Hello!
I continue my maritime story, and in this episode I'll cover the big piece of the route in Baltic, as the mooring there were brief, which is logical in the end of the navigation season.
Well, at least for the normal people.
We went out from Finland, again waved hand to Estonia, and the tailwind moved us to Sweden, namely, to the first island on our way - Gotland.
We were immediately impressed with the nice free mooring, which took us into it's chilly embrace and made it possible to dry up and look around.
The island itself was quite sleepy - neat rows of houses with a pale living room windows, laden with candles, which never were lightened, and figurines, pointlessly staring to the street with their varnished eyes.
Lonely supermarket, where people look at you discreetly and examining, making fully feel what a vain stranger you are.
Gorgeous orphaned gardens at the zenith of its overripe, mourning the bygone summer with a rains of pears and apples.
We became friends with the them particularly, and every day were bringing to the boat a springy backpacks, bloated by a taut flanks of luscious fruits.
Not really to eat it, but to fill with it a shiny copper belly of alembic, hoping to get a drop of liquid warmth for a particularly chilly sea watches.
We trampled a gray stone of Gotland with our squeaking rubber soles for a little, then successfully left a pier behind, and went down the mossy gateways of Swedish archipelago.
A dense gray fog pursued us everywhere, soft and damp, like our bed, smoky dark bowels of the ancient forests observed us silently, huge boulders have turned to us their old lichen faces - northern beauty is austere and silent, like crystal eyes of a blind.
Only farouche marinas were warming us from this serene stupor, generously giving the luxury of hot water and electricity for nothing.
But they are scattered on this indented land so rarely that we've been forced to seek the anchorage, sheltering from a moving storm.
Once, we've noticed a welcoming anchor icon on the map, and quickly turned our nose there, but turned out that place which fits the nose, do not always fit the sides!
The fairway leading there was similar to the way a giant worm that had eaten it in the rocks and smoothly curled up somewhere in the end, which we strove to achieve.
Buoys, designating it's borders, were pinching our freshly painted ass, but there was no way back.
At dusk, we finally came to this point on the map, and put a the lookout with a lantern on the nose, that he blew the whistle once when the rocks is close on the left, and two - if on the right.
In theory, the idea was good, but in practice the whistles have merged into a cacophony in a very short time, and we stucked.
Of course, we threw all the anchors we have on board, hoping to secure our shaky position.
But because the stone beneath us was perfectly solid and smooth, anchor claws have nothing to hook on, and we were a what is called a "cow on ice".
We were puzzled, but our old mechanic was puzzled even more! We took him with us to go to far warmer climes, before he was a mechanic on a russian submarine, to be precise.
He was greatly angered by situation and was expressing it obscenely loud, the most harmless was perhaps the phrase "you're an assholes".
This night was sleepless - we were rearranging our anchor, looking at the rocks grins in a yellow puddle of torch and waiting for dawn, which, finally, gave us a possibility to go.
Hmm, much later on our way, before leaving France and going to the autumnal Biscay bay, we've received an approval from one local captain, expressed in the phrase "You were in the Swedish archipelago in the beginig of fall, why worry about Biscay"!
So we jumped outta there and realised that together with intricately woven miles came some experience, so it was worth it!
Then we headed to the place with a remarkable name - Calmar Strait, which seems wildly spacious after the archipelago, with the exception of the bridge that unites the island with the city, and whose height was different on the two cards that we had.
It was very intriguing, as our mainmast is 18 meters high and can not be removed, and till the moment we've reached the bridge, we were guessing, if it will fit or not.
One of a crew even reached the very top of the mast, to make sure that we're okay - what looked ridiculous, because if not, it is likely that he couldn't push us back with a hand!
But we went through, it was exciting and spectacular, but still ended with relief.
Wide spaces were expanding in front of us, and we were going to the open sea, but actually through the military testing area, just because it was shorter.
Everything looked quite peacefully, sail gently swayed, the same fog was creeping above the smooth surface of the water; half of the crew slept sweetly in the ship's bowels, but only until the moment when rapid series of military craft appeared out of nowhere, and after seeing our Swedish flag and greeting us, they gave a thunderous
series of shots in the air from a machine gun!
Those of us, who have been on the deck, somehow welcomed them back, but those that slept inside poured out half-naked, stunned as cats, which've been doused in a water!
Such a salute, apparently, was made to pay tribute to our late march - when all seemly sailors already sitting at home.
We calm down and slowly crept on, while huge patrol ship came out from the same fertile fog, and our helmsman somehow suddenly started to turn back.
It was such a picture - wadded fog, visible spot of the sea about half-mile in size, and we're in it, making a turn as a sluggish turtle in front of the surprised border guards.
Yeees, it was win! However, they looked at it, and left us alone, so we've avoid the Swedish check somehow.
Long story short, we finnaly came to Copenhagen - old mooring place for hundreds of generations of sailors, still friendly waving with a long arms of windmills to all coming by the sea.
I'll tell you about everything that happened to us there in the next episodes,
Stay tuned, Ciao!
Previous parts:
1 See you at sea: beginning of the story
2 See you at sea: story about big repair and winter hibernation in Tallinn
3 See you at sea: mooring in Helsinki, custom-friendship and God's help
