Surviving Helsinki and Getting a Little Rest

After three very busy days in Russia, we were looking forward to a shorter tour so we could relax a little. Sure, it was only a 4 ½ hour tour, but it was Sea Kayaking! And Larry wasted no time, or breath, making sure that everybody on board, save Captain Glenn, knew that ‘She’s trying to kill me!!’ And of course, the Lido guys had to give him one last handshake – just in case.


After a short ride outside of Helsinki to where the kayak company was located, we got suited up. Not as severely as that time in Alaska where Larry thought he looked like the Michelin Man, but we still had the splash skirts and life jackets to get into. Then we were assigned our kayaks. Larry was a little iffy about going by himself originally, but when we found that most of the two-man kayaks were a little short to fit his legs comfortably, he decided to try paddling by himself. As you can see, he got the hang of it pretty quickly…

Our start and end point - looks like Georgian Bay with fewer waves

We paddled a total distance of about 5 km over the 3 hours, with a stop on an island for a snack break – homemade sandwiches and juice boxes. The only person who got wet was our head guide who deliberately rolled his kayak so we could see the wrong way and the right way to turn back right side up. Nobody wanted to test their abilities after that since the water was only (a balmy to the Finns) 10 degrees C.

All in all, it was great fun and Larry had to admit at the end that it wasn’t as scary as he thought it might be. That just means he’ll be up to the challenge next time we have the opportunity to go kayaking….maybe in Antarctica?

Oh, and when we sat down to dinner that night in the Dining Room, Ross from the Lido stopped by, stuck out his hand to Larry and congratulated him on his survival. It made Larry’s evening.

The next day, Friday, was our final sea day for this cruise. The time seemed to have flown by so quickly, that we decided that if we were getting off in Copenhagen, we would have felt gypped out of a proper Crystal cruise. We were so busy every day, and even when we did get some breathing room, we didn’t have enough time to relax. We know, tough life!

We did have a visitor, though.  As the weather was quite nice, we had our balcony door open for a while in the afternoon, and look who decided to stop by:

We didn’t do much – morning lecture, Cuisine of the Sun buffet for lunch, an afternoon lecture on Larry’s schedule but a trip to the Salon for Monica. After all, we had to look particularly spiffy for the formal evening, since we were being presented at the Crystal Society Party for our 20th cruise. That’s why we had gone down to visit Jane earlier in the cruise. Here’s the official photo:

Who knows, we’ll all have to keep our eyes open for the next edition of Passport; maybe the photo will show up in it!

After the party we had dinner with our officer – who had changed after the first formal night as the Chief Accountant went on holiday – and discovered that our officer host was the Chief Accountant we had sat with on two separate cruises before. It was really nice to renew acquaintance with Yvonne.

So much for our relaxing day at sea. Next up is our full day trip to Berlin, the second highlight of this first part of the trip. But we'll finish off with another sunset on our way toward Warnemuende at around 9:45 p.m.