Santa Maria - Mariehamn - Stockholm - Swedish Archipelago

This part of the journey we've had another major crew change Carla, Bernd and Jürgen joined the crew, while Imke, Jürgen, Bernhard and Martin left us. I keep saying, as we keep on wearing out crew members,  it's good that we get new motivated members carrying on the slave work full of enthusiasm. Leaving Åland was made pleasant, we got a fair amount of wind and the newcomers got their appetizer.  The majority, helped by the big fraction of don't-care'rs, wanted to get to Stockholm directly to get one day more in another big city. Thus we set out on the route used by the big ferryboats.As  soon as we got to the Swedish archipelago we kept on changing navigational directives, thus we ended up doing the inner route, and in stead of following the ones that wanted to stay. read more...

Santa Maria - Helsingfors - Mariehamn rally - racing

Leaving Helsinki with the fleet as a parade was most spectacular, but the spectacle was an internal one, as Helsinki was at sleep at 08am.  Then we managed to tangle up  the parade flags by trying to take them down under march, and parts of the flags were stuck which led to a great deal of laughter  when we sent Imke up the mast to get it down again safely as we arrived in Porkala where we had decided to stop over for the night. The first leg was a short one under motor since we has to fight the headwind.Knowing that  the wind would change in the next days we speculated in sailing days straight to Mariehamn. On the second day we motored past Hangö, we were told that berthing there would be difficult as a motorboat race was taking place there. Therefore we motored past. read more...

Santa Maria - Helsinki

On our two nights stay in Nylänska jakthamnen in Helsinki we started with a crew dinner in the club's fashionable dining room, thus all boats arrived in due time. There we all enjoyed a fantastic meal, again lax was on the menu. The next day  we hopped on,  hopped off throughout the tourist attractions of Helsinki, again under best weather conditions, including a tropical afternoon shower, cleaning the air. After the second night the fleet saluted Helsinki harbour with all flags up. As we were to take down the flags these didn't want to come down completely.ErikWP_20140801_09_37_48_Pro. read more...

Santa Maria - Hapa Saari, Finland, now starts the reason for sailing the Baltic sea

Having cleared out of Russia, it was important to clear into Europe Finland again.  This had to happen at some Customs station, the guys at the customs welcomed us into Europe, Finland, I believe the passports were checked against the schengen database, for any criminal act, then we found a more important reason for the checkin procedure, that is  the skippers blowing in the Alco test device. This made it clear to me why some of the anchored boats all of a sudden were less in a hurry with getting through with their clearance😅Now after three and a half weeks of mileage collecting and tourism, the real fun begins. During the last 48 hours we have had the pleasure of discovering "Den finnska skjærgården", here navigation makes really fun, as we return from the more open sea.. read more...

Santa Maria - St. Petersburg, RUSSIA

Woke up to get on with my shift, change of scenery, color of water changed to yellow-brown- ish. We are situated in the eastern section of the Baltic sea, heading for Kronstadt, Custom Check in. The clearance procedure went more smoothly than expected. Being the last boat of  the fleet to pass through has its advantages. Ahead of us we have one good hour of channeling, foreigners are asked to keep themselves within the official traffic route. This can only be done motoring, whoch is what we did  most of the time in Russian waters, maybe that's the reason why the fuel was so cheap?Having squeezed Santa Maria in to her berth, it was time to get some information, which Andy from Hanse Sailor happily gave us,  his recommended showers on the 3rd floor I never used though.. read more...