Julie and I were determined to get our bedlinen washed today and in order to ensure that, we had it in the washing machine by 06:30! There was a decent breeze blowing and no hint of rain so we knew we could get the sheets dry quickly.   Today we were anticipating the arrival of our old friend Helen Banks who will be joining us for the rally. Helen is a seasoned  rally attender, this is our third and indeed it’s Helen’s too. Now when visitors join us, we have to make room for them. This means emptying the pilot berth of all our stuff and moving it to our cabin and heads. It also means dismantling our bed in order to access the substantial storage areas underneath – we need this space as this is where we stow the bikes, which normally occupy the starboard cabin when there’s only the two of us. Finally, having cleared the decks for Helen, we gave the boat a thorough clean and then we were ready and could spend some time socializing.

There are 17 boats in the rally, which means there are over 40 attendees, many of whom we know, at least fleetingly and we wanted to get to know them better. One couple that fit into this category are Mike and Jacky Scott on Condor, their Nauticat 38. Now Mike and Jacky keep Condor in Fehmarn but our paths virtually never cross so we invited them over for coffee at 10:30, together with the Peter & Gill Pitcher from Seawolf. We were all into our respective coffees when we were joined by Graham & Fay Cattell, the excellent long serving team that have run the Baltic section for eons. They were collecting €50 a head to cover expenses such as tonight’s dinner and the coach that will be taking us to the Hanse factory in Griefswald on Wednesday. Our cockpit was a trifle crowded with everyone there and Jacky, in moving herself to make more room, accidentally succeeded in removing our whole shore supply unit from its screwed mounting! Fortunately no real harm was done either to Jacky or the boat and I was soon able to repair the damage.

My other task for the day was to dress the boat ie hoist our signal flags so that there is a string of them from the bow, up to the mast head and down again to the stern. Now there is a sequence to these flags, ie it is not a random assortment, I think it was conceived of by an admiral who wanted to endure that they could not be misinterpreted by someone thinking that a signal was being sent ie they are in order but jumbled, making no sense at all. Many of the other boats in the 17 strong fleet were similarly attired and it makes quite an impressive sight.

It was soon time to get ourselves over to the train station, about 25 minutes’ walk from the harbour, to meet Helen’s train at 15:55 and with German efficiency, she arrived bang on time and we took a taxi back as I didn’t fancy carrying her bag all the way. We had enough time for a cup of tea before the official start to the rally, with drinks on the harbour wall commencing at 17:30. This gave us an opportunity to meet and chat with new people to us and as always, you come across some really interesting folk and learn lots of new, useful bits and pieces. One example is that I learned from James Yarrow of ‘Dreamer’ that we really should return to Norway and get ourselves north of Bergen, as the weather is often better further north and the scenery is spectacular. I now have to work on Julie…

At around 19:00 we walked over to one of the old Hanseatic warehouses that surround the harbour and which today, on the ground floor at least, housed the Fishermam’s restaurant. There we had a clear fish soup followed by cod with a really tasty mash potato and wholegrain mustard mix, much to my surprise I enjoyed both courses! We had nightcaps on board Calypso, hosted by Richard & Gill and in the company of Richard’s brother Peter and wife Janet – a very pleasant way to round off an excellent start to the rally.