Northern Light - Re: Northe

Mon 13th July

James, Will and Olivia departed by taxi at 10.15 for Visby airport, Stockholm and then home. I hope that the week on Northern Light was fun for them. They were certainly very different people when they left, with rosy cheeks and lots of laughter. Evening bridge was a great success, with a very open and often rather eccentric bidding process, which was great fun for all. 

Will was very useful on the last morning, and is rapidly becoming a good deckhand, whilst Olivia managed to organise her father pretty well, most of the time. James had been on board since Amsterdam and I think was rather sad to leave, having made a major contribution to the understanding of how things work. I think also that with his racing background and my more laid back approach to sailing were quite a good mix in the task of finding out the about the new craft fairly quickly.

I was amazed how much he managed to eat though!

At lunchtime Ron Moore arrived, an ex-US Navy man, who has lived in Germay for the last 25 years, and who has recently retired from Banking.

Tuesday 14th July 

09.15 set off from the beautiful hanseatic walled city of Visby. This is obviously a playground for well heeled young Swedes, with lots of flashy clothes shops, bars, restaurants etc. The Arc Rally provided its’ own entertainment with a customary quayside Bar BQ, and with  with the yachts all getting to know each other a bit now, there was lots of good banter.

 In fact I awoke sometime in the night with my head throbbing slightly,and was relieved to find that it was nothing to do with the usual over indulgence of red wine, but was the heavy bass beat of disco type music, coming from revelling Swedes, parked stern to in their large power boats, and so all was well! We arrived at Gotska Skanska, an island 50nm North of Gotland, five miles by two miles and a designated Swedish National Park. On arrival I decided to go for a swimming so rowed the dingy ashore. I had been advised by WCC that there was effectively no tide in the Baltic and so did not pull the dingy more than a couple of feet clear of the water. When I arrived from my walk an hour later I saw the dingy about 100 yards offshore, heading towards Finland. It was time for my swim and so I set off after it, hoping that the wind did not pick up and take it away faster than I could swim. Fortunately it didn’t. 

Wednesday 15th July

In the evening we set off in light winds for Tallin, Estonia, a distance of around 200 nm. We were under power initially but as the breeze filled in we had a brilliant sail on the Thursday averaging over 7 knots with the genicker. We had a bit of fun with 'Gertha’ , crewed by Simon and his team overtaking each other on several occasions. We also had a lovely night sail into Tallin passing quietly in between the islands amongst commercial vessels eventually berthing at 04.00 on Friday morning. Vigorous thunderstorms were appearing all around with lots of lightening but we managed to avoid them somehow, although I did turn all the electrics off in fear of a lightening strike as often as possible. In fact the thunderstorms did hit the next morning just as Pene, Nigel and Victoria arrived from the UK.

Friday 17th July

Now what can I say about Ron?

He is quite a character! He came along to help me get Northern Light from Visby to Tallin, and although he had a lot of boat experience, he was slightly challenged in the mobility stakes, due to a combination of two ‘shot' knees, a few stone of extra weight, and also the after effects of exposure to Agent Orange in the Vietnam War. He was however fastidious in his boat cleanliness, always keen to do anything that he could, but above all was good natured and non stop entertainment value, either as a good conversationalist, or as a captive audience for my somewhat quirky sense of humour.

It turns out that in his time he had served two tours in the Vietnam conflict the first with the navy in command of a coastal patrol boat, and secondly with special forces, a tour from which he did not expect to return. During this period he was heavily exposed to the effects of Agent Orange, an extremely nasty chemical concoction, used by the US to defoliate waste areas of jungle.

Following this he was a personal bodyguard for two years to the (singing) Jackson family, and in particular Michael Jackson, of whom he had lots of nice things to say. His mohican haircut, by the way, is a temporary state of affairs, and is required for a Viet Nam vets motor cycle ride that he does every year across the USA, where he is known as ‘The Chief’, because of one grandmother being a full blood native American Indian. He could also sing rather well which he did , whilst on night watch. Thanks Ron.

mike parker