At the summer time one might not have all the time in the world to do what ever they want to do, when ever they want to do it… Sometimes that means that one needs to go out when the weather is not the bestest, as it might be the only option in that month or so.

I was looking the forecasts from Fmi, YR.no and Windy, for the last weekend of June, as it was my only option to go out kayaking within couple weeks and the conditions were border-lining.

My destination was the Päijänne national park and more specifically the island of Kelvenne, (in)famous for the badger population living in there and sometimes causing havoc amongst the campers.

The weather forecast was predicting some average winds of 5-6 m/s (10-12 kn) and gusts of around 10 m/s (20 kn). So even the lake is wast and has large fetch, is should be doable, especially when one can use the islands and the shore lines as wind cover.

I drove to a small camping site and walked the rocky path to the shore line to check the lake. There were some scattered whitecaps visible, but looked like the trip was doable. Also the weather was predicted to calm during the evening and night, so the next day should be nice and sunny.

I carried my trusty Boréal Design Inukshuk (aka Riot 17) to the shore line and started packing. This 17 foot touring kayak should be able to handle this weather.

Looking at the lake before the launch.

I had a action camera sitting at the deck of my kayak, as I wanted to record the adventure. But as with the nature always, it can give you a bit more that one asked for.

Even tho the weather looked reasonable, and at the end it was, my recording gear was not prepared for the about 0.5 meter moderate chop and some occasional white caps that swept over my bow and kayak deck several times.

Even tho the Inkshuk could handle this weather and the waves, the water washed more than few times over the deck while the bow buried it’s way through the waves.

Everything else was ok, but my action camera did not have water proof housing and it took some damage from the waves splashing over it and wetting it completely. The camera is IP53-rated for dust and water splash/light rain resistance, meaning it’s water-resistant but not waterproof and cannot handle submerging, what kinda happens momentarily when a wave washes over the camera.

During the trip I recorded several hours worth of video and after many days of salvage work I was finally able to recover only few frames from the broken videos.

The water damage had caused the reservation table of the SD-card to explode and that led to a situation where the camera wrote the video blocks allover the card and there was really no way to salvage the videos after I got back home.

For the nerdier readers: as I popped the card into a card reader at home and got the message that the card is not readable. I immediately did an image backup of the card using dd and placed the sd-card on the side. Then I poked the image with simple commands like grep, string and Binwalk. - I found the file start points and containers with hex editor, and the sizes of the files. But after couple days of writing scripts with the help of AI tools and using paid programs like Disk Drill and Recovery Pro Deluxe, provided by Sandisk, I was only able to recover some single frames of the videos recorded. - The problem was that the reservation table destroyed the camera did not write the video files as linear blocks, but the blocks were all around the card and basically unrecoverable with the tools I had.

But the experience of paddling in a bit more rough weather was empowering and even tho I lost the video material and maybe also a camera, it bonded me deeper with the kayak and what we can do and survive together. I’m still learning and the goal is to be able to do kayaking trips at the sea waters of the Finnish archipelago and coastal lines.

The first part was about 3.5 km of padding against a strong head wind in a moderate chop. As the wave length in a lake like Päijänne is usually shorter than the length my kayak the boat just plunged it’s way through the waves coming at me. And that also contributed to the resistance, as the kayak didn’t glide over the waves, but pushed through many of them coming at it. – The headwind was actually so strong that if I stopped paddling for a moment for some reason, I started to glide backwards and had to put some extra effort to get me moving again forward.

As I got past the peninsula tip and turned north-east, I was paddling in a strong side wind and fighting the waves hitting the side of the kayak. My destination was a camping site a bit more to the east of the point where I landed. I was a bit tired fighting the wind and the waves and decided to make a landfall at the beach here. Didn’t want to try to go around the small peninsula east of the point where I landed. – This leg took me about an hour to paddle. And that’s way less than the +6 km per hour that I can do in a calm weather.

The beach was nice and I was there all alone.

Welcome to Kelvenne. ❤

Took some pics and vids at the shore with my cell phone, so all was not lost with the water and waves hitting the camera on the deck.

The kayak all open and drying in the warm weather of the evening. – I did get my clothes wet and even with the spray skirt and high tube, I took some water in to the cockpit, but nothing serious or anything that one should be worried about. – The evening was warm so the athletic base layer that I was wearing dried fast on me.

Set up my trusty old tarp and hammock…

…and started to prepare some late night supper.

Slept well in the hammock listening the wind and the waves crashing into the shore.

At the next morning the weather was calm and beautiful.

The launch at the morning…

Paddling around the rocks.

Calm and cloudy morning – a nice weather for a kayak trip.

Heading past the north end of the Kelvenne, towards the Hietasaari.

Passing the Papinsaari I found the wind conditions at the west side of the island way more comfortable, so I took a turn back.

Took a break at the Hietasaari. – About 4 km trip done in about 45 min.

There were some other boats also at the shore and the 17 feet kayak looked so tiny when parked in there. – In the pic above I’m leaving the Hietasaari for the about 6 km leg back to the starting point of my adventure.

Took me about an hour to paddle back in a nice weather. Lake was calm and only couple other boats were seen. – Took the first half bit more relaxed speed and then after passing the peninsula I pushed the kayak a bit more for the last part.

Couple frames that I managed to salvage from the SD-card.

Nice weather to paddle.

The day 2 was a nice experience. The fatigue of the previous evening was about gone and paddling the almost 10 km in couple hours was easy task to accomplish.

Back at the starting point. – Some other people were also there camping and eating and enjoying the beautiful day.

Was an interesting trip and again I learned some more valuable lessons about me and about my gear. – The Inukshuk is a beast of a kayak at 17 feet length and about 30 kg in weight. It plows through some heavy chops and I was able to trust it doing it and bringing me back home.

The action camera incident bothers me a bit, but I will survive. I need to get a new one with a water proof housing, as water does some bad things to the electronics. I trusted that the camera would survive couple splashes, but was not expecting the waves hit over it repeatedly. I have not ridden this kayak in this high winds and waves ever before, so was not expecting the bow to plow so deep through the waves and that causing the waves to wash over the deck. – But now I know.

Everything else worked just fine and 7/5 would do it again soon.

So until next time…