I owe this to Viv. Her exquisite photography and stories have inspired me to take this challenge to swim in 31 different waters, in lakes, ponds, rivers and sea in Finland, in 31 days of May. Let’s see what happens! I’ll visit familiar beaches and other beautiful swimming spots, but I’m sure I’ll find new exiting outdoor swimming locations too. It should be easy, because there are 187 888 lakes to explore…
I started this challenge on home ground, swimming in my home lake, in Lake Lohja. The 1st of May is the official spring celebration day, and it was the warmest day since, but I still felt a glimpse of winter in the water. Well, couple days ago it snowed and nights are still very cold. I swam in two locations, first by the so called Jumprock and then on the beach by Nature Reserve area. It was too cold for me to jump off the rock and I just slowly entered the freezing water with a videocamera in my hand. Sand on the beach by the reserve is really fine, and it’s was a joy to walk into the water. Under the sand there’s a thick layer of clay and the water always turns greyish while swimming. I sometimes collect clay and mould animals characters of it.
Trees are still leafless and there’s a vastness in the landscape everywhere.
On the first day I took my SUP board out of winter storage, experimented cameras, adjusted blog settings and wondered where to go swimming the coming days. Good start. The brightest and warmest day of spring.
Location: Lake Lohja (Lohjanjärvi), the biggest lake in southern Finland (122 km², 250 islands and islets).