Blog Archive

Sunday 24 May 2009

23rd & 24th May 2009 Gotland to Gdansk

Log 193 miles. Sally, Simon & Carol.

We left Gotland after dinner on a very calm evening but soon picked up a light breeze from the south west. So once again we were pitching into the wind. Fortunately the wind veered to the west and we were soon reefed down and hammering along at 8 - 9 knots. By Saturday afternoon it was a steady 30 knots with gusts of 35 knots and so we had little difficulty in maintaining and average of 8.7 knots over the 23 hour run.

The sea and the wind slowly died away as we approached the Hel Peninsular which we rounded at about 20.00 on Friday. We entered Gdansk Channel under sail and called the Harbour Master on Channel 14. We docked, initially in the wrong place, for customs clearance but the border guard was not at all concerned about any formalities. We then went onto dock for the night at the proper customs quay.

The Ship Yards of Gdansk

We left the Customs Quay early on the  Saturday morning and motored about 4 miles up the river to berth in the centre of Gdansk in a compact little marina. Initially we went along side a large Swedish motor yacht before moving to our designated berth. Unfortunately this was exactly 4.5m wide and so lft no room for fenders. We managed to excracate ourselved with some pushing and shoving before moving to a double berth in the centre of the marina which seems to be very secure. The Marina is patrolled 24 huors a day and there is CCTV too so hopefully the boat will be very secure. Electricity and water is free and a 32 day berth has cost £260.

Robert, our friend from our last Expedition, came to visit on Sunday morning and we sat in the cockpit talking about the Karakorams and mulling over the prospect of and expedition to Shimshal with a crossing of Snow lake, the Hispar and Baltoro Glaciers to Concordia and then exiting over the Masherbrum La to Hushe.


The shipyards of Gdansk

Simon, Sally, Carol and Robert

Royal Way in the centre of Gdansk
Shimshal and the Great Crane in Gdansk

Shimshal docked in Gdansk