HOWDY, BIRDERS
Welcome to the summer of 2014. I've had a little sabbatical from the blog lately. However, this does not mean that I've been idle! I shall do my best to catch up on travels in Greenland, German, Austria and Hungary soon. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy your summer.
Keep in mind that it is time to book your pelagic trips for this fall, though. Trips begin on 20 & 26 July with departures from Half Moon Bay. A few trips are nearly sold out. You can see the Shearwater Journeys's complete schedule, here.
Above, is one of 27 MIDSUMMER POLES that I saw being erected on the Aland Islands in 2014.
Each village has a unique pole which is decorated and put up on Midsummer's Eve.
In the image, above, men are using pulleys to stand the pole on end.
This took nearly 2 hours. All the while CORN CRAKES were calling in the nearby meadow!
The pole is a straight pine tree and remains up for the entire year.
Poles are multi-layered, each layer having a meaning.
This pole had sailboats, appropriate for this island archipelago consisting of some 6,700 islands and skerries.
These islands lie at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea and are populated by Swedes.
The main island is separated from the coast of Sweden by only 24 miles of open water to the west.
The Aland archipelago is contiguous with the Finnish Archipelago Sea. It is an autonomous state, although it is technically part of Finland. Most people speak Swedish and some, English.
Spending Midsummer here in 2012 was a magically time, hopping from skerry to skerry by ferry!
See you out there,
Debi
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