vendredi 12 juin 2009

Some notes from sailing Brest-Gedser

What is the difference between sailing in the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean full of rocks along the coast or the unfriendly North Sea and sailing in the nice and calm Baltic Sea with no strong wind, almost no waves, sunshine and blue sky?
First of all the tide that suddenly moves the harbours far away inland. In the Baltic Sea no tide exists.
Then the strong currents that move the boat in any direction than the wanted or flush the boat away in such a speed that it is no time for a relaxing beer onboard.
It is also a long distance between well protected harbours with facilities as water, electricity and (most important of all for some crew member) wifi. The harbour fee is normally higher than in the Scandinavian countries.
After Bretagne there are no natural harbours and only open coast. In the Swedish and Finnish archipelagos there are thousands of islands with many hundreds of places to moor or anchor.
Now we have been in Gedser for some days waiting for the planned weather. Maybe the day after tomorrow it will be possible to leave this windy but safe habour. Now we have a nice 40 knots wind singing in the mast and a refreshing rain that cleans the boat from all salt. Unfortunately most of the water in the sea has gone with the wind to Poland or Lithuania. But it will probably return when we try to reach the friendly and civilised waters of Sweden.
What else? We are very comfortable onboard this nice and safe boat that has all necessary facilities. It also sails very good and stable – at least towards the wind. I don’t know if it can sail with the wind but I guess and hope it is possible because once in the Swedish archipelagelo I am sure that it will be necessary.
We have had a great time for more than three weeks and when I leave in Ystad I wish you a nice trip north.
See you in Stockholm. (Or maybe somewhere else). And welcome to Herräng, the Honolulu of Scandinavia!

Göran

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