2020 Baltic Sea/Rügen
For this year we had set our mind on exploring the east side of the Swedish coastline where skerries and islands make out a splendid cruising ground. And on our way back we wanted to explore more of the Danish „South Sea“, an area with numerous islands and anchorages.
….. but then came this mean virus 🦠 called corona, bringing unprecedented travel restrictions with quarantine and testing requirements. Luckily the Netherlands handled corona in a way, that we where still able to enter the country and to come to our boat. The harbours were open, however restaurants and sanitary facilities were all closed. We adapted our original plan to sailing only as far as Rügen, which is a German island at the Baltic coast and very popular among vacationers.
26 June - 2 July
Hindeloopen – Cuxhaven – Fehmarn – Barhöft
On our way from Hindeloopen to Cuxhaven along the Dutch and German coast we had a pleasant ride with fair winds. So after sailing through the night, a breakfast like this sitting comfortably upright at the cockpit table was possible.
Once more we had to cross the Kiel Channel/NOK to reach the Baltic Sea.
The trip from Hindoopen to Rügen took us a week. We arrived at the secluded little harbour of Barhöft, where we were met by the Ginger crew, Conny and Mecki, our friends from Hindeloopen.
From Barhöft it’s only a few miles to Stralsund. The city is located on the mainland and from there a bridge leads over the narrow sound to the island of Rügen. Stralsund is not a bad place to be, when a storm keeps you stuck in harbour for 3 days. In the company of our friends we visited this fabulous historic city, which had its heydays in the 14th century as a member of the powerful and wealthy Hanseatic league. The color red of the Gothic brick dominates, it can be found in churches, townhouses and in the imposing town hall.
We used our shore leave to explore the nearby Darßer Bodden, a really picturesque landscape of water and marshland. Here, as on the island of Rügen, the East Germans loved to spend their holidays in the times before the fall of the Iron Curtain, when traveling abroad was not permitted by the regime.
Rügen
As soon as the weather had calmed down, we got on with circumnavigating Rügen. Our fist stop was Lauterbach. Here I ran into into GRISU, the boat on which I had learned yacht sailing in 1999. She is still is in pretty good shape!! …and still in use by sailing school Lord Nelson.
Rügen with its sandy beaches, Bodden lagoons and chalk cliffs has been a seaside resort since the 19th century. There is on one hand the nobel resort architecture and on the other hand there is PRORA. This huge concrete construction was build by Nazi Germany, extending 4.7 km!!! along the beachfront. It was build to allow the gigantic number of 20.000 people to have a stay there for a holiday. In the East German era the site was used as a military base and decayed. Meanwhile is has in part been refurbished and transformed back again into a holiday resort.
Apart from endless beaches and gorgeous sea towns, there is a lot of nature to explore on Rügen. After rounding the famous Cliffs of Ancona, we sailed into the lagoon, called the Jasmunder Bodden. In Breege we met Alex’s brother Benni with his family and our friends, Claudia and Jörg. Benni had just bought a boat there, which was to be skippered to Berlin by Jörg, who is an experienced yachtsman.
16 July
After having been loafing around on Rügen for two weeks, we turned our bow westward again. The first leg of our return voyage would take us to Warnemünde and from there to Wismar, where we were once again met by my cousin Andreas and his wife. This time they took us for a visit to Schwerin, the State Capital of Mecklenburg and a city of great architectural beauty.
🇩🇰 Arø
Meanwhile the Danes had eased their corona entry restrictions… we had the permission to come!!! … which we did… The southern Danish islands make out a lovely cruising ground with lush pastures, blooming fields and pretty villages. We had a few more days left to spend on the island of Årø.
24 July
Is was time now for us to return to Kiel, via Maasholm. As we had been here the year before, we believed us to be in familiar waters and probably were a bit careless about navigation. One zoom level further in and we would have seen that we were entering a restricted area (where ammunition from the last two world wars was dumped). We had been spotted by the Coast Gard and they came roaring toward us to take our particulars and charge us with a fine of € 100. When hearing that we came from the Netherlands, they became very polite and told us that this restriction area is often deliberately ignored by local sailors!! …which p…sses them off.
Cuxhaven is the last stop before setting out to the unprotected waters of the North Sea. On our way home we preferred to cut this stretch of 180 nm in two and again made a stop on Norderney… and were once more stormbound. Meanwhile we took fancy in this island off the German coast and enjoyed the two days we were stuck there very much.
We left Norderney in the early evening of 30 July via the hazardous sands of Schluchter and reached Hindeloopen on 31 July at 19:00h.
It is always an awesome feeling to bring boat and crew safely back home.