Baltic Trip - Heiligenhafen      28th June - 5th July:

28th June
    Morning was broken with another dazzling sunrise followed by blue skies, hardly any wind and what there was came from the wrong direction. We drifted along at about 1.5 knots.
    On one of my watches through the day, I picked up on Channel 16 a Swedish coastguard asking for any information regarding a vessel they had picked up. It was a yacht they had found drifting with four children on board. It had been located much further north from our location, and at such a distance that our VHF receiver was not able to pick up weaker signals of responding vessels. I hope it worked out alright.
    By evening the wind had picked up, but we had to take care to avoid an accidental gybe. Come dusk and we were making good progress, though we had to steer a more southerly course than we had intended.

29th June

Murals by the Fishing Harbour

    I did the graveyard watch from midnight to 4am. By now we were sailing through a bottleneck which separated the north German coast from southern Denmark. This was a main thoroughfare for Baltic shipping, and it was similar to the M25. Within the shipping lanes, sea traffic was confined to designated routes, however, at the end of the routes these particular shipping lanes effectively split at a Y-junction. I was sailing quite happily towards this junction. One of the ships steaming down an arm of the Y overshot the junction, which was perfectly reasonable since I assumed he was carrying on to pick up the other arm and continuing further south. However, having overshot the mark, the ship suddenly did a handbrake turn and decided to head down the outside of the lane we were following. We were now both on the outside of this shipping lane, but he was heading straight for me. It was dark, but I thought he can't possibly miss the tricolour shining at the top of our mast. He kept on coming. I switched on the searchlight on the front of our boat, pointing directly at the rogue ship. The ship would surely spot that and focus its attention. No such luck, and it was obvious a collision was imminent. Instinct made me yank our boat over to starboard and pray the wind would hold while we got out of the way. The cargo ship glided past, his thumping engines clearly audible, and disappeared into the gloom behind us. I wondered if he ever did see us.

Heimat Museum

Town Hall in the Market Square

    I managed to get to the bottom of Fehmarn Island before Alan took over. Before turning in I asked Alan to give me a shout when he needed assistance, and I laid down and fell into a deep sleep.
    The next thing I knew, Alan was waking me, we were about to reach our destination. It took a moment to raise myself out of the sleep, and I emerged topsides to find that he had already put the fenders and ropes out - a hero.
    We motored into Heiligenhafen, the second largest marina in Germany, holding 1,000 vessels, with a large fishing harbour adjacent to it. Many charter boats sailed out of here, plus umpteen pleasure fishing vessels. We moored, showered, caught up on sleep and had a hearty lunch. I decided to explore town while Alan caught up on his laundry, reading and yet more sleep.

Typical Cobbled Street

    Heiligenhafen was a small, compact town, full of cobbled streets and pretty 19th century houses. It had a sense of affluence about it, and a slow pace of life pervaded everywhere. The tourist trade was amply catered for, particularly closer to the harbour.

Typical Heiligenhafen Architecture

    I wandered around the main streets, dipping into the occasional gallery, before settling down in the charming cobbled market square with a refreshing beer. Here people found time to talk to each other, share the gossip and crack a joke or two. Even the ducks flying across the square seemed to be sharing a joke with each other. I chilled out, people watching and taking it all in.
    In the evening we ate in one of the many restaurants near the fishing harbour. We learned a lot about German fish that night. A German lady, on an adjacent table, told us how she had moved to the area from Frankfurt because of the revitalising air here. She stated how it was fine here during the summer, but the winters were very cold and the seas around the coast froze over, adding that the marina was completely emptied of boats during the off season. She marveled at our sailing trip, and related to us of a cruise she had once taken around Norway, where, during a severe gale, the ship calmly played the theme tune to the film "Titanic". How she laughed.

30th June
    The wind got up through the night, and it brought with it torrential downpours. It was still pouring when we arose.
    An appropriate day for laundry I thought, so that preoccupied me for a while. The rest of the day was spent reading, or watching other boats arriving, some making disastrous attempts at mooring within the boxes in the blustery winds, with the odd one or two bumping into other craft or pilings. One poor vessel made at least half a dozen attempts to moor before they finally managed it. Who says sailing is not a spectator sport?
    After a lovely meal in a seafood restaurant, that had at one time been a warehouse for storing salt for the fishing industry, we went to the Stadtkirche (Town Church) to listen to a classical music concert. The music was performed by the Kreiskammerorchester Ostholstein, and featured works by Handel, Albinoni, Vivaldi, Bach and Elgar. It was excellent entertainment, though I did pick up on a violinist occasionally coming in too early. When I discussed it with Alan afterwards, who is very knowledgeable about classical music, he told me how the conductor was not setting a regular beat for the orchestra to follow, with the orchestra and organist being a beat apart at one time. The "rogue" violinist was actually following the organist's timing rather than the haphazard timing of the conductor. Still, I found it a thoroughly enjoyable concert.
    The clouds were thinning as we returned to the boat; our problem in the morning would be if we were forced to move on since the berth we were occupying belonged to a charter yacht company, and their yachts were due to return the next day.

1st July

Cottages on the Spit

    We awoke to a bright and blustery day, with the wind in the wrong direction of course. Alan went off to buy some Calor Gas, while I received a stern warning from one of the charter chiefs; he was expecting thirty boats in today, so he wanted us out of his patch by 11am. I quickly scouted around to find a spare berth amongst the 1,000 or so craft moored up, and managed to spot one a couple of pontoons away.

Boat and Beach Basket

    On Alan's return, we quickly set about leaving our present berth, our departure hampered by the tight ropes on an adjacent boat preventing the removal of ours from a piling. The only way out was to climb aboard the other boat, slacken his in order to remove ours, and then tighten their ropes again. We broke our 50m voyage to our new berth with a rescue mission. A German yacht had run aground just outside the channel that provided access to the pontoons. The hapless skipper was calling himself a clown for not interpreting the signs properly. He wanted his craft to be dragged off the sandbank backwards, which Alan explained to me was a foolhardy request since the chap could quite easily get his rudder broke. But if the man wanted to be dragged that way, who were we to argue, so we obliged. It was a prolonged tug, but we eventually freed their craft. A cheery thanks was exchanged and we went our separate ways. The two guys tracked us down later, no mean feat amongst the huge number of craft in the marina, and presented us with a bottle of wine, which was not expected, but it was a nice gesture which we gracefully received.

Some Individual Cottages on the Spit

    Alan wanted to go shopping for a washing bowl; the one on the boat had given up the ghost. I decided to walk all the way around the marina to the long spit that faced the Baltic, and also served as a nature reserve.
    On reaching the spit, I ambled along the beach in the stiff wind, the waves tumbling over the clear waters and breaking gently on the white sand. The sand was a pleasure to behold in itself; peppered with pretty pink seaweed, it resembled an ever changing garden as the waves lapped along it.
    Kite-surfers galore were effortlessly zipping across the waves. I so envied guys who had achieved that skill, many showing off by hurtling along one-handed. A fair amount of posing was involved as they casually mopped the spray off their faces, or tended to their hair.

    In the distance was Fehmarn Island, linked to the mainland by a bridge resembling the famous bridge across the Tyne in Newcastle.
    The salt meadows on the landward side of the spit were home to a few cows, many water fowl and pretty wild flowers. This was an idyllic place for bird-spotters, indeed there were a couple of hides along the way.

    Towards the tip of the spit a cluster of picturesque cottages lined the shoreline, all detached and individualistic, separated from each other by white dunes. This was an ideal get-away place, but crumbs, it must be bleak in the winter. Being out here was a very pleasant diversion; soothing to get away from the noise and bustle of the town and marina.
    Walking back along the beach, I came across a burst balloon, attached to a transparent pouch with a postcard inside it. It had been launched by a school child from Mechernich in the Eifel region south of Cologne, and the finder was asked to return the postcard stating where it had landed (apparently it was part of a wind study project). I thought I would make the child's day and return the card; one day my grandchildren might launch similar balloons.

2nd July
    Surprise, surprise, another night of howling winds and rain, and a dismal day. No boats moved in or out of the marina, such was the ferocity - Force 7-8.
    I ventured into town to send off the postcard I was returning. I noticed that the weather reports posted at the marina office conflicted with those Alan was obtaining from Windguru, and in hindsight, the marina reports were always wrong anyway. We decided to see how the reports fared the following morning.
    Outside was miserable, so we sheltered on the boat, reading and drinking the bottle of wine given to us by the Germans we had rescued. We ate on board listening to jazz, and just chilled out all day.
    I managed to have a chat to a German couple, on an adjacent boat, who had come to see the Round Fehmarn Regatta. They said they didn't see the finish. I expressed surprise that it had actually started. "It didn't", they replied.

3rd July

Lonely Beach Baskets

    After more strong winds and rain through the night, we were greeted with a leaden sky and more winds. The forecasts didn't look promising, and we might have to stay for another couple of days.
    I finished off another book I was reading, and needing to stretch my legs, decided to have a hike. Alan declined to venture forth, so I headed up to an enclosed inner lake adjacent to the marina, and walked to the far end of it, where a holiday village was situated. A short distance past the village brought me to the sea. Again there were miles of sandy beaches, today being pounded by waves which had travelled countless miles, driven by the strong west wind.

Statue on Inner Lake

    A farmyard whiff in the air led me to investigate the cause of it, since there was no evidence of farming nearby. It turned out the smell was emanating from a coral full of camels. A circus was in town.
    The sea on this particular stretch of the coast was a mass of windsurfers, scooting along and jumping the tossing white horses with ease. Further along the beach were kite-surfers. They were hurtling at speed across the waves, the more acrobatic surfers launching themselves 7m in the air off large waves, and continuing their surfing 20m further on. The show-offs were performing somersaults. One or two yachts were out braving the seas, and seemed to be having a rough time of it.
    I returned back through the town, which seemed as busy on a Sunday as any other day. The town seemed to comprise three types of people: the towns people who were going about their daily business, and two types of tourist, one consisting mainly of young couples with one or two kids in tow, the other being seniors. I guess I fit in the latter category. There seemed to be no tourists of the young and single variety.
    The restaurant we visited in the evening employed two vacation waitresses: one form Latvia who was studying English and German, the other from Lithuania who was studying German and Economics. Our brief conversation with them helped to make up for the noticeable poorer quality of food in this establishment.

4th July
    There was a dramatic thunderstorm and downpour through the night. An almost simultaneous flash and clap of thunder suggested that a mast on one of the 1,000 boats in the marina had been hit.
    In the grey, dull, morning light, I asked Alan if he knew what sort of damage a yacht struck by lightening might suffer. According to insurance reports, lightening did not damage masts, but surged along electric cables leading to the vessels instrument panels, melting cables and instruments. From the instrument panel, the surge often found its way down to the echo-sounder, blowing it out of the bottom of the boat. This in turn would cause the vessel to sink, unless the hole could be plugged quickly enough. Hmmmmm....., in Kiitaja we would have to empty one side of the boat before gaining access to the echo-sounder.

Distant Bridge to Fehmarn Island

    I hiked to the supermarket for provisions, finding plenty of evidence, en route, of the flooding that occurred due to the torrential rain. Back on board I settled down to more reading. Having tackled "Great Expectations", and "Tale of Two Cities", that my eldest daughter had bought me, I was now going through Alan's ship library, in particular Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Alexander Kent. Tedium was settling in now, I had seen all of the town that I wished to see. However, I took a stroll to stretch my legs, had a beer in the square and caught up on my notes. The day dragged on with more reading.

5th July
    A morning of leaden skies but no wind. The prospect of weak but favourable north winds were forecast for the afternoon, picking up later in the day, so I bought some fresh provisions ready for an afternoon departure.
    Mid afternoon saw us slowly drifting in the right direction at around 1.5 knots.