Aviation Tour - Maps on www.bankleft.com

To have a look at the millions of Finnish islands between the mainland and Sweden [Aland (with a little cirlce over the first 'a' so that is sounds like "Orland")], we've flown to Kumlinge (pop. 390, but it feels as though we have seen the same 10 people 3 times each) which is a classic Borderland. We love Borderlands. This one is Finnish territory, Swedish language, Euro but also Swedish Krona in circulation, many Estonian and Latvian (though mainly Finnish) holidaymakers and the ubiquitous smoked fish. Mmmm smoked Fisk as they call it. I'm expecting Okinawan life expectancy after the quantity of fatty acids I've eaten in the past week. Not having much Hungarian, we can't interpret the Finnish language in the way that we (i.e. Helen) can in Sweden with an English and German background.

Flags - Kumlinge, Finnish, Swedish;

Kumlinge Runway;

There have been a few showers coming through in the past 24 hours but this has turned out to be a great place to hole up – a 600m (medium short) hard runway with no controled airspace, flying club or resident planes. Nothing in fact, except a radio nav range at one end of the runway, the water at the other and a small open hut with a desk, couch and power. Bonus, no tent for a few nights.

Yesterday we flew 30 minutes over to the largest island in Aland, Mariehamn for the day. Helen was practicing co-ordinated turns and we thought we might as well go for a cycle around the big town there to get a feel for where most people go. The architecture is fairly bleak. They don't seem to have let any weight of prefernce for historical style stop them from embracing modernism and half a century on, the streetscapes make you feel as thogh you are only 800km from St. Petersburg. Which we are.

Shipwreck. I was under Sweden's controlled airspace here and when I turned around to look at this, the controller asked me 'Oscar Lima, are you climbing?' with transport jets on frequency high above us forming most of her workload, she laughed when I replied 'Negative, maintaining 2,200 ft, making single right hand orbit to, ah, inspect shipwreck';

Crankshaft;

Mariehamn - the largest island in Aland;

Typical summer houses: