Breakfast with the LosLocos. Despite all the chaos, I still put the video. Hehehe. Enjoy the music ! Bruno rocks. ;-)
Ah ! And in this instant Mr. Freudenstein of the equally named company and he makes my day because he will do the mount for our Cutter-stay ! Yay !!!
Two more completely uneventful short clips from our last trip. Next time, there’ll be action and sound. Promised !
I also wanted to do a little video-tour through the Rancho Relaxo but before that we’d have to eliminate all the chaos here… We’ll see… remind me later…
Another nice ride across the Baltic sea. It always amazes me: there’s wind with a force of 5 and the waves are 1 to 2.5 meters BUT the distance between the waves is less than our ship’s length. This makes sailing in the baltic always quite ‘interesting’. But our ancient windvane was steering well and we had a really nice and fast sail.
We started about 12:30 from Fehmarn and arrived 64nm later at 03h in the morning in Flensburg. Here we try to get a new main sail and improve our rigging – a necessity for the North sea. Well here’s a short clip from our trip:
And what a beautiful sail we had. – Actually that’s a lie as we didn’t sail at all. There was NO WIND at all – so we drove the whole trip using our trusty old Mercedes Diesel. But despite that nuisance: I LOVE sailing through the night. The nights at sea are so magic. The sky is astonishing with it’s many stars and one has plenty of time to think, read, play with the chartplotter… ;-)
We startet at around 13h in the afternoon as we had a little problem starting the motor – which was actually an alectrical problem that was soon fixed. We passed Cup Arkona with it’s Chalk coast and it’s beautiful lighthouse. Going along the north coast of Ruegen, Gui was at the steering wheel and I went for a nap in the afternoon to take the steering at around 23h in the night. So while the crew was asleep and the radar and AIS were watching for traffic, I was finishing ‘A sea vagabond’s world’ by Bernard Moitessier. It’s a good book but it actually repeats a lot of stuff from earlier works. Well… still worth reading.
We arrived at around 07h in the morning at Grossenbrode Faehre – a lovely, small harbour where we surprised Dieter and Silke who also started their circumnavigation and are here to take a break before they’ll leave tomorrow. I sure hope that we’ll meet the crew of the SY Tamora again on our route – which is more than likely.
Today the west wind gives a break and we’ll use the calmity to leave Glowe and the island of Ruegen after a stay of two weeks. We’ll try to get to Gedser (Denmark) from where we will hopefully have a good start towards Flensburg, where we would like to go Monday/Tuesday.
Compared to our planned route we’re a bit delayed but that is of no concern. We’ve used the additional time here in Ruegen to improve and repair things on the Rancho Relaxo of the Seas and despite the harsh weather (and Gui’s hospital stay) we had a really good time here.
Ah ! – And for the first time we’ve met another austrian Vessel. You can see it parked belong ours in the photo.
Whew. What a night. We should already getting used but still – it’s unnerving when the wind is shaking the boat violently all night. And the sound of a hundered lines and wires made singing because of the wind gusts…. Very romantic during the first night or so… but in the end a little – well – unnerving.
Anyway. Another day of excitement on Ruegen. This time: David learning for his radio exam (as usual) and Gui + Kids going…. ta-daa: to the climbing forest. Dunno what it’s actually called in english but you’ll see on the pics anyway. It must have been quite exhausting since Bruno is lying here beside me and sleeping while I’m writing this.
And guess what: Yes, the wind is already singing again… We have ~6Bft here in the harbour and there’s no sing of the strong westerly being disrupted anytime soon. We’d need a day or two of a different direction to go towards Flensburg…. But we’ll see. Maybe monday ?
As we still are not ‘allowed’ to go sailing we spend the time discovering the little feats of Ruegen. Yesterday Gui, Bruno and Viola were at a local farmhouse that has many little animals. – And we all know: Kids LOVE animals. Even more if they are small, fluffy and cuddly.
Oh – and where was I ? I spent the time on the boat learning for the Amateur Radio License. The exam is on 4th of July in Berlin. *rrr*
While downloading all the pictures from the last days, I discovered some more photos from last weekend with Victor and Anton. The kids are deconstructing the leftovers of the worlds longest sand castle. Hehehe.
It’s the Fete de la Musique, it’s Summer, it’s the longest day of the year and it’s BRUNO’S BIRTHDAY !
Our little Party actually took place last weekend as his best friend Victor was here in Glowe and we had fun on the beach, a birthday cake and a little present. Yes just one – and a small one but Bruno nearly freaked out when he unwrapped his Victorinox pocket knife. And I was actually surprised that there is a child proof (if you can say that about a knife) version of the famous red knife. It has a rounded blade, a saw, file, toothpick, screwdriver and tweezers. He loves it (of course !)
And a biiiiiiig thank you to Oscar, Patricia, Victor and Anton for coming another time to Ruegen ! It was great having you here !
Thanks to the nice drawings from Bruno and Viola and to you who wrote so many nice Emails to Gui, she’s feeling really better and will be ‘home’ tomorrow in the morning ! Yippiiee !!
One important fact: Gui’s telephone is dead ! If you want to phone us, please use my number. You can see it in the ‘Contact’ details – but only if you’re registered of course.
Well – and here they are: Gui’s Tonsils, her menueplan and Brunos drawing (showing our ship, ambulance and hospital well – and the TV-tower of Berlin ;-).
After our daily visit to the hospital, we went for a stroll with Viola’s beloved Ponies and watched the wind gusts drive the sand of the beach through the air.
In the last pic you can see our current home: the harbour of Glowe. It’s nice here ! – Really. The beach is beautiful and at least 10km long ! Although it’s a bit windy these days.
As the weather is not actually very summer like, today we mostly stayed inside and while Bruno and Viola used the time to establish a car dealership…
…I was cooking my morning coffee and looked at all the nice patina in and around our trendy Taylor Para-Fin cooker. Everyone knows, that I’m not really the cleaning person but that was actually too much dirt – even for me. So I started to clean the oven and 1/2 bottle of super-power cleaning gel and two hours later, the stove was clean:
And of course now I was completely dirty from all soot and stale grease and whatelse – so the next step was quite clear: I continued by cleaning the bilge, and afterwards myself. Yay !
So why would you want to read such a boring post about someone cleaning his stove and boat ? Because I am bored !! Really – after one week of hanging around in Glowe without Gui it’s really getting time to move on. The problem is that even next week there still is a risk of haemorrhage which means Gui will not be fit for sea travel. *rrr* Well – we’ll see…
Two more pics that the kids made: Viola’s can and our ‘board gecko’. ;-)
After a few days in the hospital, Gui had holiday for the weekend and we had visitors from Berlin. Bruno’s best friend Victor came together with his father Oscar. And despite Gui being still quite sick and me also not feeling too well, we had a really nice time on the beach, riding horses and doing ‘kids stuff’.
Right now Gui’s back in the hospital has probably already lost her tonsils. I’ll wait a little longer before I try to call her. Thanks for all of you that keep asking for Gui and are sending us wishes for betterment. I’ll post as soon as I have word from the hospital. Right now there isn’t much I can do but tomorrow morning we’ll be on the way to Bergen to hopefully bring back good news.
Hmm. The fisheye lens of the GoPro cam really creates funny shots. I like that.
I totally tried not to, but in the end I had to give in: Now we’ve got a Facebook page. Try to search for Rancho Relaxo and hopefully you’ll find us. Blog posts should automatically appear on our fb-page. We’ll see it it works…
It’s not all holiday what we’re doing here…. I already mentioned that Gui was in great pain during our last trip from Poland to Ruegen. On that evening the ship’s doctor prescribed Antibiotics because of a strong indication of Amygdalitis. But as next morning there was no improvement and Gui couldn’t swallow or talk anymore we saw the next ENT doctor and he immediately sent us to the next hospital: Gui has an abscessin her throat that has to be removed surgically and immediately. So she had to stay two days in hospital and I was stranded with the kids in this shitty harbour of Sassnitz.
That’s also the reason why I couldn’t do any updates these last days. – There was too much going on here… And it’s still not yet decided whether Gui has to loose the tonsils, so she might be back in hospital the next week. *rrr*
Our first dive into the Baltic seas was a slightly harsh one. The sailing was actually nice and fast since we had a constant 5-7 Beaufort but underway Gui’s throat became very painful – more on that in my next post.
So the trip started with wonderful weather – blue skies and barefoot in the cockpit. Until first the warm front hit and shortly before arriving in Sassnitz, the cold front pured down on us. With all the lightning and the only sailing ship around – spooky… But we arrived savely and I could use all that nice rainwater to finally wash our deck. Hehehe.
As for Sassnitz itself: What a horror ! This port is still one of the worst in the whole Baltic sea, I guess. There’s no internet. The showers and toilets are half an hour to walk. And it’s by far the most expensive port we’ve been to ! Sassnitz sucks !!
Our first day alone. We miss our friends and our families – but we knew that day would come… We also knew other things that are not so nice and many people would probably go crazy. For example: Our bedroom has 4 square meters, our bathroom has ONE – and it doesn’t even have a shower !! We also have no dishwasher, no washingmachine and our house is constantly shaking. But hey – we’ve got tiiiiiiime !! Lots of time ! :-)
Today we had a beautiful sailing day towards Swinemuende at the border of Poland and Germany and also our gate to the Baltic sea. The day was hot and right now we’ve got a little thunderstorm going on outside. But I’m sitting here, using internet (thanks to that great LunaWLAN antenna !!) and I’m already thinking of the todos for tomorrow. Most important: we’ve got to get some diesel. I think there are 10-15l left and that’s no good. But hey. That’s for tomorrow.
Here are some pics from today. Hopefully the easterly wind will come as promised – that way tomorrow I’ll send pics from the coast of Ruegen in Germany.
I didn’t mention that this weekend we had visitors: Our good friends Markus and Hille arrived with their kids Sol and Ida. And since they arrived yesterday and couldn’t do otherwise but support us with our work – today we HAD to go for a little trip.
After putting the sails in the morning, we started towards the Stettiner Haff in a light breeze that allowed for a very RELAXing crusing speed of 2-3 knots. That’s not much to go forward but quite enough to throw ropes into the water and have a lot of fun swimming around the ship and doing stupid stuff.
And that’s what we did: going there and back again jumping into the water every couple of minutes to bear up against that crazy heat we had the last days. But now I have to quit writing – the mosquitos are eating me alive !! We have to get into saltwater tomorrow !
After so much time preparing and planning – today we finally cut the lines and left Berlin !!
After so much chaos in the last days we really had the most wonderful start into our adventure. With us is our friend Wolfgang who helped us soooo much in the last weeks that without him, we probably would still be in Berlin for another few weeks.
So we left the Marina Lanke at 06:35h in the morning and had breakfast somewhere between Spandau Lock and Lehnitz Lock.
The day was wonderful with the most beautiful weather and a fast travel without much waiting at the locks. Another sight was of course the ‘Schiffshebewerk Niederfinow’ which lifts ships travelling from Berlin to the Baltic sea about 36 meters !
We arrived in Marina Oderberg at 19:50h and finished our first day with argentinian steak and a Septima Malbec 2009. Perfect !!
If everything works out ok, tomorrow early in the morning we’ll be underway towards the Baltic sea.
You probably thought so, but the last days we were quite busy. I had to fix a couple of last minute problems with the ship and Gui is still in the city working on her next Coquito collection. But tomorrow morning we’ll leave. Keep an eye on the little map to the right as I *just* fixed the position reporting system !
As I still don’t have any pictures from our party, I’ll post some work-pics: Viola and Bruno while filling our cereals into water bottles. That’s it for today. Tomorrow, we’ll start when the sun rises. ;-)
Right now I’m sitting in the cockpit in front of the Radialsystem in the middle of Berlin. We had a wonderful weekend although of course it was very dreadful to see so many friends for the last time for many years.
And as we were busy talking to all those nice people the whole evening, we did somehow forget to shoot pictures. So PLEEEEASE, if you have some nice pictures of last night. – Please send them to us.Thank you.
And thank you all for coming and for the wonderful evening – for sure it will be unforgettable for us.
And how will it continue ? Well. First of all, we’ll sail back to the Marina Lanke and I will do some additional repairs. The start towards the Baltic sea will probably be on thursday. Yay !!!