Ruden, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, GermanyWe were really keen to get away today, after all the
poor boat has been here for nigh on 3 weeks and it is high time we got back
into the aquatic way of things.
The trouble was, the wind of course was less
than favourable in terms of direction, it was blowing from the NW and that is
essentially where Rügen lies. Having said that, it is only a little more than
20 miles and the wind was forecast to veer to the NE so it was worth our while leaving,
which we succeeded in doing by 11:30. The idea was by delaying our departure
time as long as possible, it minimised the time we would have adverse winds,
whilst still allowing us time to get to our destination even if we had to
engine against it all the way. Guess what, we did!
As I said in an earlier posting, we wanted to have
some time on the anchor and the location I had chosen was a small island called
Ruden, just inside the large almost spherical inland sea area known as the
Greifswalder Bodden, which has Stralsund to the north and Peenemünde and Kröslin
to the south. Ruden is unusual in that it has a long spit to the south but we
were going to anchor in 4 meters slightly to the north of the small harbour,
now (we think) closed, at least there was no life there whilst we were there.
We got to Ruden at 16:45 and the anchor ‘took’ the
first time. The wind was still blowing from the WNW but as it had let me down
in not going to the east, I’d decided to give it one more chance and trust that
it would back to the west, again as forecast. If it did, then we would have
100% shelter from the island and it
would be flat calm. If it didn’t and stayed put but fell as forecast, we would
have a gentle rocking night’s sleep. If it went to the NE or even worse, East,
we would have to move – probably we would then revert to a marina in Peenemünde
or somewhere. As it happened, we had a lovely, quiet night and were delighted
to be here. There is something quite special about being on a boat on an anchorage
on your own, gently satisfying that all is well and that you have brought about
this situation but never 100% relaxing, because things can change. It’s sort of
unique and as I said, quite special.
We celebrated our arrival by enjoying a dinner of
roast chicken and a glass of our ‘Lab’ wine and with the dark closing in at
half past nine, we went to bed. Whilst seeing Poland by car was interesting and
informative it is decidedly not the
same as settling down to sleep in your own boat in a new anchorage, it just isn’t.
2025-05-23