Jacqui Crowe

A mild day out on the Ostsee (Baltic)with F3/4 and a few light showers. The promised strong winds in the afternoon have not arrived but instead we have had heavy showers with thunder and lightning while we were navigating the Gellenstrom and Strelasund channels. Now we are berthed in Stralsund City Marina, the heavy rain continues. Not much sailing today. Started out motoring with little wind. There followed a good broad reach for a while then the wind started flitting around making it difficult to maintain speed. Finished up motor sailing then dropped the main while we concentrated on the pilotage.

Best days sailing yet since we started exploring the German Baltic Coast. We motored out of Wismar along the channel with with a good northerly breeze on the nose until we got to deeper water. We turned towards the east to continue along the coast with a fairly constant F4 from the NW then WNW. So we had lovely close, beam then broad reaching and even had waves. During the afternoon the wind increased to F5 requiring a reef but then dropped back to a F4 from the W for the last hour when it suddenly became very hot. We had to lose a few layers! The most yachts we have seen out on the water so far which is not surprising as it’s been such a lovely sailing day and the weather continues to get warmer as we proceed through May. It was pretty cold until mid May. There are plenty of free berths in the marina, mainly, the larger boxes. A stunning sunset over the marina ended a perfect day.

First time for everything. Waste pump out. Usually get someone else to do this bit for me. Good value 2 euro ! As opposed to UK (Premier Marina £15 discount for contracted berth holders) No wonder people just dump it in the Solent.

A frustrating day! A 30M motor sail across a millpond. To be fair we were able to sail the first short leg before we turned East with a Westerly wind behind. We set our sails up for a run with the help of an old awning pole, which just happened to be at hand, tied across the shrouds. We were using the 110%, high cut jib which doesn’t have a ‘proper’ pole. It worked a treat but as the wind dropped to a force 2 then also variable direction, our SOG was too slow to get us to Heiligenhagen before nightfall, even with the extra long days. Some spectacular sea and sky scapes today (see photos). Not much else to see on the low lying coast except the Fehmarn Sound Bridge and sandy beaches and spits as we neared the approach. The marina is large but pontoons 10-12 are being rebuilt so not so much room at the moment while those with resident berths on these pontoons are reberthed. It’s all box berths here with high pontoons at the bow. It was the first time we had done this with just 2 of us. The trot was quite narrow but John did a good job of manoeuvring the boat in the box. Tying up was another matter but achieved after a certain amount of robust discussion! Today is both Ascension Day and St Mathias Day, both significant in church life. Also, a holiday and excuse for a long weekend. Hence Heiligenhafen is busy with music, entertainment and visitors enjoying themselves.

A relaxing start to the day for a change with overcast skies and a forecast for showers in the afternoon, but no wind. A bit of drama getting out of our box berth which was for boats up to 12m. The width of the trot is less than 12m, making turning round whilst missing all the mooring poles a bit of a challenge. Tamaroa doesn’t have the benefit of being able to turn on a sixpence. In future we will consider paying for a bigger berth which necessarily comes with a bigger trot. A bit of a frustrating sailing day as the required course was on a run and the wind was flipping between 0 and 8 knots. We did get the cruising chute up for an hour or so and very fine she looked until the wind died off to nothing again. The showers arrived, but were very light and short.

A sparkling day on the water, literally! Easterley winds kept the temperature cool despite complete blue skies and sun. A lovely, relaxing sail at sea today ending in a short motor up the picturesque River Schlei. Jack played a blinder and got us into our box mooring at the second attempt. It was a very tight turn to get in with little room to manoeuvre. Massholm is charming. Dined in Am Schleieck Restaurant (seafood) - highly recommended. A good day for nature spotting. A porpoise joined us for a while and later a white tailed eagle flew overhead during our post dinner walk. A deep red orange sunset over the marina highlighted wind vanes in the distance and brought the day to a close.

Good NEly winds allowed sail well into the Elbe. No issues with Brunsbuttel lock. Jacqui attempted to sink the boat by leaving the stop cocks open on the bathroom sink and decided to tick of legs rather than buoys on the passage plan causing confusion when we thought we were an hour ahead of plan!