Lady Hamilton 2019

GDANSK TO KALININGRAD or TO HEL AND BACK (50 miles)

Day 22   Monday 10^th June, 2019

Woken by alarm at 5 am and leave at 6 am.  We have to phone the bridge before we cast off to get it raised.  The Marina girl gave us a phone number as well as VHF 15.

Takes an hour from the marina to the open sea.  Lots of ships but no Susana S!

We put up the sails and the wind is supposed to be from the SE but it’s very fluky and ends up on the nose.  After that we have to negotiate more firing ranges – Areas 1a and 1b, just after the two major shipping channels leading to Gdansk.

Polish Border Control contacts us 5 miles from the Russian Border and informs the skipper that we need to go to Hel (in the opposite direction) for border control check-in, as we were heading for Russia.  The skipper informs him that we’re British and EU citizens (but only just!).  We’re now 3.5 miles from the Russian Border – so near but so far away!

Then a Border Control boat comes out to us from Hel and escorts us all the way back to Hel – FOR 3.5 HOURS!!  This is a small fishing port and holiday resort at the end of the Hel Peninsula sticking out from Wladyslowo, the largest fishing port in Poland, which we left last Thursday.    

Four Polish Border Guards get in a dinghy from the Patrol Boat and enter the harbour of Hel.  They talk to a land Border Guard, wearing army type fatigues, on the quay and he drives round to the marina.  We moor against a timber-clad wall, our lines taken by the marine Border Guards.

We have to show our passports, and all our papers, including Malcolm’s Certificate of Competence, our address in Whitby etc. etc.  Everything is written down in duplicate and we face a fine of 200 Polish Schlotti (£40), We’ve tried to spend all our Polish currency in Gdansk – and I have to go to the ATM with the land Border Guard in his car as they don’t do cards.  The ATM charges 7.5% for the privilege!

We get a receipt – by now three of the Border Guards are on our boat as it’s easier to write screeds and screeds in the cockpit! 

We can’t find anything about needing to get clearance from the Border Guards in Schengen areas to go to a country outside the Schengen area.  Nothing in the Pilot Book nor in other material from the Cruising Association.  The Marina girl in Gdansk did say we could get the Coastguards to give us help to enter Kaliningrad but I said we had a man there, Sergey, who would give Border Control at Baltysk all our details.  I was so wrong!

Staying in Hel tonight as it’s too late to go back to Kaliningrad, as you can’t do the long sea canal at night.  We’re both exhausted and the land Border Guard is coming round at 5.30 am to stamp our passports!  Hels Bells!!