Poland bound

I arrived at the boat on the east coast of Sweden on Tuesday evening 19 May to find her in the water with her bottom painted and mast up as planned. A couple of days work had the rigging sorted, engine serviced  and ready for off when Mike arrived on Thursday. We set off  on Friday heading for Poland, 200 miles south east, with an overnight stop the first night on the northern tip of a Swedish island called Oland. We raised the anchor on Saturday morning for an overnight passage of around 36 hours; the sailing was to be close to the wind all the way but in a pleasant force 3.

We made land fall 30 miles north of Gdansk, the polish city where the anti communist revolution started in the dockyards in 1970. We set out on the bikes to stretch our legs. Our first stop was in the village to get some money. Although now in the European Union they still use their own currency, the Zlotych (pronounced Zloty) but without any idea of the exchange rate we had no idea how much to get out of the cash machine. Mike plumbed for the middle amount offered to him by the machine, 100 Zlotychs,and, having seen an ice cream for sale for 3 Zlotych we figured that it must be about 1-2 Zt to the pound. 

We set off cycling down a long peninsular separating the Baltic from the large bay of Gdansk where we stopped for a well earned cup of tea and a waffle, the quality of which would have made the Brighton sea front cafes  look very superior; it seemed a little pricey at 18 Zt, we figured around £10. Getting back to the boat we were accosted by the harbour master for the harbour fees, 70 Zt for the night – about £50 by our calculations – who said Poland was cheap?! It was time to check the exchange rate. Good old Google gave us the very happy answer, a Zlotych was worth just 15p. We had taken £18 out of the cash machine, the tea and waffles had cost £3 and the harbour fees were £12 per night; we felt a little stupid but happy with the result!

On Monday we took a train for the 30 mile trip to Gdansk.

Poland is a nation emerging from the ravages of communism, that grand but failed experiment. A taxi driver told us of queues in the shops for even the basics such as food and clothing when he was a boy and unemployment of 20%. Poland is recovering but, in very sharp contrast to the Sweden that we had just left, it is not a wealthy country. The majority of houses are drab and the surroundings tatty but some new smart houses and office buildings are starting to emerge. With minimum wage about half of that in the UK it is easy to see why so many Poles have come to England; two young Poles that we met told us that in their town of 150,000 inhabitants, 40,000 left to go abroad when Poland joined the EU in 2003. It is difficult to imagine how the county could sustain such a loss but we were assured that it was the worst of the Poles that left and arrived in England!

We were guided on a walking tour of the city by a 72 year old resident of Gdansk. Although he told us a little of his wartime experience as a boy he would not be drawn on political issue such as their feelings for the Russians or the Germans but they were pretty clear! Although there is much bad feeling in the older generation, the youngsters of  today regard it as history to be put behind us. Whilst difficult to swallow I am sure they are right. 

Gdansk has been rebuilt over the last 50 years copying as much of the original as they could. There are many examples of pain staking repairs of the smallest of original stonework and statues put back together as best they could as near to the original as possible.

The second world war started in Gdansk. On the 1^st September 1939 a German warship, supposedly on an official visit, fired the opening salvo at a small Polish garrison. German troops invaded from the west and the rest is history. 6 million Poles were exterminated, half of which were Jews. In August of 1945, with the Russians on the doorstep of Gdansk, the occupying German troops, a battalion of SS soldiers, were told to hold Gdansk to the last. For 3 weeks the Russians pounded the city with artillery destroying 80% of the buildings and hundreds of years of history.

These photos are shot from the same spot showing the total devastation of 1945 and the rebuilt river side today.

Gdansk was home to the Teutonic Knights in the 1300’s who rode out to free Palestine from the invading Turks. There’s some irony there!

25 years after the end of the war the ship builders in Gdansk stood up to Russian tyranny forming the Solidarity Union. They went on strike outside the docks in 1970, a rebellion quickly put down with lethal force in which 40 dockers died. Today there is a memorial to those men in Solidarity Square; their moving memorial  stone  (bottom right of the photo) reads “A token of everlasting remembrance of the slaughter victims. A warning to rulers that no social conflict in our country can be resolved by force, a sign of hope for fellow citizens that evil will not prevail.” Heavy stuff.

10 years later Lech Walesa lead a peaceful revolution when the Russians gave in to the dockers demands in 1980. This victory lead to elections in 1989 decisively won by the Solidarity candidate and is largely credited as being the catalyst for the collapse of communism. The Berlin wall fell soon after in the same year; Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia followed Poland’s lead declaring independence in 1990/91 and the USSR was dissolved in 1991.

From Gdansk we head west along the Polish coast. We have a couple of options depending on the weather; west to Germany then up to Copenhagen or north back up to the southern tip of Sweden. We will see where the wind takes us.

Gas, used on the boat for cooking, continues to be the bane of our lives. Every country in Europe has a different cylinder fitting which means a different cylinder as well as a new regulator despite many assurances to the contrary. The only thing we could find here was a huge cylinder two and a half times the size of the standard Calor bottle. Getting it back to the boat was a challenge but we were up for it!