Great night bad day

On Friday we left Poland heading for the Danish island of Bornholm, 50 miles south of Sweden.
Even leaving Poland had its issues! There is an exclusion zone extending 12 miles off shore starting at the mouth of the river where we last stayed, it is a firing range used I reckon perhaps once a month for a few hours but in what I expect is a last hang over from the communist days it is closed to all traffic 24 hours a day for 5 days a week - rules for rules sake! Our planned course was right across the middle of the exclusion, avoiding it meaning an extra 12 miles added to our 70 mile trip.
Now there is only one thing to do with stupid rules and it doesn't start with 'obey' but having already had one run in with officialdom we pondered upon the consequences of a second! Would they see us on their radar? Would they be bothered to come after us? How fast could they get their boat out to arrest us? Being at least half law abiding citizens (under duress) we plumped for 6 miles off shore before we cut across and off we went.

Just at our turning point we came across a very strange looking sailing boat, it seemed to have a very odd mast and sail shape. As we got close it became apparent that he had lost half of his mast and had made a very effective jury rig to sail him home - wherever he had been it must have been windy!

It was just at this point that we headed into the exclusion zone and crossed our fingers but an hour later we were free from Polish waters without causing an international incident.


We had a terrific crossing in a spanking force 5 wind behind us. It was a lovely night with the moon shimmering on the water and a lot of shipping to keep us alert. We take turns on watch, 3 hours on, 3 hours off. The last few hours were along the west coast of Bornholm arriving in Ronne, the capital of the island at 5am for a cup of tea and a welcome bed.
Saturday was a slow start after catching up some sleep, it was not a good day. We spend most of the day doing, or should I say trying to do jobs. To cut a long story short the catalogue read thus:-
-trip to the shops to buy data sim card for internet - failed after 4 attempts, it seems they don't do them here
-trip up the mast to fix anchor light, no fault found but it still doesn't work
-rewire faulty wifi aerial cable  - failed - new cable too short
-deliberately flattened all batteries to give them a good recharge from the marina mains - upon switching on the charger we tripped the mains
-the water tanks needed filling but our hose was too short, a kindly neighbour helped out with that one
- whilst filling the water tanks water poured into the boat from an unplugged pipe
and the coup de grace,  putting a tin of paint away I dropped it on the floor, the lid came off and spilt white paint all over my beautiful inlaid wooden floor - sorry, no pics, I was a bit distraught! Happily a bottle of turps and a lot of elbow grease removed almost all signs.
It was not the day to buy a lottery ticket!


We are just back from a bike ride today round this lovely island. Rolling countryside with wheat and rape fields, pretty Scandinavian
houses and a beautiful coastline.




                       

Another day another job; I had Mike hang off the boom to estimate how much ballast I would need to correct a list in the boat! (Note how nice and level she is now)



















And a repair needed doing on the mainsail (what a crew!!!)