It's now Tuesday evening, May 8^th. We are sitting in a boat that has been polished, systems checked and is all but ready for sea apart from 2 things. Firstly, we have to do a bit of shopping (booze is expensive in Sweden) and secondly, we want to meet with some late arrivals who are due here in Burgstaaken over the next 24 hours. So our anticipated date of departure is currently Friday 11^th, weather permitting. So what have we been up to so far?

Well, the biggest event in our lives of late has been, finally, after >4 years, the sale of our house, or at least the exchange of contracts, with completion due within 8 weeks of 27^th April . Moreover , we have also reluctantly agreed to settle with our neighbour who is arguably, at least, partially responsible for the delay due to his 'appropriating’ some of our land and taking his time to resolve the dispute. Our plans, once we get back to the UK, are to rent an apartment for the coming winter, to give us time to find the right house in the area of Hale or Bowdon, in S Manchester and about 8 miles west of Alderley Edge, where we still have an address (for now). As we have no immediate home to go to when we get back to the UK, we spent the last few weeks clearing and sorting and divesting ourselves of unused / retired items and the remainder is now in storage, awaiting a new home, whenever that will be. All of this work meant that we have spent precious little time planning this year’s cruise – actually, that is a fib, we never really plan a cruise, come to think of it! Rather, we have a ‘notion’ and this year’s is to explore the south and east coasts of Sweden, hopefully as far north as you can go, then drop down back to Germany via the Ålund islands (belonging to Finland) in time to make the Baltic rally of the Cruising Association, hosted by our friends Janet & Horst Safarovic .

Anyway, back to the past, there is not too much to relate really. We came here by car, this was a first for us and apart from the 90 minute delay around Hamburg, it was a success. We crossed via P&O ferry from Hull – Rotterdam, £400 return for us and the car + cabin + breakfast & dinner both ways – not bad value at all. The crossing was smooth and the food fine, and the journey, apart from Hamburg, uneventful. We arrived at our usual apartments (Apartments Westphal) by 18:00 and by 19:00 we were relaxing at a table in the local fish restaurant, the Golden Anchor.

The next few days were spent sorting, polishing, fiddling about and socialising. Janet & Horst and their lovely old dog Bella, called in on their way back to Kiel and 2 very alcoholic and enjoyable evenings were spent in their company. Other ‘early birds’ here in Burgstaaken , who’s company we also enjoyed one evening over dinner, were : Andy & Pauline Smith ( Odile), Roger and Gwyn Robson (Gentoo), Sue & Mike Phillips (Seren Wib), Richard & Helen Blackmore (Hornpipe) and finally a Canadian couple (albeit he is Scottish) called Helen & Neil and I don’t recall the boat, I’m afraid . By the way, I appreciate that lists of names does not make fascinating reading but please remember that this blog is also my aide memoire and as such, names are important!



Wednesday 9^th May update

We’re about ready to depart. The decision to be made tomorrow when we get the latest forecast is whether to stay to do the laundry before we go and to leave late morning or whether to leave straight away or indeed, whether to stay another day. There are some big winds forecast, or at least stronger winds than we want on our first or second outing and their forecast time of appearance, indeed if they do, will impact upon our decision making. We spent today tidying up, unsuccessfully doing the laundry ( they were closed), getting wet in a torrential thunderstorm preceded and followed by lovely warm sun and finally, having drinks on the boat and later, dinner, with our late arrivals Val & John Roantree (Solara) and Ed & Roos Vandermeulen (Spiriwit) . It was great to catch up with them, the Roantrees are leaving the Baltic this year and heading back to Blighty but the Vandermeulens will be doing much the same as us, so we anticipate our paths crossing again later in the summer.

Thursday 10^th May update

Well we would have left, but at 06:00 it was very misty and the wind was coming from the east, so decision made, we stay put. That means that we are likely to be here for 2-3 days again as the weather is set to worsen for the early weekend. Still, it’s not a bad place to be, lots of people to chat with (eg drinks on board Hornpipe tonight and on board Solara tomorrow night) and the pontoon here is free, we only have to pay €5 per night for showers and unlimited electricity – which is great as I am now sitting in the equivalent of a Chinese laundry, with almost-dry clothes festooned everywhere whilst the 1kw hot air blower does it’s work to dry them off (the laundry’s dryer malfunctioned) . We were visited by Rinjer, a Dutch sailor who we met firstly in Poland last year and who’s path and ours seems to cross quite frequently and will do so again this year, as his plans are similar to ours.

I’m going to upload this blog shortly, using a Vodafone dongle via the GPRS network. The signal is classified as poor/very poor here, yet it has been adequate to download podcasts of The Archers (vital and we loved the hot tub scene!) and even more importantly, we’ve successfully Skyped with my sister over from the US who is visiting my mum in North Wales plus a few others, including Ian Beattie, a very old university friend, and the signal was adequate for image too – I was very impressed and it bodes well for maintaining links over the coming months.