Sea voyage from Klaipeida to Hel
Klaipeda (LTU) Sunday July 7 4PM, – Hel (POL) Tuesday July 9 4AM
Godzilla crew onboard: Merja, Andy, Saara and Gary. We leave from Klaipeda around 4PM. As the crow flies, the way to Hel would not be that long, but because of Kaliningrad and the Russian sea borders, we have to sail a route shaped like a triangle. On the Klaipeda harbour there’s a massive (literally the size of a multi-storey building) cruise ship from Velletta, Malta.
As soon as we leave the port, the waves turn big. The wind is weak but the size and the rhythm of the waves make the whole crew nauseous. It’s confusing to experience rough waves with hardly any wind. Merja and Andy explain the phenomenon; this thing happens when the waves continue their way even though the wind has died down elsewhere. Seasickness takes over. Andy and Merja steer the boat and sleep in 2 hour turns. Me ja Gary sleep in the pod (on top of the hulls). It’s the best place to be in this situation, because near mast the movements of the boat and the water don’t feel so much. I can only focus on the basic things: eating, drinking water, peeing, sleeping. I’m keeping my eyes on the horizon — it’s the only thing that doesn’t move.
In the evening we see a magical (almost trippy) sunset. Horizontal stripes of blue, purple, red orange and bright yellow — looks like a painting! It’s impossible to take a picture of it because I feel too weak, I can only keep my eyes on the horizon or just keep my eyes closed. Merja shows that on the captain’s chair the world doesn’t spin so much, it’s actually a good spot to just sit and breathe for a moment. I take a look at the sunset for a while before going to bed. It’s dark for a few hours at night and we can see the stars.
11AM the next day. I wake up and it’s a warm, sunny, beautiful summer day. Life wins! The big waves are gone and we’re moving slowly because of the lack of wind. Lesson learned: It’s better to prevent sea sickness than to go through it. Next time I try to take the seasickness pill on time before I feel bad. Some parts of the journey we travel with motors instead of sails because there’s still so little wind. As we reach the apex of the triangle shaped sea borders of Kaliningrad, there’s a Russian border boat guarding and a plane flying around, directly above the borders.
4PM. First 24 hours on the boat! We have approx. 50 nautical miles (about 100 km) to Poland. There’s loads of blue algae around us and an ominous, massive oil pumping station (Lotos Petrobaltic) on the horizon. It’s super contradictory; It’s unbelievably beautiful – almost cloudless blue sky with sunshine. Soft, tender breeze of wind. No hurry. Time to draw sketches. Beautiful boredom. Gorgeous (yet polluted) sea. But then there’s this enormous oil pumping station that looks like an evil town and next to it there’s a ship from which a huge black cloud of exhaust gas is emitted. We can get the internet data for a little moment as we sail past the station. We have only seen cargo ships but not other sail boats on this trip.
During the last few hours of our sail, Godzilla’s chartplotter and autopilot gets jammed/disturbed so that the navigating has to be done in the old school way with a map and compass. The directions and the distances of other boats and ships can only be estimated by their lights. Also the distance and the way to the harbour is only possible to estimate with the lights from the mainland.
After 36 hours of sailing we dock to Hel port in Poland around 4AM. The marina building looks like a tulip and it’s already getting bright outside.
🦭: Saara