Lady Hamilton 2019

PAVILOSTA TO VENTSPILS
Day 33 Friday, 21st June 2019
Leave at 8.45 am after the Harbour Master comes to the boat and charges 15 euros for the pleasure of being next to the sheet piling!
It’s a roly poly sea today and I have a moment of panic when I go to put up the mainsail. A Hartlepool moment for me! There’s more wind than forecast – about 14 knots from the West. We’re still going northwards along the Latvian coast. We put out the genoa too but it seems to be jammed in the spool. Malcolm goes up to free it – with his safety line on. We sail on a broad reach with 12 – 16 knots of SW wind. Then the wind decreases and the skipper wants to fly the cruising chute and furl the genoa. We fly the chute for ¾ hour when we’re obliged to furl the chute and put on the engine. Then we put out the cruising chute again and switch off the engine. It’s been one of those days!

Malcolm thinks this might be a water tower but it looks suspiciously like a listening device!

We talk about ‘Mad Men’ Series 2: Kennedy’s beaten Nixon and becomes President of the USA and Jackie shows us round the White House (in black and white). Peggy’s been promoted as an Assistant Copywriter by Don Draper – rather unusual in the early ‘60’s. All the men are very chauvinistic – the women are only secretaries (like me in 1970). Joan insults the black girlfriend of Paul at his party, saying ‘I didn’t know you were so open-minded.’ Much to mull over ….. And Chubby Checker’s ‘Let’s Twist Again’ is the music that launches Series 2 – I so remember that at the school disco!

Enter Ventspils Port: a very busy commercial harbour with oil tanks, tankers and ferries. One goes to Travemunde, Germany, and one to Nynasham, Sweden, where we’ve been last year – our last stop before Tyreso where all the children and grandchildren came last Summer.  Ventspils is famous for its cow sculptures – there’s even one on the South pier as we come in – a jaunty sailor cow!

We head to the Fish Dock to find the marina in there.  The harbour master takes our bow lines and guess what, it’s a stern buoy mooring!  But we’ve been prepared in advance by the ‘Harbours of the Baltic States’ by Fay and Graham Cattell of the Cruising Association and on ‘Cruising Mate’ where someone said that the buoy is two boat lengths away from the shore.  It is!

There’s even a cow at the marina in the Fish Dock!

LEIPAJA TO PAVILOSTA

Day 32 Thursday, 20th June 2019
Radio Port Control on 11 and the Coastguard on 16 to tell them of our next destination and leave the harbour at 9 am.

Once outside the harbour there’s a boat busying itself with taking up a cardinal bouy – reminds me of our Round Britain voyage in 2010. When we eventually got back to Whitby in early September, they were taking out the Bell Bouy!
The Cathedral is still glinting away merrily.

Put up the cruising chute at 10 am for the first time this year.

The wind is SSE 9/12 so we can switch of the engine for a couple of hours. It ends up becoming tangled when we try to jibe the chute as the wind has changed direction, now SW. So the skipper takes it down (it’s already furled) and I put on the engine. We now put out the genoa and turn off the engine as the wind has increased slightly to 14 knots.
This is Akmenrags Lighthouse which was destroyed in WW1 and rebuilt in 1922. It protects a sandbank which goes out 2 nautical miles into the Baltic Sea.

We hear rolls of thunder but can’t see any lightning and no rain appears – phew!
Enter the port and before we’ve even finished tying up on a wobbly finger pontoon, a Border Guard appears.   We tell him where we’ve come from and where we’re going.  He’s very amiable and when I go to his office he gives me a map.

They are piling right next to the Pavilosta Port Authority Marina – a most deafening sound when they’re banging in the sheet piles!  The Harbour Master is wearing a very jaunty sailor’s cap and a striped t-shirt and is busy taking people out on his boat.  We go to the tourist office in this very sleepy place – which is open from 7.30 am to 7.30 pm – can’t think why?  It’s a very beach bum sort of place, with paddle boards going up the river and kite surfing on the beach.

We eat out at Akagals which also provides B & B facilities – it has a lovely garden.  I’m missing mine but Erika, our gardener, has sent me lots of pictures. It looks so lovely!

 

 

LIEPAJA

Day 31  Wednesday, 19^th June 2019

Caught the bus to Karosta but the driver didn’t speak any English so we went south into the town of Liepaja rather than northwards to Karosta!  So we saw what Liepaja had to offer – not a lot!  And went to an ATM before catching the right bus, no. 3, to take us to Karosta – thanks to Google Maps on my phone!

The very obliging driver of the 3 bus showed us where the church was at the end of the journey: St. Nicolas’ Marine Cathedral.  It’s right next to a block of very Soviet flats!  And it’s the same one we saw glinting in the sun as we approached the harbour.

The foundation stone of the cathedral was laid in 1900.   Russian Tsar Nikolay 11 visited Liepaja with his family and attended the consecration ceremony at the cathedral.  There are some old photos in the church showing the event.  The most important donors to the cathedral were Tsar Nikolay 11 and his family.  He was the same tsar who was forced to abdicate in 1917 and was murdered, along with his family, in 1918 in Ekaterinburg.   

The Cathedral was damaged in WW1 and used as German anti-aircraft defence forces unit during WW11.  After the return of the Soviet Army it was used as a warehouse and later as a sailors’ club with cinema and sports hall.  In 1991 the Russian Navy abandoned the Cathedral and left the keys to the believers.  It was rededicated the next year.  I wear a scarf as all the women inside are wearing scarves.  The church is full of Russian Orthodox icons which I can’t photograph.

Next to the Museum in a Prison – the only military prison in Europe open to tourists.  It was built as a hospital at the beginning of the 20^th century but soon became a prison – a short-term disciplinary penalty place.  Tsarist Russian Garrison soldiers who participated in the events of the attempted revolution in in 1905, served their sentence in this prison.  We have soup in metal bowls with tarnished spoons in the café – supposed to be prisoners’ rations!

Sailors and non-commissioned officers in

both the Soviet and Latvian Navy have been sent here. 

The last of the convicts have scratched calendars, drawings, slogans, messages on the walls of the cells, just a short time ago in 1997.

Our guide in Soviet sailor’s uniform: 

we’re on an English tour (there are only guided tours in the prison) with another English couple, a Russian couple and a Lithuanian school party of teenagers. We are asked to maintain high discipline, take part in military drills and we’re put into a cell and locked in – but if you disobey you will be punished.  

We go into cell 26  with no windows and experience solitary confinement for a few minutes.

Bus home – no 4 – takes 30 minutes.  We go to the wonderful supermarket, Rimi, which could be anywhere in Europe.  The wine boxes are expensive but everything else is pretty reasonable.  Make spaghetti sauce for our meal on board but forget to buy any parmesan!

KLAIPEDA (LITHUANIA) TO LEIPAJA (LATVIA)  55 miles

Day 30  Tuesday, 18^th June 2019

Wave off Jane and Gerwyn on ‘Libby’ at 7 am.  They’re going to Hel, in the opposite direction to us. We take the bridge at 8 am.  A cruise liner has just docked: ‘Aida’.  We’ve seen it before somewhere – maybe in Kerrara, the island off Oban – in 2010.  Glad we’re not in Klaipeda today as there coaches galore waiting on the quayside for the cruise passengers!

Klaipeda is the only port in Lithuania but there are quite a few in Latvia, situated where the rivers flow into the sea. 

We have to phone Immigration on Ch 73 and Port Control on 9 to get the all clear.  Then two large ferries come in just as we’re leaving the entrance, forcing us to roll around in their wake.

The coast is just the same as it’s always been – sandy beach and fir trees behind.  And we’re still the only yacht in the village – apart from a lone yacht trailing behind us, not on AIS, but we think he’s sailing.

 The W wind never gets above above 7 knots so we’re motor-sailing with the main and the genoa out – and we’re going due north.  We need the help of the engine to maintain progress – it’s 55 miles today  and we don’t arrive until 6.15 pm. 

I see something shining in the distance as we approach the harbour.  It might the golden onion-shaped domes of St. Nicholas’ Cathedral in Karosta? 

The very young Assistant Harbour Master collects our lines and moors us to a long pontoon outside the Hotel Promenade. 

This is the only berth in Leipaja for yachts.  You enter the port from the southern entrance – all very dilapidated, timber piled up, military vessels and fishing boats.

The guy on the yacht behind us arrives at 11 pm – he’s German and another lone sailor.  We eat on board tonight as we’re pretty tired.

KLAIPEDA

Day 29   Monday, 17^th June 2019

Put our sheets in the laundry, and I write a blog on Word.  Malcolm invites the Welsh sailors, Jane and Gerwyn, on ‘Libby’ for drinks at 6 pm.

Then we set off to the Tourist Information in the Old Town to find out which museums are open today.  Turns out that none of them are!  They seem to be closed on Sundays and Mondays.  Only the Amber Museum is open and M is allergic to anything to do with jewelry!

Instead we go on a passenger ferry to the Curonian Spit.  It’s only 1 euro each for both ways!  And takes less than 5 minutes to cross the lagoon. We try to find an Information Centre on the Spit but it’s closed.    We don’t go to the Dolphinarium, at the end of the Spit as we’ve seen lots of dolphins in the wild and we would hate seeing them in captivity.

We walk through the woods towards the women’s beach and it’s so quiet and peaceful, with flowers and birds.

 

I love seeing wild flowers under the trees.  My favourite is Herb Robert, the delicate pink one, which I’ve loved ever since I was a child.

 

 

The women’s and the men’s beaches are for nudists, but there’s a family beach separating them. No wonder the skipper decided yesterday to stay in Klaipeda another day – there are lots of white horses out there and quite a swell.  Looking north towards the harbour entrance,

and south towards Kaliningrad!

Walk back through the trees and try to imagine cycling the Curonian Spit – we think we’ve crossed the path that Fiona and Steve are going to take.

Eat in a café , quite close to the ferry. 

 

We love this new building in the shape of a ‘K’ and can almost see the marina, green mound in the distance.  

We take the ferry back at 2.15 pm, Malcolm goes for milk (the lady in the Tourist Bureau has told him the word for milk!).  Lithuanian language: one of the oldest in the world still spoken today, the tongue that time forgot is supposedly similar in grammatical form as well as sharing many of the same words with, of all things, Sanskrit!  Getting to grips with the local lingo is at best tough! I go to the laundry and fold up the washing. I have to go the Old Mill Hotel to post my blog as the wifi is down at the Pilies Uostas restaurant.  Have showers and welcome our visitors on board at 6pm. 

Jane gives us lots of handy hints about the best stopovers in Finland and Sweden and recommends that we get SMHI (Swedish Meteorological and Hydrographic Institute), a weather app, for the currents and wave heights in the Baltic.  Swedish Navtex also gives good weather forecasts. 

They’re on the way home now having been almost 3 years in the Baltic.  They used to have a Harlberg Rassey 37 in the Med, and then decided to stop sailing and buy a smaller traditional yacht for cruising the river up from Milford Haven.  They ended up going from Wick in North East Scotland over to Norway (and had to wait 3 weeks for the right forecast) and have done the Gota Canal in Sweden!  They over-wintered ‘Libby’ in Tallinn and are now going back via the Kiel Canal and the Mast-up Route in Holland.  Jane told us that this would be last time they carried out any major expeditions!

We say farewell to our visitors and go back to our favourite restaurant.  The waitress speaks very good English (and also she’s very pretty) and persuades Malcolm to have a special fish caught that day.  We wait almost an hour for the fish which is served whole, wrapped in greaseproof paper.  It’s quite bony and we end up eating a lot of fishbones!

 

 

 

 

KLAIPEDA

Day 28 Sunday 16^th June 2019  (Father’s Day)

It rains heavily during the night – and I’ve not taken off the main halyard so we have such a loud frapping on the mast.  This is at 5am and the skipper goes up and puts a bungee on it and we fall back to sleep until 9 am.

Have a leisurely breakfast (made by the skipper, who’s not aware it’s Father’s Day until Morag sends him a message on Whats App!) of real coffee, toast and Jackson’s marmalade.  Then we go across to the restaurant where I post two more blogs about Kaliningrad.  Only 3 days behind now!

We get ‘bridged’ at 1pm and it’s open for 15 minutes on every hour.  Walk down the Dane River quayside and take a photo of the two bridge men and the Curonian Spit on the other side.

These are the famous weathervanes.  In 1844, to reinforce supervision of fishing in the Curonion Lagoon, an order was passed to hoist weathervanes with signs of villages on the main mast of fishermen’s large sail boats. 64 fishing villages had such signs until 1944.

Walk round to the castle – the marina is in the moat – but there’s nothing inside, only a closed museum from the ’39 – ’45 War.  We thought they were going to reconstruct a tower, but nothing has been built yet. 

We go past a big sailing ship, ‘Meridianas’, which is now renovated and turned into a restaurant.

And we have to seek shelter from the rain and thunderstorm at Coco’s, a popular ‘restobar’ with hookahs.  Some people come and sit very near where we’re eating and smoke the hookah, puffing out clouds of smoke (quite fragrant smoke, though). 

In 1808 Klaipeda became the capital of Prussia, then known as Memel, when Napoleon occupied Berlin. When the Nazis took control of the city, in  March 1939,  Hitler gave a speech from the balcony of this theatre.

Nearly two-thirds of the city is destroyed in WW11.  The rest of Lithuania came under Soviet rule until 1990.  In 2004 they join Nato and the EU and in 2007 they join the Schengen zone.

This is Jono’s Hill – must be named after our son, Jono!  We think it’s been a castle or bastion of some kind but there’s nothing to tell us any different.

We wander round the cobbled streets and houses

 

and find a small supermarket, where we buy a carton of milk (turns out to be yoghourt!), and some more things for our tea.  And I go to ‘Autentic’ for 10 minutes to buy some souvenirs in amber.  Again it’s in a renovated warehouse in the old town.  Merchants’ warehouses, patched up and transformed into harbour-side hotels and eateries adorn the southern bank of the Dane, where our marina is – we’re bobbing around the grassy castle ramparts.

Eat on board, a cheese omelette and salad, and watch two episodes of ‘Mad Men’!

 

KLAIPEDA

Day 27,  Saturday 15^th June 2019

We arrive near Klaipeda at 6 am and have to travel a couple of miles round the end of the Curonian Spit before we turn left into the Dane River for our marina.  It’s all very industrial along the mainland coast and very rural on the Curonian Spit side.  Klaipeda is Lithuania’s only major port on the Baltic Sea.

The region’s highlight is the Curonian Spit.  It was listed as a UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site in 2000 and stretches out for more than a 100 kms, from Russia to Lithuania. The entire region, especially the Curonian lagoon, was declared an important breeding area for birds and significant layover for migrating birds and is under special protection.  The Spit has sand on the western side, with dunes rising to 60 metres at one point.  Fiona, my sister, and Steve and a couple of friends are going to cycle the Curonian Spit at the beginning of July.  They’ll be taking a boat across the lagoon, arrive in Nida and cycle along the Seaside Cycle Route – and may even be going swimming in the Baltic Sea!

The Old Castle Marina has a swing bridge to get into the marina, operated by two men on a windlass.

Suddenly we find ourselves in a new time zone – we’re further east than we’ve ever sailed before, more than 20 degrees E, so we have to add 2 hours to the UK time – it’s only been + 1 before. 

Border Patrol (a man and a woman) arrive at our boat very promptly, even before we’ve tied up.  They request our passports and a crew list (I’m the only crew on this boat!).  They’re quite humorous – unlike the Russians who take it very seriously – and wish us a nice day.

We fall into bed after doing watches all night but only sleep for a couple of hours.  We end up being very crotchety all day! 

I do the laundry and post a blog in the restaurant next to the marina which has good Wifi.  Malcolm goes in search of fuel but it’s down a vertical ladder and even so he comes back empty-handed, as the pump rejected his card.  I meet a Welsh couple from Milford Haven in the laundry/showers who say that they haven’t seen anyone British for ages.  They’ve wintered their small yacht in Tallinn.

The marina is very popular – people promenading along the river and eating in the restaurants.  We even had a bride this morning,  photographed against the yachts. 

We go back to the restaurant in the evening and sit outside.  We both get our Kindles out to catch up with emails and news from home – just like any other couple!  If you want to know, Malcolm had an amazing fish soup and followed it with mussels and chips.  I had salmon, asparagus and a baked potato. 

KALININGRAD (RUSSIA) to KLAIPEDA (LITHUANIA)  – 100 miles

Day 26 Friday, 14^th June 2019

Malcolm tried to phone his sister, Anne, last night but they tell him in Russian and English that  there’s no such number!  This is the marina at sundown.

We leave gifts for ‘Mon Desir’ on their boat and cash for Sergey, for payment of our mooring fees,  with the Harbour Master.  There are some fishermen mending their nets by the smokery.  Reminds one of Whitby in the old days.

These are the trip hazards – anchors!

Quite a variety of boats in the marina, including our friends from ‘Mon Desir’ who have a spacious cabin cruiser with two toilets and showers!

Leaving the Yachtport Heydekrug at 9.30 am.

There are some spacious houses along the canal.

Pier 81 again for Customs and Immigration at 12 noon.  This time we have 4 women, 3 come in a car and one Customs lady who tells me to get back on the boat when I wandered over to the office!  They ask for crew lists (x2) and our passports and one of the ladies takes photos of our lockers again.  I think she rather hoped we’d been hiding Russian emigrants down below …. 

They study our passports for ages in the small hut at the end of the landing stage.  Maybe they’re surprised to see how well-travelled we are!   The lady who’s in charge wishes us a good voyage.  We’re off at 12.45 pm and call Baltjisk Control to let us out the harbour and say we’re going to Klaipeda.

Don’t know who this statue is of but it guards the entrance – might be Peter the Great?

These Russian ‘golf balls’ remind us of the old Fylingdales Early Warning Station on the North York Moors – they’re listening to our every word!

It’s going to be a long day and night but we don’t want to arrive in Klaipeda in the dark.  We motor-sailed all the way with little wind and a calm sea.  We’re the only boat in the village after we leave the anchored ships outside Baltjisk and the anchored ships off Klaipeda, a 100 miles apart.  We had to avoid the Lithuanian military area but suddenly hear an American voice on Channel 16, he’s on a US Warship.  Might be doing an exercise in the military area, do you think?  We still can’t see any ships on the AIS.

I take pictures of the sunset at 10.15 pm and the sunrise at 4.55 am.  The moon comes up and is almost full, shining a silver light on the sea.

 

 

KALININGRAD

Day 25  Thursday, 13^th June 2019

Go on the 105 bus to the Ocean Museum in the city.  The lady who gives us the tickets (really a ‘clippy’) tells us very kindly where to get off.  I ask in the Apotek  (Chemist) how to get to the museum – my pigeon-brain might have kicked in! – and another lady, a customer, said she would show us the way.  It ends up that she’s with a school party at the Ocean Museum so we are very grateful for her help.  She doesn’t speak any English either (nor French or German). 

We need many tickets for the museum for different parts: ‘Depth’, ‘Aquarium’, Research ship and submarine – but not for the flying boat which is another kiosk down the quay!

First we go to ‘Depth’ where they have a whale skeleton, a deep-water research submarine and a kosmonaut’s landing craft. 

Upstairs, we’re very pleased to see a model of Captain Cook’s ‘Endeavour’ and John Harrison’s ‘Longitude’ mentioned.

Then on to the research ship R/V Vityaz – this is the screed about it.

The museum has renovated the cabins and put up many displays – including a portrait of Captain Cook,

many South Sea artefacts – even the kangaroo by Stubbs – and a whole case featuring Joseph Banks catching butterflies and the artist Sydney Parkinson (not sure he wore the hat on the voyage!).

Next stop – the submarine.  It’s very claustrophobic inside and we have to negotiate these watertight hatches at least 4 times! 

Malcolm with the flying boat.

Then it starts to thunder and lightening so we go to the Aquarium – not a patch on The Deep in Hull!  The fish are in very small tanks round a room.  There’s also an exhibition of shells and corals.

Now in our kagouls, we wade through water on the roads and go to the Holiday Inn with wifi and coffee.  The charming Receptionist tells us how to get on the wifi which we need for the weather forecast tomorrow as we’re sailing overnight to Klaipeda in Lithuania.

We get the 107 bus back to the marina and the next ‘clippy’ gives us a coin to commemorate the Sochi Olympics in 2014.  So kind! 

Buy some more milk for tomorrow but it says 13:06:19 on it – not sure if it’s bottled on that date or it’s the sell-by-date?  Then we buy whole smoked mackerel for tonight at a very extensive fish shop (although the fish is all smoked).  We use up the last of the potatoes and have a salad with the mackerel – it’s tasty but difficult to bone easily!

 

 

KALININGRAD

Day  24  Wednesday, 12^th June 2019  –  Independence Day

It’s 15 km into the city from the marina.  Our very generous hosts parked and took us to the Cathedral and Immanuel Kant’s tomb.

 I studied philosophy at university many years ago and I had to study Kant so it was interesting to see his tomb, in what was then known as Konigsberg. 

Malcolm and I went into the cathedral, built by the Teutonic Knights in the 14^th Century but was badly bombed by the RAF in 1944.  They have a funny ticket system here – you have to buy tickets from a kiosk outside and we go into the ‘Concert hall’ (the main part of the church) where there’s a huge organ, and a smaller one.

 

Then we went up a long spiral staircase to the museum and a girl told us we needed another ticket – again from a kiosk across the road.  We’d given up by this time as it’s so hot!

This is a brand new Jewish Synagogue.

We decided on a trip on the river to orientate ourselves in Kaliningrad.  Our driver speaks English and tells us about various sights.  We go past the Museum of the Ocean which looks interesting with various ships, a submarine and a flying boat and we might go tomorrow. 

These are restaurants and houses along the river.

This bridge reminds us of Middlesborough’s ‘Lift Bridge’.

Go past St. Nicholas’ statue and see the World Cup 2018 Stadium where England played – we saw the match in Denmark last year. 

Piles of coal – not very ecologically sound!

After that we go to a restaurant on the riverside and have salads – it’s so hot, even under the umbrellas, that we choose to eat inside where it’s much cooler.

We meet our hosts from ‘Mon Desir’ in the car park at 2 pm and they go back a different way through the city to show us more sites.  They very kindly take us for fuel and to a very smart Spar supermarket for bread and milk.

We misunderstood our hosts about taking us swimming in the canal, so return to our boat and chill under our very own sun umbrella.  I read every word of the ‘Woman and Home’ magazine that June gave me and Malcolm mends the AIS.  The USB cable had actually failed.

We’re now watching ‘Mad Men’ – we’ve got 3 series to go at!  Don Draper’s secretary , ‘Peggy’, is played by Elizabeth Moss who played The Handmaid.  Strange coincidence as she’s very different in Mad Men.  Took a while to get into but we’re enjoying it now – it’s set in the early ‘60s in an advertising agency.