| Another demonstration ride.. | |||
| Finally a good weather for hovering. Sun was shining and temperature was quite reasonable ~0C (32F), only light breeze. | |||
| Plan was to spend few hours hovering with a friend of mine, to show him the scenery and give the experience of riding in a hovercraft. | |||
| He did have previous experince in riding a hovercraft, but that was a sligtly bigger craft (one of those crossing the Channel...) | |||
| I was little bit of powder snow we got during the night since it has tendency to find it's way to electronics in the back of the craft causing unplanned stops. And the water had being really high (~120cm (4ft) above normal). | |||
| Actually our trip started already from Pori, some 30km south of hoverport since we drove to hoverport with the same car. It was pretty stuffed with all the gear and 4 week old girl taking the best seat. But we did OK, i think. After borrowing some more gear from my parents we were ready for hovering. | |||
| As usual it was a lot of cleaning before craft could be started that goes with routine now - and keeps you warm i can tell you that ! But soon enough we were on our way. But then i heard my cellphone ringing and had to check that. One of my friends had problems with his GIRLFRIENDS computer (poor guy). Call was cut off due to dead battery (lucky me). Back to hovering. First a short test drive close by to see everything works and functions as it should be and then we took off. | |||
| Powder snow didn't cause any problems and weather was really favourable to us. Although once we got into bay we noticed there was little bit more than just a light breeze, but since the weather was clear it was easy to operate behind the windshield. | |||
| We spend about couple of hours hovering and exploring the archipelago and did 18km total that day. There were few other person enjoying the day too, but not as much as i would have thought. Saw a couple of snowmobiles and few ice fishermen, but no-one on cross country skies. | |||
| After we got back to hoverport we had a pleasant surpise. We were invited to taste the freshly fried smelt (Osmerus eperlanus) as we landed the craft at hoverport. | |||
| We ate quite a few of them and soon it was time for my quest to leave to catch a bus. Original plan was that he would borrow my other car and get back home, but i guess he was scared by the winter tyres i had on it.... | |||
| We drove him to a bus stop and waited until bus arrived, since i wasn't 100% sure about the time tables being up-to-date. | |||
| We drove back to hoverport to pick up the rest of the group and park the craft. Really looking forward to next week because i have a vacation and plan to do lot of hovering weather allowing to do that. | |||