We had 47 miles to do today and for once all the forecasters were in agreement, in that we should be getting light breezes from the North East, the maximum winds in any forecast were 14mph. It was also a lovely sunny morning so it bode well for a good sail down to Travemünde and we left the harbour at Hohe Düne, Warnemünde at 07:15.

Initially and quite reasonably, there wasn't really enough wind to sail but by 09:00 we had the sails set, goose-winging westwards towards our CA Rally destination . It really was a splendid day and as anticipated, the winds picked up during the morning and we were soon averaging 5 knots quite happily. However, the wind as well as increasing also shifted somewhat and our point of sailing moved a little as we followed the coast, such that goose-winging was not the ideal configuration, with the wind coming from the rear quarter rather than directly behind. We decided therefore to furl the main and leave the genoa poled out and it was with the single sail that we completed the journey. As it happened, this was more than enough as the 14mph maximum wind as forecast ie a Force 4 transformed itself into a more feisty F6 and we were bowling along.

Finding where to point the boat when heading for Travemünde is very easy as there is a large multi-storey hotel that dominates the skyline at the harbour entrance and if that isn’t enough, when one gets a little closer, the four huge masts of the impressive Passat remove any doubt whatsoever – more on the Passat in a future day’s Blog . Whilst on the subject of the Blog, it may be timely to apologise or at least explain that there will be an awful lot of names coming up as we meet fellow CA Rally people. Now the Blog has grown from being something that I wrote as an aide memoire for me and Lord knows I need one, to something that I hope appeals at least a little to a wider audience. However, the next few days will probably be of more interest and use to me as I need to record who we met as, sometime in the future, I may well have to quickly refer back to these pages when we meet someone who looks vaguely familiar! It’s a bit like, in the dim and distant past when I travelled extensively and was forever going into offices in different countries, I was in fear of meeting people who recognised me but sadly, I couldn’t recall them. So I used to have, wherever possible, photos of the individuals whom I should know plus small biographies and this served me very well, until the time when we had a convention and all these people, from umpteen different countries, came together. Finally, to add to the mix, my international job changed from time to time so there was the extra twist that I had to remember the context in which we knew each other – nightmare!! So, returning the present, there will be a lot of names, starting now.

The organiser of the forthcoming event, Janet Safarovic and her husband Horst, were already berthed and they kindly suggested that we tie up alongside them, as the berths that the rally boats would be using were not vacant yet. Also on Tatanui was Janet’s stand-in when she is not available for doing her HLR duties, (Cruising Association Honorary Local Representative) Peter Wilde, who lives close to the British Kiel Yacht Club where most CA boats call into when they’re in the area. So, by 17:15 I was having my first beer with Horst and Peter and the rest of the day continued in that vein. There was an interlude when we took our thirsts onto another CA boat, a Malo 37, Victrix of Harwich, belonging to Christine Holroyd and Patricia Cooper, absolutely lovely ladies who made us very welcome with very strong gins!

Later again, we had an excellent quiche on board Tatanui thanks to Janet and were joined by Christine and Patricia and the evening reached its’ intellectual climax when we played 'Ibble Dibble’ – if you haven’t been initiated into the mysteries of Ibble Dibble, well, your time may come……