’s that island that’s basically a garden. There’s that island that’s for rich people to have boats moored at the end of the garden. There’s the one with the huge red brick industrial building along it. There’s the one with the marina. There’s the one with the zoo.
Speaking of the marina, did you know that all boats have to be hauled up and stored on land during the winter? The Baltic freezes up here and boats caught in the ice can get smashed when the ice contracts and crushes them. It’s not just the practicality of “you can’t get it out”, it’s that it’ll likely be damaged or destroyed if you leave it there. I assume this goes for all boats. Does the Suomenlinna ferry still chug back and forth throughout the winter? Well, it did in November 2008 when I was there. Of course, the icebreakers go out and about. They don’t need to worry about getting frozen in overnight – but then, they’re probably not brought back to their pen overnight. They probably spend the entire winter zigzagging across the Bay of Bothnia, if not half the Baltic.
That was probably my favourite bit of the tour, getting up reasonably close to the Finnish icebreaker fleet. There aren’t many of them, five or six maybe. Some of them are yellowish with black hulls. The newer ones are white with navy hulls and blue Finnish flag striped painted across them. They look very top-heavy but I bet there’s a lot going on under the surface because these things, with their reinforced bottoms, can cut through unimaginable depths of ice. Polaris, the newest, delivered in 2016, is powered by either low-sulphur marine diesel oil or LNG. The older ones are all diesel-electric. I’ve had a quick look through the fleet to check that because the words “nuclear” and “icebreaker” are kind of synonymous in my mind but it turns out none of the Finnish ones are nuclear-powered. As far as I can see, it’s only Russia that has nuclear icebreakers. It turns out that if you walk along the back of Katajanokka, past the marina, you come to a nice piece of grass where you can sit on dry land and admire the icebreaker fleet.
If you’re not into heavy shipping infrastructure, a Helsinki boat trip will also give you great views of an assortment of islands and of the city from the water. It’s always interesting to see a city from the water, to see what the skyline looks like when you’re not directly below it, to see the bits of the city you haven’t wandered out to yet and so on. My understanding of the Helsinki boat trips is that they’re all basically the same, so there’s no need to get attached to one particular company, you just go on the next one that’s departing. There are a couple of exceptions to that. There are boats that do pizza parties or champagne or play music and there are probably some that specifically do sunset tours. If you’re after something like that, then definitely be picky but if you’re like me and you’re just after a pleasant boat trip of an afternoon, just go with whatever’s ready to depart. Stromma was nice. The boat next door was probably just as nice. But do take extra warm clothes and grab a blanket.