Read the other parts of our travel diary:
Wednesday, 26 June: Continue across the Baltic Sea
From the northern tip of Öland, it's 42 nautical miles to the island of Gotland, which means about six hours for us at just under 1400 rpm and a speed of eight knots. Now begins the second part of our summer cruise with the Cruising Club of Switzerland, which started in Karlskrona and will end in Riga, a journey across the Central Baltic Sea. Only one waypoint divides today's route, an ODAS buoy about halfway to Visby. This means we avoid the traffic separation scheme en route. The general course is around 065°.
It remains grey while the "Rolling Swiss 2" steers east-northeast with a dead straight wake. Rain showers repeatedly envelop us. The sun rarely makes an appearance, and the same applies to seabirds. The only other encounter is the fast ferry that overtakes us coming from Oskarshamn with a high bow wave. "Destination Gotland" is written large on her hull. That also applies to us!
After about four hours, the wind turns to the north and picks up slightly as forecast, but we can already make out the high cliffs south of Visby. Soon the town itself emerges from the haze. A long day is drawing to a close. The harbour is quite full, but we still get a berth alongside the pier, which is actually intended for larger ships, such as the brand new, shiny black Sunseeker behind us. Or for unusual specimens such as the floating lindworm flying the Russian flag, with a scaled curly tail aft and three heads at the bow. The fur-covered crew enjoy themselves on deck. This "artistic" interpretation of a dragon ship is probably unrivalled. There are also sailors from Germany, Finland and Sweden, as well as a Lithuanian and the obligatory Brits. We can stay for two nights, after which the berth is already reserved. Perfect for us.
Thursday, 27 June: Harbour day in Visby
The sun is shining, but it's blowing hard outside - so we're doubly lucky to be here! Gotland has always been at the crossroads of shipping routes across the Baltic Sea - a place you literally couldn't get past: Until the High Middle Ages, it was the Vikings and their descendants who developed it into a trading centre. Visby then became a fundamental hub in the Hanseatic League's extensive trading network. Today, it is mainly cruise ships, pleasure craft and ferries that bring visitors across the Baltic Sea to the island.
Stages and tents are being set up everywhere: Almedalsveckan, the "largest democratic discussion forum in the world", begins tomorrow. There will be thousands of events on every conceivable topic. The printed programme of events for the week is as thick as an order catalogue.
From the harbour, you walk through narrow alleyways via Hästgatan and St. Hansgatan to Stora Torget, the heart of the old town. To the west, the market square is bordered by the ruins of St Karin's Church. Having fallen into ruin five hundred years ago, its Gothic arches - naturally secured against collapse - have long since become one of Visby's landmarks. The path then leads to the intact cathedral church, which also dates back to the Middle Ages, and then down to the waterfront promenade. The deep blue, windswept Baltic Sea undulates behind the narrow stone beach. Continue on a journey through time outside along the intact city wall with its massive towers shining in the sun. At Konditori Norrgatt on Broväg, you get the sugar you need after the long tour: Bullar and Wienerbrød, sweet is a must! They really know their pastries here.
After a visit to the Gotland Museum in the afternoon, we are drawn back to Stora Torget in the evening, and we even find a nice table at Plaza Restaurang. The food is good, the air is warm and the live Greek music next door is not bad. South in the north! With a view of all the old stonework around us and the immaculate sky above, you really do feel like you're in the Mediterranean, not the Baltic. As the sirtaki begins - undoubtedly the closing number - we also make our way home to our boat.
Friday, 28 June: The Baltic Sea shows a different side
There is still a decent sea outside in the morning. The current forecast has now postponed the easing of the wind, which was originally forecast for midday, until the afternoon. Although it is now only four to five Beaufort from the north-west, in combination with the old swell and the fact that we have to sail almost directly against it, even that is still quite a challenge on the Baltic Sea. We still want to give it a try; our destination for the day is actually Fårösund in the very north of Gotland, but as the weather situation means we have to forgo our detour to Gotska Sandön further north, we would at least have time for another stopover. We take our time shopping and then cast off.
Once around the Molenkopf, it's straight down to business. Rollercoaster! Fortunately, the crests of the waves are no longer quite so steep and we are largely spared any hard blows today. Nevertheless, it's not just the "RS2" that has to struggle; you can't take a step on board without holding on tight. After just under two hours, we have the white tower of Stenkyrkehuk's Fyr ahead on starboard, rising out of the trees above a stone beach. From on board, it looks as if the imposing surf reaches right up to the small red fishermen's huts that stand there.
Behind the Huk, we have to change course in order to continue following the shoreline. But on the new course we now have the wave from port just a little further ahead than abeam - and the "Rolling" immediately begins to live up to its name. The decision is made quickly: into the hole! Lickershamn lies just behind the headland. At the pier, we can at least go alongside with some protection. It's not calm here at first, but the wind actually picks up towards the evening.
Shore leave: We are drawn through fragrant pine forest to the "Jungfrau", a limestone formation shaped by wind and weather. Raukar is the name given to these natural sculptures, which can be found in many places on Gotland - but nowhere tower higher than the seven-metre Jungfru on the cliffs of Lickershamn.
Saturday, 29 June: Off to Fårö for a country trip
The wind has almost completely died overnight. Pennants and flags hang limply in the morning. The heat is all the more noticeable. The swell is still there, but much gentler than yesterday and easy to bear. Finally an hour on the foredeck in the sun again! The journey across the Baltic Sea passes correspondingly quickly, always with the coast to starboard. Past the headland of Hallshuk and the funnel-shaped Kapellsvik to the western end of Fårösund, which separates Gotland from the smaller neighbouring island of Fårö. At the long pier of the fishing harbour of Fårösund, the village of the same name on the Gotland side, we moor opposite a pilot boat. It is barely 2 pm. Our last day in Sweden, and there's even enough time for an excursion. So we take the ferry over to Fårö, which runs every half hour.
Less than twenty minutes later, I am on the other bank and set off on foot towards the Ryssnäs nature reserve, through summery fields and then into a sandy heath landscape. Blue heather, lupins and thistles are in bloom, the forest provides shade. A marvellous hike. Finally, the sea shines again over the limestone beach and I am alone with shy sheep and aggressive seagulls.
Then along the beach. There are fossils everywhere, fossilised corals and the imprints of shells with their mother-of-pearl still glistening - and the odd brown seagull egg in between. No wonder the birds are so annoyed by my presence. Back at the small café on the ferry, I have enough time to wait for a quick refreshment before heading back over to Fårøsund.
Our pitch in Fiskehamn is not bad at all. Bare concrete with thick tyres, but also with picnic tables. There's a motorsailer from Latvia and another from Lithuania. Writing a diary in the sunshine with a laptop, beer and music from the boombox - you could do worse. For dinner, the Swiss galley conjures up Älpler macaroni with apple sauce to fortify us for the long crossing tomorrow. We set sail at 4 o'clock.
Sunday, 30 June: Unknown Baltic Sea
The lesser-known part of our journey begins on this day. It starts with the crossing to the Bay of Riga, once across the central Baltic Sea. Just under 120 nautical miles lie ahead of us to the Estonian island of Saaremaa. It will take us at least thirteen hours. The weather forecast: south-westerly wind around 4, weakening slightly and turning west during the course of the day. My first three-hour watch doesn't start until 7 a.m., but I still get up at 3.45 a.m. to help cast off and take photos. But that doesn't work out - a bar of cloud hangs over the horizon where the sun has just risen. It is already fresh and windy when we cast off the lines and cast off backwards from the pier, out onto Fårösund.
Yesterday's summery landscape looks cold. A lighthouse, then the small island of Bungeör, our last piece of Sweden on this trip. I'm soon back in my bunk under my sleeping bag, and it's a proper swell. I wait for the change of course, which makes the wave more astern. But it doesn't help much. It's going to be a long crossing ...
Five minutes ahead of time, just in time for the change of watch, dirty grey everywhere. More whitecaps on the Baltic Sea than expected, much more wind and unpleasant movement in the boat. The land has long since disappeared aft, but the shipping traffic is considerable. Four or five freighters around us, two of which are of nautical importance to us, a large bulker and a rusty Russian, both heading north-east. We are on the main shipping route through the Baltic Sea. Both will be passed safely. Without another fixed point to concentrate on, without other ships to distract me, I soon feel a bit sick to my stomach. I can't even steer, the autopilot does that better. So I fix my gaze on the horizon - and I'm lucky.
The next wakefulness brings hardly any sleep again, but some sun through the window. And when I come back upstairs, the beginning of the end is already clearly visible in the binoculars: the lighthouse in the middle of the Irben Strait, the main entrance to the Bay of Riga between the northern tip of Latvia and the Estonian island of Saaremaa. Our destination for the day is also on Saaremaa: the small harbour of Mõntu, an old industrial loading point about six kilometres from the Sörve lighthouse.
After a few lonely hours, the traffic picks up again and a timber freighter heading in the opposite direction attracts our attention. Just as it is abeam, the port engine suddenly starts to roar. The temperature rises and we have to switch off the engine. Luckily we have two diesels! At 1150 revs and only just under six knots, we continue carefully towards the harbour. To make matters worse, it is now getting cloudy again and the black and white Sörve lighthouse, which has been in sight on the port side for some time, suddenly seems very far away.
But fortunately the wave continues to recede. Mõntu comes into view, bright hall roofs first, then the harbour approach beacons. We don't know what awaits us there. An old concrete pier like in Grankullavik on Öland, perhaps. But then we rub our eyes: everything here is brand new; shiny stainless steel bollards, fresh wood without scratches, a service building with fifteen doors. The concrete is so skilfully smooth that the wave pattern is reminiscent of the Ramblas in Barcelona. The harbour master is a little monosyllabic, but at least he is on hand. "Twenty-five," he says, perfectly okay. Two Swedes are already moored here, otherwise the harbour is empty.
The surroundings: a narrow beach, forest and a huge mown meadow in between - probably a caravan and camping site. Completely deserted. An older Soviet memorial commemorates the retreat battles in 1941 in Russian, a second, newer memorial stone commemorates the recapture by the Red Army in 1944. This inscription honours the civilian victims, in Estonian, English and German. No Russian. I go for a walk, first along the beach, then into the dense forest. Birch trees and bright green everywhere. If Gotland was like Greece, sun-bleached, karstified and criss-crossed by old walls, Estonia is like Finland, fresh and full of hungry insects. From the Mediterranean to Scandinavia in a single day, and at the same latitude. We even finish off with a beer in the sunshine on the "balcony", our aft deck.
The exact cause of the damage has not yet been determined, but everything points to the impeller. This could be rectified with on-board resources. An inspection tomorrow morning should bring clarity. In the evening, cultural education in Swiss dialects is on the programme, from the "Blaue Bähnli" to the "Pacifik". A day full of surprises.
Monday, 1 July: Bad news
A good start with a walk on the beach. But too soon, bad news awaits: It's not the impeller that's gone, but a replacement would have been on board. Apparently, the entire port cooling water pump is out of order. This means that the planned two days in Kuressaare - our next destination - will not change for the time being. But it could easily be more. It's not that easy with a new pump: the hunt takes over two hours from Erfurt via Plymouth to Hamburg and the Netherlands. Serial numbers, product numbers, telephone numbers. It takes until midday before the right part is ordered. The only remaining question is when the delivery will take place. With luck it will be on Wednesday, the day after tomorrow. Only then would we get as far as Riga ...
We are now heading north-east at "creep speed". It takes us almost four hours to cover the twenty nautical miles, fortunately in light winds. The roofs of Kuressaare Castle can be seen from afar over the flat shore. A canal-like channel leads to the harbour, the flat embankments on either side are populated by seagulls. The upper sign of the leading light is on the roof of a hotel. The harbour master is already waiting for us.
Arensburg - the old German name for Kuressaare is used here for marketing purposes. It can also be found in the pretty town centre. The imposing fortress itself is also in impeccable condition and impresses with its sheer size alone. The walls and ramparts look freshly restored, almost new - like the deliberately modern main gate. Rowboats are out and about in the moat. Inside, the museum leafs through the various chapters of Saaremaa's past, painful ones such as the Second World War, and leaden ones such as the decades of Soviet rule afterwards, when Kuressaare became Kingisepa, named after a model Estonian communist. But also the proud chapter of the "singing revolution", which restored Estonia's freedom and independence in the course of perestroika in 1991. A lot of history for a small island.
Tuesday, 2 July: Still reach your destination?
Our new pump is on its way, so we have to keep hoping. For the time being, a car that we "rent" from the harbour master for 40 euros a day provides a distraction. A Mazda, certainly fifteen years old, with sagging seats and a smoky aroma that is intensified by the yellow vanilla scent tree on the interior mirror. But it drives! It's fifty kilometres to Sääre on the Sörve peninsula in the far south-west. A few fields, lots of forest, which thins out towards the end and turns into bushes. Then hardly anything grows and the land runs out into the sea in a narrow tongue of sand and stones.
Directly ahead stands Sörve Tuletorn in the sunlight, the lighthouse that we have already seen from the sea. I park at the café and get a ticket for the lighthouse. Inside, the surprise: a fifty metre high, hollow shaft. A fenced-in staircase leads up in a zigzag, not in a spiral shape; the Soviets had no use for such subtleties when they raised the reinforced concrete structure in 1960.
The top is also barred, which certainly makes sense in the strong wind. White arrows on the ground point into the distance: Gotland, 147 kilometres. Back down again, I head out onto the headland. Dramatic cloud backdrop. The open Baltic Sea to the west, the Irben Strait to the south and the Bay of Riga behind it. Will we make it to Riga? Or will this last place in Saaremaa also be the end of our journey? The glassy waves criss-cross over the flat rocky ground from both sides. My phone vibrates in my trouser pocket. I fish it out and read the message.
Service
Cruise stages
5. Grankullavik (Öland) - Visby (Gotland): 42 nm
6. Visby - Lickershamn (Gotland): 16 nm
7. Lickershamn - Fårösund (Gotland): 24 nm
8. Fårösund - Mõntu (Saaremaa): 115 nm
9th Mõntu - Kuressaare (Saaremaa): 22 nm
10th Kuressaare
Total distance (second leg): 219 sm
Literature
Recreational craft chart set 11"East Coast Sweden 1" by Delius Klasing. Format: A2, ISBN: 978-3-667-11614-7, Price: 109,90 Euro. www.delius-klasing.de
Harbour guide "Hamnguiden 7: Landsort-Skanör, Öland, Gotland & Bornholm". 414 p., ISBN: 978-82-7997-211-2, price: 69,90 Euro. Order via www.hansenautic.de
Harbour guide "East Baltic Coast: Sail in Estonia and Latvia". 168 p., ISBN: 978-9934-8816-8-8, free of charge. Order via www.eastbaltic.eu
The TOP 3 in the district
- Middle Ages (1) in Visby Stroll through the historic city centre, relax in the park in front of the ramparts under the protection of the imposing city wall
- Middle Ages (2) in Kuressaare Visit to the historical museum in Arensburg Castle, followed by a castle beer in the tower café with a great view
- "Stone Age" on Gotland Nowhere else on the Baltic Sea are there so many fossils. Keep your eyes peeled for a very special cruise souvenir!
Our boat
Trader 42 (GRP semi-glider) - Length: 13.30 m - Width: 4.30 m - Height: 3.80 m - Draft: 1.20 m - Berths: 6 (3 double cabins) - WC/shower: 2/2 - CE category: A - Motorisation: 2 x 380 hp (diesel) - Special equipment: VHF radio system, autopilot, plotter with radar and AIS overlay, generator, EPIRB, bow thruster, dinghy
The club
On this trip, we travelled with the Cruising Club of Switzerland (CCS). With around 6,500 members, the Bern-based Central Club is one of the largest water sports clubs in Switzerland and is a leader in the field of offshore training. The motorboat division forms its own subdivision within the club with its own yacht, which is used for training and travelling trips in northern and western Europe. www.ccs-motoryacht.ch
Nautical information
The precinct
This section of the voyage took us for the most part through the Central Baltic Sea, the sheer size of which makes it a nautically challenging area. Good seamanship in every respect is a basic requirement. Particularly thorough preparation and attention to the weather are required for long legs. The navigation between the ports of call we called at (apart from the immediate area of the approaches and the comparatively narrow fairway in the area of Fårøsund) therefore takes place over open sea areas and is correspondingly unproblematic, at least in terms of navigation.
The lighting and buoyage is appropriate and present throughout. However, the shore areas are very shallow, dotted with stones and should be avoided at all costs outside the fairways. The infrastructure of the larger marinas is generally good, both in Sweden and Estonia. However, in the main season, which starts suddenly after midsummer and lasts until around mid-August, it is advisable to contact the harbour of your choice during the day of your trip and find out about the mooring situation. In many places, moorings are made with the stern (or a stern line on the mooring buoy) and the bow on the jetty.
Our harbours
Visby: Gästhamn, tel. +46 (0498)-21 51 90, www.visbygasthamn.se Lickershamn: Gästhamn, tel. +46 (707)-78 19 33, www.lickershamn.com Fårösund: Fiskehamn, tel. +46 (736)-00 63 07, www.batsidan.com/hamn/farosund_fiskehamnen Mõntu: Mõntu Marina, tel. +372-502 38 60, www.montusadam.ee Kuressaare: City harbour (marina), tel. +372-503 19 53, www.sadam.kuressaare.ee
