July 9 – July 12

From Hel we (me, Merja, Andy, Gary and Pekka) head to Gdansk. The weather is perfect for sailing, and Godzilla’s artist Pekka Niskanen films the sea during our journey.

We arrive in Gdansk through the canal with a massive shipyard. The sight with enormous robot-like structures is ominous and it smells terrible – definitely not clean air to breathe. I keep thinking about the state of the soil and especially the state of the water. Can’t even imagine how polluted this area is – it’s definitely the biggest and most shocking dock I’ve seen so far. As we get closer to the city, our other engine stops working. What a timing! We manage to get to the harbour with one motor and there we find out that a piece of rope (most likely from the nasty waters of the shipyard area) has gotten stuck in the propellers. After removing the rope the motor works well again. The Pirates of the Caribbean seems to be a big thing here, we see masses of tourists sailing with a plastic-looking Black Pearls boat.

We walk around the city for a while and find a place to get us some dinner. We talk about our sail from Klaipeda to Hel –  there was something exceptional happening during the last few hours of the trip. Because of the Kaliningrad sea borders, we had to sail a triangular apex-shaped route. 1-2 hours before arriving in Hel, Godzilla’s chartplotter and autopilot got jammed / disturbed so that the navigating had to be done in the old school way with a map and compass. The directions and the distances of other boats and ships could only be estimated by their lights (we were sailing at night!). Also the distance and the way to the harbour was only possible to estimate with the lights from the mainland.
We could see from https://gpsjam.org that we went exactly through this distraction zone.

We visit the LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art in Gdansk. The Exhibitions Department Manager Agnieszka Kulazińska-Grobis and the Assistant Curator Katarzyna Serkowska are super kind to tell us about the inspiring exhibitions and the interesting projects of Laznia CCA. We take a look at the interesting “Made in Hansa – HANSEartWORKS” group exhibition.


We make a day trip to Sopot to visit the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IO PAN). We meet the wonderful Prof. Jan Marcin Węsławski, the head of the institute, who is specialised in marine coastal ecology and has done multiple polar and sea expeditions. He has been observing the state of the Baltic Sea for decades and witnessed its changes. IOPAN used to have a sea temperature measuring device, but Prof. Węsławski tells us about the problem they ran into; 2 years ago near Gotland the water temperature was shockingly 29 C, so the scale of the machine was not sufficient anymore. We also talk about topics such as mustard gas, the effects of the warming sea water, overfishing, disappearing cod, and the various fascinating (and also art related!) projects of the institute. The institute also has their own gorgeous research vessel s/y Oceania!

I find a 5 złoty coin on the floor and hope to get a warm shower with it. I try my luck – and it works! I get 5 mins of shower with it and it feels heavenly. We get prepared for the sea crossing to Sweden. Our next port is about 32h sail away, in Karlskrona, a small town south of Sweden. Iida joins us in the boat! Just before leaving, we see that there’s something weird floating on the water next to our boat. Maybe some trash? Dead fish? No, it’s a baby deer’s head (!) and some people come and pick it up. Time to leave Poland behind and start the journey to the north.

🦭: Saara