Another Monday; August 6 2007 the crew dispersed to Berlin’s airports, the boat had to be delivered to Breskens in Holland for the further journey by truck, having about six days to spear I invited Ewa and Chris Zaleski to join me for few days with Marek and Maja. I hand picked ten most qualified sailors in the family including my father, our liaison officer Claudia and Patrick Lee, my mother stayed home to do the dishes. To make sure our departure gets noticed we blew horns and most vessels replied with canon salutes, whistles and bells. It was a short trip to Swinoujscie but everybody had a chance to drive.
Easy daysail to Copenhagen, another royal palace, famous mermaid, standard tourist activites, dinner at my cousin Agata’s house, good bye to Majka and Jahoo jr. and off to Warnemunde in dense fog. German Coast Guard gave us slack, with a single ID check on the radio in surprising good English.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1365353836237246497
Marek drove entire time, taking breaks only when Ewa served food.
In Kiel we lost Zaleski’s and the flag; Kuba boarded for the roaring North Sea full headboard passage that took three upwind days against current. It was very different to sail shorthanded, but my brother Andrzej, Kuba and I had plenty of fun at helm. It took us another three days to derigg the boat and load on Frankie’s lorry, commuting nightly to my sister Maja’s house in Gent for spectacular dinners and warm dry beds. We flew from Brussels to Poland and after few quiet days with family and friends loaded the van and drove through Alps to Slovenia. Reardons showed us their beautiful new country and Shipman’s facilities and we were off to meet the boat in Port Napoleon where river Rhone falls into Mediteranean Sea. The scenic drive was spectacular but that is irrelevant to our story.
Port Napoleon also called “the town at the end of the world” is a rather isolated location, where local dogs bark with their rear ends, so without distractions the long punch list was shrinking fast, we could afford to take weekend off for a quick tour of Provance.
My father Stas would not accept any special treatments and worked shoulder to shoulder with us claiming that one has to earn his right to board the yacht and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
