Jim in Poland and Sweden

I am now heading south on Swedish coast towards Bornholm, Denmark in 5 days. I was in Stockholm again at Vasahamn, Vasa harbour right down town beside the Vasa museum, a 1628 king Gustaff's warship and sailing vessel that is the only vessel of it's kind left in the world. It sailed for 20 minutes and sank in Stockholm harbour, too narrow, too many cannon and too high! The king was a bit embarrassed, but he insisted on the changes that caused it. A clear case of royal in-breading and the idiot children of the aristocracy! They recovered it in 1961, almost all in one piece and managed to recover 98% of the ship. The museum is quite amazing. Our boat is docked in a marina 100 meters from the museum.

Clive left for home in late July and until Ramsey arrived for crew change August 4th, I took a break and spent a weak visiting Wolfgang and Lena on Ingaro island in the Stockholm Archipelago, not far from Stockholm, who I had not seen for 15 years, since I last visited, and his brother in-law Steffan and Lena's sister, Kira, at there family cabins, their parents owned and both built in 1856. Wolf and I lived together when I was a teacher for 4 years. To get there, Clive and I made our way up a very narrow and shallow channel, lots of fun, I joked to Clive that we were going up the Mekong, in search of Kurtz like in the film Apocalyps. The inlet felt like a lake, they have no tides here and little in the whole Baltic. We made our way to a most beautiful wharf and sauna that Stefan had made below a rock cliff with a billy goat like climb up to their cabins above. They were all waiting on the wharf, lots of hugs and kisses. Stefan even had an electric boat hook-up so I had all the creature comforts of home for the week and lots of meals with them plus hangovers the next mornings.

One more day in Stockholm with Ramsey and than off to a village (via a canal, locks and swing bridges) that is the earliest settlement in Sweden, a Viking settlement, and from there we will visit a castle museum two boating hours away and stay at the marina for the night. Next day we travel 8 days down the Swedish coast through thousands of islands to Bornholm Island, Denmark which is supposed to be one of the prettiest places in the Baltic, so they say, even though it is hard to believe it gets better! From there to Copenhagen and then the islands to Arhus, via a Viking museum in Demark that is supposed to be the best Viking museum of all.

I have had the most amazing journey from Arhus, down through the most beautiful Danish islands to Flensburg, Germany. From there along the German coast and Polish coast to Gdansk, a most wonderful medieval city.

We have been visiting most of the Hanseatic cities (google Hanseatic League) of the Middle Ages on the Baltic as seen from a sailboat a bit like the Hansa ships may have seen it. It has been so much fun. Truly a journey of a lifetime. I have been in a state of bliss for two months.

From Gdansk Clive and I did a 32 hour, two overnighters from Hel, Poland (3 hours sailing from Gdansk) to Visby, Gotland Isalnd, Sweden. We left at 10 pm, the weather forecast was good for three days so off we went. Visby was a Viking town and it and Lubeck, Germany (that we visited earlier) were the most important cities of the Hanseatic League. It is and old walled city with many historical streets, houses and buildings. Very charming. We have managed to stay in marinas in the very centre of every town or city we wanted to see. We had just amazing access by boat on the Baltic. They really maintain their maritime heritage and enjoyment of sailing. Poland was very inexpensive for marinas, meals and booze. Gdnask (Danzig) is amazing for the historical centre to the city, one of our favorites