Lulea - Ratan (26-27/7)
The
end of the trip for most youngsters on board, replaced only by the
author of these lines. Appointment was given "near the ice-breakers".
Lulea is one of the place where Swedish ice-breakers are stationed over
the summer. The Atle, Frej and Ymer were easily visible from the plane,
awaiting the next winter with serious ice conditions, if any ...
It
was Lisa's birthday. Since the final episode of Harry Potter had been
published just a day earlier, I more or less expected she would want a
copy, but no, she had asked for a ... Reblochon cheese. I duely obliged
and was treated to the scene of seeing a Reblochon as well as nearly a
kilogram of Jura cheese vanish in little more than 15 mins. I later
understood why: she had spent a month in Sweden and Finland, countries
where excellent berries and fish abound, but where cheese worthy of the
name is apparently a rare commodity.
Peter had spent the day
repainting the cockpit floor. It looked superb, even if for a couple of
days we would have to fly above the floor while hoisting the sails. All
in vain, as we were to discovered a few days later: the paint refused
to stick, someting several other users of the same paint had painfully
discovered. Refueling exercise, dinner and departure in the evening for
Ratan under peaceful conditions.
Ratan is a former customs post
for the Bottenviken (Bay of Bothnia): ships were unloaded, the load
taxed and the the ships were reloaded with their timber, iron etc...,
an exercise which at the time delighted the crews as much as it would
today. Some remainders of the infrastructure are still to be seen on
the island, including on the positive side, abundant blueberries and
some mazes which were either made by the crews of passing cargo ships
to kill the waiting time at the customs, or by local fishermen in
effort to improve their luck.
On the mainland, there are
monuments to 2 soldiers out of several 1000 who where wounded or killed
here and in Sävar in the battle of Aug 1809 between Sweden and Russia.
At Sävar, Sweden had lost a battle against Russia, but a day later in
Ratan, Sweden was more lucky. In the aftermath, Sweden lost what is now
Finland, but as a result of the battle of Ratan, the border was
considerably further to the North, leaving an area to Sweden that would
later prove rich in mineral resources.
Ratan - Ulvön (29-30/7)
The
menu of the day was the passage of the Quark, the string of islands
which separates the Bay of Bothnia from the Sea of Bothnia. We had
delayed our departure by a day to have the time to visit, but also to
await more settled weather. When we got underway, there still was a
fresh breeze, on average 6 Bf, and needless to say that the wind was
exactly aligned with the passage. The result was an impressive number
of tacks, mostly in 2nd reef and thus with 120° tacking angles. Peter
at some point observed with wry smiles that the VMG was barely reaching
2 knots, inspite of a boat speed regularly exceeding 7 knots! After the
Quark, we could set course to Ulvön without need for further tacks, and
by the end of the day we had done 125 nm to cover the net distance of
85 nm between Ratan and Ulvön.
Ulvön is actually 2 islands,
separated by a narrow and well sheltered passage, with a peaceful
village and a swimming pool. Good occasion to pratice mooring with a
bow-anchor, a fairly common technique in this region (an also in the
Mediterranean), but all harbours we were to visit later had in fact
buoys.
Ulvön - Härnösand (30/7)
We
had experienced serious problems finding crew to sail from Lulea to
Helsinki, but at last moment Yvonne found Gunnar, the grandfather of
her godson, willing to join, which saved the 2007 tour. One wonders
what makes the Baltic so little popular. Later on we were to meet a few
groups from countries that do not border the Baltic: two Swiss, several
Brits and one French, but their numbers really do no justice to this
remarkable sailing region. In addition, the welcome one receives here
can simply not be compared with the Mediterranean.
At any rate, whe we arrived in the harbour of Härnösand, Gunnar was already there waiting for us!
Härnösand - Söderhamn (31/7)
With
an average speed of 7.4 knots, one of the faster legs in Imram history:
constantly at a reach in winds of 6-7 Bf, the boat speed regularly
exceeded 10 knots, and consistently in the correct direction. Not
exactly a quiet leg to get acquainted with the boat, but Gunnar was
more surprised that the youngsters on board weren't in the least
impressed ...
Söderhamn - Hamnholmen, Aland (1/8-2/8)
The
day started with a magnificent cake to celebrate the birthday of your
chronicler. Soon after, Lucio, Lisa, Agathe, Jakob and Peter took the
train and bus (10h in all) back to Lulea. After that, they drove to the
Artic circle at Jokkmokk, hunting for hjortron. Remained "only" a 4 day
drive back to Genève in a Kangoo with 5 people and their kit inside ...
Now
with a crew of only 2, we left Söderhamn at 4 pm and had perfect
conditions to sail to the Aland islands, the speed often reached 8
knots and averaged 7.3 knots.
After arriving at 7 am, we had
breakfast and some sleep, the went for a lunch hike. This produced not
only lots of blueberries but also chanterelle mushrooms. Gunnar proved
to be a great expert in such delicacies. Later, observing that we were
short in bread, he baked an excellent specimen with oats and rosemary
fragrance, it matched to perfection the last of the Jura cheeses we
still had on board.
Hamnhomen - Kökar (3/8)
Hamnholmen
to Kökar is one of the more common crossings of the Aland archipelago.
This well-marked route passes between an infinite number of small
islands, with here and there a holiday house or other discrete sign of
human activity. One of the more bizarre constructions is a large jetty
in a small village where there is hardly anything to be done, there
isn't even a shop, but where ferries stop (mostly at night) when
sailing through Aland on their way between Sweden and Finland. The
reasons are easy to guess if one considers the autonomy of the Aland
islands. The autonomy has also more funny implications, such as the
islands having their own Internet domain name. Similarly, visiting
sailing boats will generally use a local courtesy flag.
On
Kökar, we finally have a chance to try the famous Alands Pannkaka of
which the recipe stares at us from the logbook, earlier Imram crew must
have tried it. This local speciality is a thick pancake made of rice
boiled in milk, cooled and mixed with a bit of sugar, some wheat flour,
an egg, and most important of all, cardamon. The pancake is baked in
the oven and served with jam (plum or raspberry) and whipped cream.
Undeniably, something that is not to be missed!
Here, at last,
we meet some non-Scandinavians: a group of Swiss has rented a boat for
sailing in the region and we get the visit of Jean-Michel Nalpowik,
designer of the Poussière d'Etoiles series, and two his daughters.
And
last but not least, although we're no longer in Sweden, we try the
Swedish specialty of surströmming ... a tin which looks like it is
ready to explode (so much so that some airlines refuse to transport it)
with fermenting herring inside. Peter had bought a tin in Ratan, which
apparently is famous for this. Prudently, we open the tin outside so as
to avoid dousing the cabin with the liquids produced by fermenting fish
... Athough undeniably unusual, the fish actually tastes remarkably
good, no similarity with the smell of the liquids emerging from the tin.
Kökar - Hanko or Hangö (4-5/8)
We leave Kökar in the late afternoon with a serenade played on the trumpet by one of the daughters of Jean-Michel!
The
zone is not covered by the portfolios we have for the inner routes and
we therefore pass via the Gulf of Finland proper. The islands are
sparser, but there are all the same outlying shoals at 10 nm from the
coast. In the morning, the Bengtskär lighthouse emerges, scene of a
fierce battle between Finland and Russia in July 1941, with heavy loss
of life. A striking feature is the large building offering
accommodation for the staff. This apparently resulted from the custom
that the crew stayed there with their complete families, at the peak in
total some 40 people, including a schoolteacher.
Shortly after,
Morgondland appears, probably the morning land for Bengtskär, with its
natural bay on NE, it looks almost tropical on this warm summer day.
Hanko
was a favourite resort of the Russian nobility in the 19th century and
this shows in the large number of elegant wooden houses all along the
coast. As suggested by the tourist agency, we made a long walk all
around the peninsula, which not only takes in the historic parts and
the forests, but also the modern harbour where countless cargo ships
are unloaded, their cargo, mostly cars, is from here transported to
Russia by train.
Hanko or Hangö - Inga or Inkoo (6/8)
The
internal route here uses narrow passages with forests on both sides,
and gradually there are more and more holiday houses as we approach
Helsinki. We also pass by the former Soviet military base of Porkkala
(Porkala in Swedish), returned to Finland only in 1955, and nowadays a
Finnish naval base.
Good thing that the Imram has little
draught, to get to Inkoo the short way, one passes sections with less
than 2 m of water (there is also a route with at least 2 m 60).
Inga or Inkoo - Helsinki (7/8)
Again
mostly via the internal route, but with a longish section in the open
sea to take advantage of the wind, a nice 3 Bf but straight in the axis
of the internal route.
And so we arrive in Helsinki, where we
moor in a harbour near Tervasaari (Tjärhomen in Swedish, the name seems
to mean "tar island", a reminder of the Teerhofinsel where the boat
spent the winter). Fittingly, the leg ends as it started, with the
Helsinki ice-breaker fleet moored nearby.
We're one day ahead of
schedule, which leaves us the time to visit the town while awaiting the
arrival of the next crew.
In total 735 nm.
Helsinki - St Peterburg (9-11/8)
It
is Gunnar's last day on board. For days already, he had been
fine-tuning a plan to bake cinnamon buns at midnight, to welcome our
new crew. But ... they had decided to spend the first night in a hotel!
The buns are happily consumed by those on-board, aptly assisted by
Maciek from the neighbouring boat, who turns out to know Sebastian
Lopienski from a regatta a few years ago.
In the morning, the
new crew (Yvonne, Helen, Ruben and Haude) arrives, with a staggering
number of bags ... We spend the day refueling, checking the rig,
cleaning the mast rails, storing the dinghy, buying food supplies,
picking up an Estonian chart portfolio, visiting the town etc...
And
then ... a bit before dark, departure for St Peterburg. We follow at
first the scenic Finnish internal route, enjoying a truely remarkable
salmon dinner. Soon after the TSS with its string of cargo ships comes
in sight, we stay North of this for now. We're lucky with the wind:
mostly between close-hauled and beam-reach, enabling us to sail rather
than motor. And then, on August 10th at 2:52 UTC comes the long awaited
moment of entering Russian waters, as required between the 2 entry
buoys on the GOFREP Eastern Reporting Line at 26°30' E. The event is
accompanied by a strikingly beautiful sunrise over Gogland, the first
Russian island we pass by (the name is said to be a transformation of
Hochland, or "high land", even if only 173 m high).
The maritime
borders in this region are surprising: Russian territorial waters begin
well to the W of the straight line connecting the land borders between
Russia and Finland and between Russia and Estonia. As a result, there
is still 130 nm (and 150 nm on our return) to go to St Peterburg.
Another interesting feature is that the entry buoys, just like the
cardinal marks that delimit forbidden zones, exist only on the charts,
not on the water. With the numerous islands, such as Gogland, it is
fortunately not a problem to position oneself using bearings and radar.
GPS doesn't seem to be the method of choice here since there regularly
is no adequate signal, and the charts are anyhow not drawn in the WGS84
datum.
On entry, we make the first of a number of calls with the
Russian coast guard. They will keep tracking our progress until
arrival. Every few hours, we are handed over from one coast guard
station to the next. The coast guard turns out to be friendly, provided
one sticks to the rules, and they consistently wish us a good watch.
The name of the game here is to follow the fairways, without entering
the TSS nor straying into the forbidden zones alongside the TSS. In
addition, it is forbidden to approach, left alone land on any island
before Kotlin. To add some spice to it all, we were warned in advance
that a mistake costs 100 €. Apparently, we managed to stay clear of all
traps and reached Kronshtadt in the night.
There, the Russian
coast guard tried to guide us to a waiting mooring in town, between
Fort Constantine and Fort Alexander, but the charts turn out to be
perfectly right in that area is truely foul ... After a 2h30 long,
almost comical ballet with the coast guard, we decided to continue to a
waiting area outside Kronshtadt and anchor there awaiting the morning
and the opening hours of the customs, who nowadays are at the Sea
Terminal in town. At the customs, we meet Vladimir Ivankiv thanks to
whose priceless services, the formalities are completed in an hour. Two
hours later, we arrive at the St Peterburg River Yacht Club, where
there is indeed mooring available, as promised. The harbour is guarded
day and night, impeccably clean showers are available nearby, and the
bus stop is only a short walk away.
A Finnish and a Lithuanian
boat are already in the harbour and a day later, Maciek and a Dutch
boat arrive too. When we came in, the flags of the foreign boats were
hoisted at the sailing club, but soon after our arrival, they take them
down ... they didn't have a Swiss flag!
In the evening, we visit
the town a first time, spending some time looking for a chic Georgian
restaurant which turned out to be not only closed, but the building in
which it stood had been demolished. The day after (12/8) we go to the
Hermitage, admiring Rembrandt, Matisse, El Greco and every artist one
can imagine, as well as several goden rooms constructed in the style of
Catherine the Great and in the evening to the ballet (Swan lake, in the
Alexksandrinskii theatre, performed by the troupe of the conservatory).
On the 13th, most of us visit St Peter and Paul
and the Spilled Blood
cathedral, and ont 14th, we go to Peterhof, another understated palace
to suit the simple taste of Peter the Great.
St Peterburg - Vergi (15-16/8)
Leaving
St Peterburg is argueably more thricky than entering: once one has
passed the customs in town, there is no(cheap) way back since the
single-entry visa for entering Russia will have expired. Fortunately
for us, the weather forecasts announce settled weather for a number of
days to come, the boat looks in good shape and we have ample supplies
of Diesel.
Exit through the customs turned out to be a simple
affair, taking less than 1h. On the way to the Eastern Reporting Line,
we stay mostly on the North of the fairway, a somewhat longer route,
but this area is much less infested with forbidden zones, one merely
crosses 2 TSSs which are not much used.
The only event worth
reporting is the coast guard making contact with us in the middle of
the night not via radio, as they had so far done, but using ... green
signal rockets. Maybe we had missed a call in Russian? At any rate,
they are perfectly friendly and wish us a good trip. They keep a close
watch throughout though, to the extent that they observe that we are at
some point using the motor in addition to the sails in order to cross a
TSS at right angles, wondering whether we carry the mandatory daymark
(a black triangle).
And then, on August 16th at 11:36 UTC, after
a final radio call to the Russian coast guard, we leave Russian waters,
passing again between the virtual entry buoys on the GOFREP Eastern
Reporting Line. All of a sudden, no need anymore to know our position
to better than 1 nm (a strange feeling) and a good occasion for an
aperitif.
We proceed to Vergi, Estonia, only 25 nm away, we
could have gone there much more directly, but the Russian Coast Guard
won't allow entry or exit via the (disputed) border with Estonia, one
may enter and leave Russian waters only through the central GOFREP
international waters zone.
In the tiny port of Vergi, a
particularly friendly Estonian coast guard officer awaits us,
surprising since there are no other visitors and the activity seems low
otherwise, to the extend that the main jetty has been dismounted.
Clearing the Estonian customs is a matter of minutes. That being done,
the officer switches to more serious matters and points out where the
showers are, where to go for a walk etc...! Near Vergi are some small
villages, with manifestly good restaurants. The delicious mushroom
salad and breaded sardines, which the restaurant had put into a box for
those who didn't leave the boat, are still engraved in my memory ...
and this was only the first of a number of positive gastronomic
experiences in this country.
Vergi - Tallinn (17-18/8)
A
priori a trivial leg, which started out with some sight-seeing in the
natural reserve near Vergi. But in the middle of the night, on approach
of Tallinn, there is first a Mayday call from a sailing boat, not far
from our position. The boat had broken its mast, there was a steady 6
Bf breeze combined with the swell of the near-gales and gales a bit
further to the W. The Estonian coast guard took charge and the boat
later returned on its own to Finland. Soon after, we feel like the
pirates in Asterix in Britain
as we are overrun in the pitch dark by a fleet of sailing boats,
several of them without any lights, many with barely visible lights.
They turns out to be taking part in an annual regatta from Helsinki to
Tallinn, not announced on the Navtex. The first boat crosses in front
of our bow within 2 boat lengths. Soon after, we're on all sides
surrounded by sailing boats and we remain on alert for hours, watching
for boats that may suddenly tack for tactical considerations, not
realising that we're not taking part in the race and that the Imram
doesn't tack anywhere nearly as easily as a regatta boats! We probably
tacked as many times that nights as during the whole rest of the trip.
Our
host port was Pirita, previously host to the sailing events of the 1980
Moscow olympics. Tallinn is a laid back capital with dozens of charming
coffee shops and splendid restaurants. In between, one can visit art
galleries, churches and admire the medieval architecture, interspersed
with Art Nouveau and some very modern. A long walk back to the harbour
included a stop at the site of the singing revolution, where in 1988
more than 300'000 Estonians gathered to sing and demand independance.
Rob had the novel experience of having to wait while crew members toe
nails dried after a pedicure.
Tallinn - Kuressaare (19-20/8)
En
route we were warned of controlled explosions by German NATO warship
Datteln, but they do not (yet!) concern us. The approach to Kuressaare
port at night was stunning: a 2900 m long, 24 m narrow and at most 2.6
deep channel, at the end of which we could see the floodlit castle, a
thirteenth century stone castle which is the best preserved in the
Baltics. The very friendly harbour master has bicycles for rent, is
available day and night for advice, and has impeccable installations,
Oskar clearly is a class apart.
The castle, built from the late
12th century onwards, has largely been restored and now houses a
variety of exhibitions. I was fascinated by those covering the history
of Saarema in particular and Estonia in general. In the Middle Ages,
the area was under German and Danish rule. The castle belonged to the
bishop, until he was evicted at the time of the reformation. During the
2nd word war, Saarema was taken over by the Soviets (1939), then
conquered by the German (1941), then recaptured by the Soviets (1944).
Many fled to Sweden, following the route we were to take a day later,
but under far more precarious conditions. The place remained under
Soviet control and some inhabitants have been kept in Soviet prison
camps until the mid 1950s. Seeing these exhibitions makes it clear why
so many Estonians insist on not being "approximately Russian". Estonia
was in my view the most surprising part of the tour: a country in the
process of making a new start, and doing so with great imagination and
unbelievable energy. It shows while sailing, a cruising guide has been
published, chart portfolios of good quality are available, the guest
harbour of Kuressaare has greatly been improved. And yet, places like
Vergi manage to retain their simplicity and charm. Also Kuressaare
remains little visited, perhaps due to the access channel? Manifestly,
Estonia hasn't yet been discovered as a cruising destination.
We
also meet Alex and Ursula of the Silmaril, who where moored next to us
in Helsinki. They had the same problem as us of having an empty gas
bottle, and they had located a place where the bottles could be
refilled ... coffee flowed again!
Kuressaare - Gotska Sandön (22-23/8)
Estonia
takes its border control serious and since we are about to leave the
country, two Estonian coast guard pay us a visit. Strictly speaking,
they would have to escort us out of the territorial waters, which we
were to leave only many hours later, but they take our word for it that
we really will go to Sweden and explain that these customs procedures
will soon be a thing of the past.
This time the warnings of
controlled explosions, now from NATO warship Middleton, directly
concern us since the site of the explosions is precisely on our planned
path out of the Bay of Riga, a bit North of the TSS. Using an
alternative track through much more shallow waters, we avoid the site
(by 3 nm) and in addition shorten our route by several miles. This
probably made our arrival a bit faster, but the main reason for
arriving early in Gotska were two stretches of a couple of hours each,
consistently at 8 knots on a beam reach in almost flat waters, flying
through a pitch dark night, an experience in itself!
Gotska
Sandön emerges out of the fog when we're not even half a mile from the
coast, with just 8 m of water under the boat. While making the tour
around the island via the South, towards the more sheltered W coast, we
pass by one of the seal colonies the island is famous for. Otherwise,
it seems to be an endless yellow sand beach with plenty of bright green
forest inland, hard to imagine this is at 58°20' N! Sunny weather
during the day, used by most for making a hike, and for swimming by the
rest.
Gotska - Nyköping (23/8)
Departure
shortly before midnight, Gotska again shrouded in the mist, and arrival
in Nyköping in the afternoon after a passage through the Southern part
of the Stockhom archipelago.
Sadly, the shipyard turns out to
have no berths left for the winter; in the winter, as a rule, the water
freezes here and all boats are taken ashore. Each boat therefore has
its own berth, and visitor berths are rare, they need to be reserved
several months ahead of time.
After some discussion, the boat
remains in the Nyköping guest harbour, awaiting transport further South
in a couple of weeks. Good occasion to use the remaining time to visit
Stockholm, Norrköping and Linköping.
In total 815 nm from Helsinki
