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….
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…
July 2 – July 6 Helsinki-Tallinn by ferry, Tallinn-Riga by bus, one night in a hostel, Riga-Klaipeda by bus and Klaipeda-Nida by bus. I finally arrive in Nida and step into Godzilla, my home for the next 6 weeks. Andy and Merja had already arrived here a few days before, they had had a 60-hour open water sailing (also through a rough storm!) from Örö to Klaipeda, and then from Klaipeda to Nida. Nida is a Lithuanian small town uniquely…
All through our stay in Örö the weather was lovely and the water was quite clear still, there was not yet any blue-green algea vegetation taking over. Bladder wrack was thriving. We went treasure hunting with artist Anna Pekkala around the beaches of Örö. We picked up a lot of trash and while searching for seal bones, Anna shared with me interesting thoughts about how us humans are the worst predators of all and the rest of them are just…