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!!!)

Beware witches and stroppy harbour officials!

The prevailing winds here are still south westerly and we are now heading, yes, south westerly! Our next leg was a rather uncomfortable motor sail 25 miles west to the small harbour town of Leba. It was time to explore inland Poland.

Once again we mounted our trusty steeds to head south. Having been locked away for the winter with only damp sea air to sustain them they were at first a trifle unwilling after their first outing without protest. They squeaked and groaned sufficiently over the first mile to persuade us to turn back for a little maintenance. One new pedal and a lot of oil later we sat out once again.

The land is flat and heavily forested with perhaps a quarter of it farmed by small holdings. Much as expected we passed many drab concrete houses or apartment blocks and unsmiling old leathery faces but also some old brick farms and small pretty houses.

A couple of hours riding took us to the main road to the town of Lebork where we came across a somewhat surprising sight. Parked by a fuel station at the junction was what appeared to be an old Soviet fighter jet and an old bi-plane that we guessed was from the second world war! Some enthusiast souvenir I suppose.

We stopped in Lebork for a well deserved lunch in a nice town square; gone was the drabness of 1950’s concrete, it could have been a town centre anywhere in Western Europe. We downed a two course lunch, a beer and a coffee all for the princely sum of £6! In the café a Polish lady came over to say hello surprised to see two Englishmen in this part of Poland. She now lives in Canada and had come home to visit her family. In the early ’80’s she fled to Canada to escape communism. She and her new husband in their early twenties told everyone they were going to Canada on a holiday (had the authorities found out they did not plan to return they would not have been allowed to leave). When they got to Canada they applied for citizenship and did not return until the fall of communism; not even their poor mothers knew that they did not plan to return! She gave us a little more insight into the legacy of communism. An old school chum of hers who did not get away became a ship designer with a Masters degree; he is now living on a state pension of just £7000 per annum; what must the pensions for a mere labourer be??

On our way back we passed through the most delightful village. Attractive new houses with beautifully kept gardens, the new blossoming Poland and one of the more surprising road signs that I have seen on our travels – beware of witches!

The reason became apparent a little further on…

The following day we had a 4 hour run down the cost to the small town of Ustka where we were greeted on the dockside by a very stroppy official, a man from the harbour authorities and a policeman – all we wanted was an ice cream! It seems we had broken the rules. The coast here is a national park  and for reasons that are beyond me we were supposed to keep a minimum of 2 miles off shore which we did not. After demands for an explanation ( I seemed to get away with ‘I didn’t know) which had to be given in writing, copious note taking and an examination we were allowed to go on our merry way. Oh well, I suppose they have nothing better to do!

The wind is not playing ball for the next few days with constant south westerlies so we have decided to head north west tomorrow to the Danish island of Bornholm 60 miles away.

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!

The last leg to Stockholm

We have done a lot of biking to explore the inland area. Sweden is a mass of lakes and pine trees, pretty much what you’d expect really, it does what it says on the tin.

Keep a good look out, you never know who may be watching you in the forest!

There are no zebra crossings on the canals but rabbits, well that’s a different story.

Once out of the Gota Canal we were into the Baltic proper. The temperature is dropping rapidly; we are after all on a latitude level with the Orkneys and in a few months the locals will be skating where we are sailing! We did have to wrap up when the wind blew.

Sweden is known for its many archipelagos, the most well know being off Stockholm but the island are spread all along the coast; beautiful cruising grounds.

As we got close to Stockholm real estate become more and more of a premium. There are some homes in pretty extraordinary places on the islands and get a load of the slide on the left, you could have some real fun on that!

Stockholm is a beautiful city with a lovely water front.

Melanie is flying home from Stockholm. I am now taking the boat 150 miles south to put it to bed for the winter; the storage price halves once away from the big city. I had beautiful blue skys and there cold air produced some beautiful early mornings.

That’s it for this year. The boat is sheeted over for the winter as there will be 2 meters of snow around by Christmas; I just hope I have got all the water out of the pipes or the –25 temperatures will lead to a messy start next year!

The Gota Canal

Once out of Lake Vanern we were into the Gota canal proper, about 100 miles of half lakes and half canals which meander across Sweden where you could get close up and personal with the locals!

All the locks in the Gota canal are of the older English style and size; there was no large shipping here. The lock gates were all mechanised but, like our locks, when lifting up in a lock the water enters the lock through sluice gates which causes a rather frightening turbulence. Unlike a canal barge the flared narrow bow of a yacht with its relatively low weight is easily grabbed by the turbulence which pushes the bow one way, pauses then throws it quite violently back the other way. The danger was the lock walls; despite 8 good size fenders we did sustain one bruise on the timberwork.

Chatting up a Swedish yacht I learned that there were nice fresh water
'Norway Lobster' to be had by the cunning; lobster is a grand word, langustine we would call them or famously not caught by Waddy and I in Ireland, Dublin Bay prawns. This highly skilled hunting expedition requires 1 net purchased from the local book shop for £5 and some bait fish cunningly secured from the supermarket. Put a couple of the bait fish on the giant safety pin in the centre of the pot and throw the pot over the side. Retire below for a calming cup of tea, after a few hours creep quietly up on deck to retrieve the pots and........

Yes Waddy it really does work!






Hows this for a seaside home?!








Some of the canal sections got a little tight.

There were a lot of bridges most of which opened on demand (note busy, very handy crew member rushing round the deck)

Locking down was much more sedate; the water simply drained out of the bottom of the lock gate, no fuss, no turbulence and no stress!


This is the top of the final flight down of 7 locks - almost in the Baltic!

The canal and Lake Vanern

I have discovered from my thoroughly modern computer literate Mum that if you want to see the photos full size just left click once and hey presto!

The inland trip across Sweden is 210 miles long,  about half of which is canals and half lakes. The first leg is the 40 miles up the Gota River to the sizeable lake Vanern, at 100 miles long the biggest lake in Sweden.

The river trip was all under motor as we were against a 1 knot current and the winds were light. 

After 4 hours we reached our first lock, a somewhat nerve racking experience, they were huge!

Locks have a fearsome reputation because of the severe turbulence caused as the uphill gates are partially opened and the water rushes in to the lower lock leaving any boat not properly secured whirling about in the maelstrom of current, all the while trying to manage ropes as the levels change and the rope tensions change with it.
In fact it was a piece of cake. The locks are big and have bollards set into the walls to secure to. The locks allow the water in through grids in the bottom of the lock rather than through the gates thus preventing any turbulence , this results in a barely discernable rise in water level whilst the crew nonchalantly hold onto the ropes in one hand moving them up bollard by bollard as required; easy when you know how!

The Swedish waterways are mad busy in July when the whole country goes on holiday then in August they suddenly empty out leaving the place empty and we very much felt like we had it  to ourselves, fine timing indeed. At our second lock there was a cargo vessel coming the other way for which we had to wait. We tied up alongside a waiting wharf and within a few minutes a wandering minstrel appeared from a little boat moored ahead of us. He came to serenade us with what he translated into English as a ‘keyed violin’, an extraordinary and very beautiful instrument with which he played us two Swedish melodies.

The cargo vessel emerged from the lock and we were once again on our way, from time to time we shared the river with some pretty big traffic!

We spent the night tied up alongside a disused lock where we barbecued under a conker tree.

There are 5 bridges between the sea and Lake Vanern, all opening on demand with a few interesting variations on a theme.

After the final lock staircase to 130’ above sea level we came out into Lake Vanern. The lake shore was beautifully forested which made for some lovely scenery for a walk, a swim and a picnic; rather surprisingly, at 20 degrees the water was not as warm as the sea but wonderfully refreshing. We set off across the lake beating into a light wind; after 20 minutes out of nowhere it sprang up to 20 knots and the boat healed hard over just as I was talking on the phone to Tim. ‘Whoa’ we both went, hanging on for grim death; I glanced behind me just in time to see the boat hook, which I had not put away properly after the locks, disappearing over the side – ‘boat hook over board’ went out the cry! 3 times on our travels so far the boat hook has swum for variety of reasons, how many lives did this boat hook have? I knew it would float because I had collected it from a lee shore in Scotland when it was dropped trying to pick up a bouy in 30 knots of wind. We swung the boat round as fast as possible but Melanie had lost sight of it when she looked down to whip the hot mugs of tea out of harms way. Search as we might there was no sign of the boat hook, it did not stretch to 4 lives, down to Davy Jones' locker it would go.

The following day we went ashore for a bike ride. Sweden is remarkably flat. Much of it is forested with lakes scattered everywhere with field after field of golden wheat swaying in the breeze between the forests.

It was a lovely hot day with a gentle breeze, barely enough to sail but we drifted sedately towards our next stopping point. On the way, quietly melting from the heat, I decided I needed a dip. I stopped the boat, stripped off and launched myself head first over the side, realising, just before my head hit the water, that I was still wearing my sun glasses! Whoosh - they were whipped off my head. I thrashed around madly looking for them but alas, sun glasses do not float and they went to join the boat hook in Davy Jones' locker.

Melanie, God bless her, seeing that I was running away with the Wally point score, clearly felt she needed to even the score. As we came to anchor she let out the chain but several feet had gone out before she realised that the anchor had not moved, it needed a gentle shove over the bow. A gentle shove she duly gave it and the anchor then dropped the few feet available to it only to come taught after its fall with a twang that flicked all of last nights wet gooey mud off the chain and spread it all over the boat and all over Melanie! I did try not to laugh.

The shores of the lake are littered with small islands amongst which we anchored for the night. We found a most beautiful spot for a barbecue where a glass of wine washed away what few troubles we had.

Oslo to Gothenburg

At the beginning of July Melanie and I flew out to Oslo to find the boat safe and sound tucked up as I had left her just south of Oslo. The weather was stinking hot, the first job was a swim in what could have passed for bath water at 24 degrees! This weather was set to look after us for the next two weeks.

Our first outing was to visit Oslo, a day trip an hour away on the train. This was our introduction to Oslo; whatever he is on I want some!!

After Oslo we headed south to pick up Tim and his girlfriend Lucy a few days sail south saying goodbye to Norway and entering Swedish waters. On the way we went ashore for a bike ride around the local country side; we stumbled upon the Norwegian answer to our stone circles, a stone ship - I was the Viking captain!







After picking up Lucy and Tim we headed out to the Koster Islands; a small archipelago and national park a few miles off the coast. In the 30 degree heat swimming and barbecues on the beach were the order of the day.












Lucy, who had never sailed before, took to it like a duck to water; it won't be long before my job is under threat!










Lucy took the helm for a belting sail south while Melanie tried to relax on the front deck. I had optimistically said we wouldn't be tipping much; full marks for determination!





The whole of this coast is littered with myriad little islands. The rock is polished smooth from the receding of the last Ice Age some 10,000 years ago. On the whole there is very little vegetation giving the whole coast a feeling of sparseness.Taking the 'inside passage' made for some interesting sailing, a narrow channel between two inhabited islands can be seen behind Tim and Lucy.






There are dozens of pretty coastal towns, all sporting many little water front boathouses painted in the traditional rusty red colour of Norway and Sweden.








It is very easy to get lost in the maze of inter island passages but never fear, help is at hand!