The Baltic Sea

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Cycle tour

Winter has changed to spring; we have given up our jobs, said goodbye to all our friends. We have a new crew member for two weeks. Colin our son. We have decided to put the circumnavigation on hold for another season. Since we are on this side of Britain we are going across the North Sea to spend this season in the Baltic Sea.

It is a three day trip so the extra crew will be put to good use. First trip of the season always takes a bit of getting used to especially if it is a bit lively, so with green faces we head up the coast 50 miles and moor up for the night. So much for day one, but it's nothing a beer can't put right. With the promise of better weather we set off for Mandal southern tip of Norway on the 19th May. The crossing took 72 hours and 22 minutes with a mixture of weather from dead calm to a force 7 near gale. We were very pleased to reach the harbour, and the Norwegians were very surprised to see us so early in the season.

The summer we had in the Baltic was fantastic, the weather couldn't have been kinder. It made up for the year before. We dropped Colin off in Kristiansand he sadly had to go back to work. Then we continued on up to Oslo, a lovely city. Back down the west coast of Sweden where we entered the Gotta Canal where we spent the next three days opening and navigating lock after lock, we passed through 19 locks in one day. There was something like 38 locks all in all an amazing experience. That finally got us to Stockholm another beautiful city. We moved on to Mariehamn in Finland, the capital of Aland, it is the seat of the Government and Parliament of Aland and more than half of the population live in the city. The city is located on a peninsular and has two important harbours.

The weather was still holding, but it was time to start thinking about heading back, in late July and we were being told the season was short in the Baltic. So we started to head back via some wonderful islands of Denmark, Bornholm the home of the Vikings was very interesting. Their main industries include fishing, arts and crafts (glass and pottery) and dairy farming. Germany was a welcome port of call, fantastic beer and at a good price. We entered the Kiel Canal which was totally different to the Gotta, it only had one lock and handles big ships.

Heading on we went to the little tax free island of Helgoland a small German archipelago in the North Sea where we stocked up on duty free before heading back to the UK. In Helgoland we met up with a German couple we had met the year before up in the furthest reaches of Scotland. They were heading back to Hamburg after their sailing season in Scotland. It was great to bump into them and we all went out for a meal before going our separate ways.

We had intended to get back to the south coast of England but Mother Nature being as she is decided to blow us all the way back to Hartlepool. So three days later we turn up at the marina at 0200 am caked in salt very tired and promising God if he got us safely back on dry land we would never leave again, to a warm welcome and a hot shower. One or two night caps from the duty free and we are already planning next season. What short memories we have. So here we are back at the dive club, got our winter jobs back, it is just like we haven't been away.

This seasons miles 2552.