Aneirin
Posts: 6121
Joined: 3/18/2006
From: Tamaris
Status: offline
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One of my most memorable journeys was on a yacht(Sigma 38) from Stockholm in Sweden, a round trip lasting two weeks, some thousand odd miles in the summer of '93,where in the first few days, bang on the summer solstice, the latitude we were at, the sun just changed position, i.e, it did'nt go down, which was very disorientating, got the impression we were sailing around in a circle if it were not for the compass and me at that point being sea sick, could not go below, so slept on the deck in the weird sunlight, every time I woke, I thought I had'nt been asleep, very weird.
Then the first Uk boat into Ventspils in Latvia to be met with a combat clothed machine gun wielding military person demanding our papers, saying only a few days before, the mines had been removed from outside the harbour, where we had just sailed. There, the only beer to be had was in the town whore house, American beer at that, but was not prepared to pay $5 a tin, besides we had gallons of spirits on board the boat.
Then off to Klaipeda in Lithuania, a place when we arrived, they not replying to our hails on the radio, decided to answer with a gun boat, deck gun pointed at us, cut sharp across the bows forcing a gybe, we had to follow with deck gun still pointing and alongside submarines in a heavy swell we had to moor, wreaking havoc with the glass fibre of the boat. There we got asked how much cash we had, some $3000 US, just in case we lost the mast or other major damage.They took an inventory of our electronic goods, cameras and the like, with the warning not to spend too much, as the country was that next day changing it's currency. At the time, we never knew what the coutesy flag of the country was, so had a sailmaker make one as soon as we stopped. It with the currency changed that next day, ho hum.
Next port, civilisation, Gdynia in Poland, where we visited Gdansk and were made very welcome. Then onto Wisby in Gotland, then Oxelosunde in Sweden, Nynashamn and back to Stockholm where in those last four ports, we nearly got ran over by a car ferry in a storm(with Wagner's ride of the valkyries, blasting through the boat speakers in the stern), ran aground , crashed the boat, had magnetic anomalies and just got generally pissed and a whole load more happenings, if I were to write, I would be here all night.
A fantastic and enlightening experience, which now as I have managed to recover all my records and photographs, intend to when I get my act together, blog it on live journal
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Everything we are is the result of what we have thought, the mind is everything, what we think, we become - Guatama Buddha
Conservatism is distrust of people tempered by fear - William Gladstone
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