Out of Germanic jurisdiction, working our way out to the sea through massive throng of boats, we celebrated with some YEGERMEISTER and Sprite that Dave purchased in Olympic Marina.Baltic opened up for us with fair weather, although there was plenty of rain every single day, we skipped Copenhagen and Bornholm went straight for Visby on Gotland. The crew education was progressing fast although with following light wind we often had to rely on our diesel power.Beautiful “quiet” Visby invited us with a surprise party since it was their annual Stockholm weekend; sort of national cruise going from port to port around the coast tasting local hospitality and buzz. Despite the crowds friendly capitanerie found last birth for us at the ferry dock. Swedes are not a sober nation nor they are quiet, but thanks to supply of earplugs we survived the night and did some touring on Sunday, chewing Swedish fish and sugar-coated licorice.On Monday morning we finally entered Stockholm Archipelago, it was a beautiful cruise through maze of small rocky islands similar to the coast of Maine with tiny harbors tiny houses and plenty of tiny classic sail boats with occasional regular size cow or dog here and there.Approaching our home port for next 7 days we unexpectedly faced the bridge stretching between two islands way too low for comfort, there were some inconsistencies between the charts and the signage on the bridge, Dave rushed up the mast to take off our wind instruments, but we cleared by a narrow foot.Our shiny vehicle with Kuba, Marta, Maciek and Haley were waiting at the dock in front of the Gustavsberg statshus and monumental ceramics factory famous for making first production toilet bowl in the world.We quickly made friends with charming Isabela who with her husband runs the marina, settled in our 2 cottages and started our week long offshore racing clinic.We practiced hard; tacking, jibing, sail changes and MOB; Dive and I both fatigued our vocal cords and sounded like Louis Armstrong by the end of the week, satisfied with few nearly perfect tacks.Isabela, her husband and various members of Andrzej’s Swedish family were filing in for the missing hands.Après sailing activities included biking, hiking, mosquito hunting, poker and running through the woods in search of wifi signal from neighboring cottages. We ate well despite the size of our Ikea kitchen, vandalizing it in the process; we were also accused of grand theft and polluting, the ultimate crime in the most environmentally conscious nation on earth.The last two days we spent converting our vessel into offshore racing machine, we discovered few important pieces missing mainly our racing main, neatly stored deep in the left corner of the container in Hamble; that wasn’t a highlight of my summer, but turned out into blessing since the smaller cruising sail proved to be better in the upwind survival conditions of the race.Andrzej’s nephew Marcin Winiarski joined David and I for the delivery to Stockholm, we managed to sneak through some very narrow uncharted straights and channels, cutting about 10 hours of officially recommended route with no scratch to the kill. In pouring rain we entered Ostsee-Krauzfahrt merging with the tall ship fleet on the way from Kotka, the first being Zryw the old Ogar, one of the first boats I raced in Poland in early70s.Our assigned docking in Gamla Stan was directly in font of the royal palace, behind a raw of portable toilets and the statue of dead king on the horse. The story goes that tsar Peter the great showed up here once unannounced, docked his yacht at our spot and walked to the palace to everybody’s royal surprise.The city of Stockholm is very beautiful, festivities were grand, but nothing could top the experience of meeting 3 generations of Winiarskis. The acts of hospitality they performed are to many to list, but a Swedish dinner at Michal and Eva’s home topped everything.The feest of reindeer, herring, crayfish, chanterelle and akvavit, the music, the laughter, the library, the art, wild dancing in the kitchen to Bregovic, even the dog were unforgettable.We went speechless watching Kristina’s viola concert when somebody ordered the further exploration of Sverige nightlife. We visited some establishments from Andrzej’s and Gosia’s dark guestarbeiter past, finally settling for good in Franciscan brewery where we met Patrick and Ela Lee.There were parades and competitions, banquets and parties in public buildings and ships; Steve Devoe and Ellen Herman proudly carrying old glory through museums and temples with youngsters in tow.After 3 days of struggle with telecommunication gadgets we passed inspections and Batter Than.. was ready for a spectacular boat parade.The best and loudest show was put by Mexican barque Cuauhtémoc with cadets dancing on the yards to gun shots, ugly Ferurej took the apperance trophy after her all female crew took off their shirts, but we won the population per sq. meter category boarding good part of Winiarski clan the largest family in Scandinavia.Stockholm visit ended with crew dinner in dungeons of Gråmunken; famous restaurant set in the medieval torture chambers. We loaded provisions, last minute hunt for coffee mugs that got buried in the van, sun screen lotion, ciao to Paulina and off into the night.
