We started off the day with mushroomed scrambled eggs, a good start to the day, one that promised warm conditions but with the threat of rain and thunder. We’d invited the Roantrees over for coffee together with Nick and after that we headed into town to find the ‘Edeka’ supermarket. Now one of the problems with Stralsund in the past was that there was no significant store within walking distance from the harbour, so the presence of a supermarket right in the centre was an improvement from our point of view. On Monday, we will be given a guided tour by Nick, who has acquired a guide book so he’s now the resident expert (!) so I didn’t bother taking any photos today, although, being a Hanseatic town, it does have some very interesting and photogenic buildings.

Back in the harbour area we noticed that apart from a few naval vessels, there were a number of armoured vehicles and guns and things on display, there was some sort of armed forces event happening. Indeed later in the afternoon we were treated to a display of helicopter pilotage skills as a helicopter picked people up from the water and landed on the deck of one of the ships and later, disgorging troops who rappelled very rapidly down onto the ship’s deck.

We met some new people today; Peter and Gill Pitcher, the owners of a 13m Broom power boat moored alongside near us called Seawolf , kindly invited us over for drinks later, which we accepted but on the understanding that we couldn’t stay long as we had already invited people over at 6. The invitees comprised the Roantrees, together with the owners of Calypso, Richard Baker & Gill Worthy and their guests for the Rally, Richard’s brother Peter and his wife Janet. We’d spent a memorable and enjoyable 8 days with Calypso, cruising in Denmark last year from 13^th August onwards and we had been looking forward to seeing them again. In fact Calypso was here when we arrived but her crew were in Berlin still, where they had been for a few days, arriving back during the early afternoon.  We also bumped into Mike & Jacky Scott, the owners of Condor, an 11.6m Nauticat and introduced ourselves to Nigel Chilcott and Geoff Hicks on Misty and finally Tony Allwood on Wild Goose.

That afternoon we managed to get one load of washing done, we were taking a chance to get  it mostly dry before the thunderstorm started (we succeeded) – we’d decided to leave it till tomorrow morning to do our bed linen as we didn’t fancy a night on damp sheets!  I say mostly dry, it certainly wasn’t dripping but neither was it put-awayable, consequently our saloon and heads was festooned with damp washing when we left for our drinks appointment on Seawolf. It’s always nice to meet new people, especially when they have a similar itinerary to ours, spending 4 months on board during the summer months and exploring the region. Admittedly, their four months are passed in more comfortable conditions than ours, Seawolf is a rather smart boat with a large owner’s cabin aft and two spacious guest cabins forward. Makes us think about swapping for a power boat again…..

At 6 o’clock we were back on board CW and our guests arrived, where we stayed for an hour in the cockpit in the shelter of the cockpit cover as the thundery rain did its’ stuff. Fortunately, all was over by 19:00 as we’d planned on going to the Italian restaurant on the quayside, one recommended by Janet Safarovic many years ago and which I’m pleased to report, is as good as ever – we all had pizzas of one variety or another and everyone enjoyed them. We declined the offer of nightcaps on board Calypso, knowing it would be a long week and wanting to pace ourselves (yes, that’s me talking!) and we were in bed soon after 10:00, a good first day, even though the rally doesn’t officially start till tomorrow evening.