Visiting one of the southernmost parts of the Finnish Archipelago! [Part 1]

Hey everyone,

As some of you may have noticed I have been a bit absent from Steemit for the last couple of days. I was actually visiting a friend of mine on one of the southernmost islands of Finland called "Utö". I guess you could call it a short vacation.

The island has a really interesting history and it's been inhabited since around the 17th century. Back then it was a key point for fishermen, pilots and the military. In later times the Finnish military has used the island up until the year 2005 when they officially left the island and it is now at the hands of the ~50 people that live there around the year.

Without going too much into the history of the island I mostly wanted to share some pictures I took there and share my experience of visiting this beautiful island in the middle of the sea.

You can go to the island by boat if you own one but otherwise you have to ride a "ferry" that goes there once a day. It takes about four and a half hours to get there and the ferry stops at 4 other islands on the way.

This is one of the islands we went by on our way to the final destination.

This is the first island we passed on the way and it's a similar island where people have decided to build summer cottages and relax during the warm summer months. The islands are all pretty low except for one or two small hills here and there.

This is the second island we stopped by to pick up and drop off people.

The other island was about two and a half hours into the trip and after we left this one it was finally time to go to Utö, the final island!

When we first arrived it was very sunny and you instantly notice the silence out there compared to at home. The only thing you can hear are the birds and the ocean. These are the first photos I took while on Utö and it's almost in the center of the island where most of the buildings are and they even have a small grocery store.

It was super relaxing once we arrived and started walking around. We went to my friends cabin first of all and dropped off all our stuff and then my friend showed me around a bit. I had told him that I wanted to try and take a lot of photos so he took me to the places he thought were best for that. Starting off with this small red house on the rocks.

The island is very important for seafarers since it's next to one of the main fairways for maritime traffic so of course there's also a lighthouse on the island and a base for pilots (maritime pilots that is).

I kinda wanted to climb up on the lighthouse but unfortunately that is not allowed and I'm kind of scared of heights so we didn't do that. Probably a good idea since it was just a rusty ladder on the outside of it and it just all felt kinda dangerous.

This is the last photo I took on the first day on the island and it's from the south side. If you look closely at the image on the far left side there is an old ship that sunk a long time ago and you can still see parts of the hull.

So that was my first day on Utö and I wanted to share it with you. I hope you like the pictures and if anyone happens to be on their way to Finland by boat then I definitely recommend you do a pit stop at this beautiful, relaxed island.

Hope everyone is having a good week so far and see you tomorrow for the second part of my trip where we went to see the other side of the island which has almost no buildings except for the bunkers and it's completely filled with birds at this time since it's hatching season for most birds. We also explored one of the bunkers and found something pretty creepy in the end of it. Stay tuned for more on that tomorrow!

Peace out, Strawhat