Poland Trip
If I had thought this through, I would have started writing log entries several weeks ago before, during and directly after my trip to Poland!
We arrived at Dover ferry port at about 2:30am... two and a half hours before we were due to set off. Never let it be said I'm not punctual! It was the first time I've ever travelled by ferry, to my shame, and it was a really nice trip. Unfortunately the 5am ferry doesn't provide full English breakfast, but you can't have everything! It was exceptionally comfortable, and nice to sit in something other than a car for 90 minutes!
Once we got into France, most of the trip as far as Hannover was easy enough. The way the European road system is set out, the main roads have the numbering system for the country you're in, as well as a European road number, so in essence we stayed on one road for 14hrs. By which point, Nick was feeling absolutely exhausted having driven for all of that (bar the occasional road-side cafe stop) so we checked into a hotel for a few hours sleep!
At about midnight we set off again, after spending about half an hour staring at the rather impressive thunderstorm. Driving in it was made all the more difficult by the lack of cat's eyes on the roads in Germany. Whilst the central divide makes it fairly easy to work out which side of the road you should be on, finding the actual lanes themselves was much harder as the white lines practically disappeared in the dark and stormy weather.
By early morning, we made it to the Polish border. After a fairly routine passport-showing, we continued off into Poland. Still on the same European road, we navigated through the changing surfaces of concrete slabs, tarmac with no markings whatsoever, cobblestones (which came as the biggest surprise), and quite frankly dirt at one point, we found our way to Gdansk.
After narrowly avoiding a side-on collision with a tram (which I will remember for a very long time), we found somewhere to park, and wandered into Gdansk town centre. I have to say the town centre itself is beautiful. Some well-restored buildings made the main street look very picturesque, with a new cafe every ten feet! Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me so there are no pictures of the town in the gallery.
Although we only spent a couple of nights on land, the hotel we stayed in was lovely. It's called the Dom Musyka, and I highly recommend it if you can find it and get a reservation! It had a nice restaurant/bar on the ground floor (and yes, I even watched the World Cup Final there) and the rooms themselves were nice. I'd have to say that the nicest feature was the shower, especially after surviving the heat of the sun during the day!
When we finally got to the boat (the blue-hulled Huzar 30 in the Gdansk gallery), we arrived about 30 seconds too late to see it being put in the water, which was a bit disappointing, but we did get to watch the mast, boom and mainsail being attached, which was like watching flat-packing being done on a larger scale! We were given a tour of the boat as they were doing this and got our first look at the cabin and bunks. Once everything was in place, the boat was sailed around to another marina, which is how we managed to capture the pictures of the boat in the water!
Once everything was attached, we took a trip out of the river with the some of the team involved in the boat's construction (a great set of guys, by the way, especially as they had patiently put up with us hovering around all day!) which allowed us to try out both the helm and working with the mainsail and jib with some help!
To be continued...
Last Updated: Thu, Aug 31, 2006 by Craig Hopkins
Gallery Code V2.3 © Craig Hopkins, 2006.