Log Book from the sailingtrip

    30-06-2000 Agata´s logg: Our big adventure begins!
    Nearly 30 people from 7 countries in the Baltic Sea region gathered in Lübeck to start the Harbour Tour 2000. We are the members of various ecological organisations with different knowledge and experience, which we want to share with each other.
    That is why we had arrived to Lübeck on this rather cold Friday afternoon and moved ourselves into „Burgtor” – the youth hostel, that was our home for the next two days. „Burgtor” is a very nice place for young people, a place where they can meet, make music, draw, prepare some performances and so on. In Poland, the country I come from, we really miss places like that.
    In the Friday evening we had a small meeting, when we had learned all our names and other basic things about ourselves. We had a lot of time and were really looking forward to spend next two weeks with this nice, friendly people we have just met.
    Agata Kujath
    01-07-2000 Agata´s logg: no highways – no problems!
    Saturday was the day of so called „harbour action” in Lübeck. Harbour actions are the different activities that take place in the harbours we are visiting. In Lübeck we were speaking a lot about A20 – the highway that is planned to be constructed from Lübeck to Szczecin in Poland and maybe even further, to Russia. The construction of A20 is destroying the environment near Lübeck, what we could observe during the slide-show in the Saturday morning. Jörn, Johannes and Christoph showed us on the slides, how did the landscape look like before and after beginning the construction. That impressed us a lot. In the afternoon we rented bikes and went to see the place of construction by ourselves. We were riding our bikes for over an hour through beautiful, old-fashioned city of Lübeck. Then we came to A20 and saw how much people can harm the environment.
    But that is not all. In the evening we had a guest, Dieter, who showed us more slides, this time about another highway project – A33. Some people are protesting against this construction for many years. In my opinion all people should ride their bikes, that would solve many problems like pollution, parking places, car thieves and so on. We don´t need more expensive highways. It is good that it is not only my opinions, because I have met here people who share it.
    Agata Kujath
    02-07-2000 6.00 pm / harbour of Lübeck
    We prepared the ship for the harbour-tour. Its outfitted with much food, all necessary seacharts, water and diesel fuel. Let’s start the tour !
    The crew of „LOVIS”
    02-07-2000 Agata´s logg: She is so beautiful….
    Morning was for us the preparation time – for about two hours we have talked about our expectations about Harbour Tour. These are for example, to meet people from another countries, to get to know each other, our organisations as well as our countries, to make some harbour actions, to learn how to sail, to develop our international network, to start some new projects together and so on. I think that we needed this time very much, because when we know our expectations, we can make hem true.
    Later that day we put our first step on Lovis´ board. She is so beautiful…. looks very nice with these high masts, clean deck, newly painted sides… From 4 to 8 p.m. there were open hours for the ship, so everyone could get onto and get informed about the whole idea of Harbour Tour. Later we have moved our bags from „Burgtor” to Lovis and at the evening we had a small meeting all together. But first we had to put all the food, that was delivered, to the small boxes in Lovis – that was quite a lot of work!
    I have read a lot about Lovis before, I have seen the pictures and so on but no words can describe the impression it makes when seen first time. It is very big, has a big mess (where I am sitting now, in fact), many quite comfortable cabins, well-equipped kitchen. Around 30 people can live here and it´s not crowded. I think we all felt that these two weeks will be something, we have never experienced before.
    Agata Kujath
    03-07-2000 7.00 pm Wismar
    We have spent all the day going by engine down Trave, from Lübeck to Wismar. No sailing today, what a disappointment… Life aboard is slowly calming down and we are getting used to each other. Today we unwrapped the protest banner against A20 (a highway from Lübeck/Germany to Szczecin/Poland). To night we will sleep near an old factory building, quite beautiful…
    Pehr Söderman
    03-07-2000 Agata´s logg: We are on the sea!!!
    That was our first night on Lovis. I guess we all have slept well and have nice dreams (they say, the first dream in the new place always comes true). After breakfast we had a lot to do. First our skipper, Bibo, made a small safety introduction and we were taught what to do in case of a leakage, fire on board, problems with gas and so on. Then we have divided ourselves into sailing groups – people responsible for setting the main sail, fore sail and mizzen sail and also into groups responsible for making breakfasts, lunches, dinners and cleaning.
    The wind wasn´t very good and we couldn`t sail into the direction we wanted to. What is more, all the time we had to use our motor, so in fact we didn´t sail at all. During the day we were talking to each other a lot, getting to know people from different countries. I have figured out for example that Lithuanian language is similar to Polish, that Swedish cuisine is very original and so on. At the evening we reached Wismar, small but beautiful harbour in Germany and we had a long walk there – Polish, Swedish and Lithuanian people together. That was quite nice. In the evening we discussed some issues while drinking some nice cinnamon Yogi Tea.
    I am really lucky that I am able to spend time, lying on a board, with the sun shining at my face and a cold breeze all around, with nice people everywhere, with good music and a good book by my side….
    Agata Kujath
    04-07-2000 6.00 pm Harbour of Burg auf Fehmarn
    We arrived to Burg auf Fehmarn this evening after the first sailing with Lovis. With the good weather we even made a better distance than expected, but we are still after planing. Setting the sails for the first time with a new crew was quite a experience, and very chaotic. We made a speed of about 5 knots during the day.
    Pehr Söderman
    04-07-2000 Agata´s logg: Sails up!
    Today the wind was a lot better, so we could set our sails up. That was not a hard work and it was nice to sea those huge white sails going up. We could switch off the motor and have some nice peaceful sailing at last.
    For me it was the baking day, because Katrin from Sweden and Pia from Denmark showed me how to bake a traditional Swedish apple pie. Later this day me and Johannes have also prepared some public exposition of Lovis, nothing big, just a poster with some photos and some leaflet, so people at the harbour can learn something about us. Now we are in Fehmarn, a small island on our way to Denmark. In the evening Pia is going to show us some slides about her home country, Denmark. I am really looking forward to it!
    It was just another day filled with relaxing and getting to know each other. Later there will be more time for seminars, some water analysis and so on….
    Agata Kujath
    05-07-2000 10.00 am Harbour of Burg auf Fehmarn
    For the first time I feel like I have had a night´s sleep aboard. I’m sleeping in the aft of the ship, near the waste water pump (very noisy) and the toilet pump (just noisy). Tonight nobody decided to empty the waste water or to use the toilets aboard after 01.00… We are now waiting in the harbour for the return of the Polish group, as they are out shopping food for the traditional Polish dinner. The weather is not as good as yesterday, today its cloudy and very light winds, it will probably rain during the day.
    Pehr Söderman
    05-07-2000 Agata’s logg:The Day Of Pierogi
    This was a very special day for our Polish group, because it was Polish national day. In Lübeck we decided that each nation on our board should have their own national day, when they can tell everyone a little bit about their motherland. Yesterday it was Danish day with the beautiful slide-show made by Pia. We saw different Danish landscapes, churches and some pictures from Copenhagen. Now it was our turn… We decided to prepare for everyone the traditional Polish dish: pierogi. These are the small kind of noodles stuffed with potatoes and quark and served with fried onion. It may sound very strange but they are really tasty! We have spent more than 3 hours in kitchen to prepare this and we were very nervous about it. At first we couldn`t smash the potatoes properly, than the dough was to thin, than it showed up that we had prepared not enough onion and so on. But at the end we managed to solve the main problems and I personally think that our dish was vary tasty (which is also the opinion of the most of the people on a board – or perhaps was this only their politeness?)
    Just before diner we arrived to Gedser which is a small (really small) harbour in the south Denmark. So now we are in Denmark at last! We are leaving tomorrow at 7.30 a.m. and this is good, because Gedser is a very boring place, I must say (sorry, all the Gedser inhabitants reading these words!).
    After dinner we had a small presentation prepared by our Polish group, some basic facts about geography of our country, history and culture as well as customs and cuisine. At the end we tried to teach people some Polish words and I must admit they were doing really good with the pronunciation as Polish is a very difficult language! I think that our national evening was quite nice, but I am looking forward to tomorrow – we are going to have a Lithuanian evening…
    And I am sure I won´t even look at pierogi when I will be home… I must have eaten about twenty of them….
    Agata Kujath
    05-07-2000 23.45 pm Harbour of Gedser
    At last we have power for the computer so I can update the logbook. We have had some problems with the local harbour and had to wait until they turned on the street lights to get the 220 v power. The weather was better than I expected in the morning, and there were no rain until we reached the harbour. Tonight we will have a Polish evening with traditional Polish food.
    Pehr Söderman
    06-07-2000 21.00 pm Harbour of Copenhagen
    Today we reached Copenhagen. The original plan for the day was to stop by some small harbour on the way, but the port was full, and we decided to go all the way to Copenhagen anyway. So we will spend two days in Copenhagen instead of the one originally planed. Copenhagen is the largest port we wisited soo far, and the first port to miss electricity, water, toilets and showers. But tonight we will get some extra hours of sleep, so I’ll go to bead now…
    Pehr Söderman
    07-07-2000 19.30 pm Copenhagen
    We have now spent our fist day in Copenhagen. Almost everybody has been away from the ship today. At last we have electricity! We borrow some from the hotel „Admiralen”. Still missing water, toilets and shower on land…
    Pehr Söderman
    07-07-2000 Agata’s logg: The two faces of Copehagen
    After the breakfast we split up to many small groups. Some of them went sightseeing, some had to go and buy some things (fruits and vegetables), some went shopping. Me and my friends decided to do some sightseeing and see Copenhagen by day.
    We saw quite a lot, even he change of guards in front of Palace, which took place at noon. We met there some people from Poland, some tourists and chatted with them for a while. The change of guards looked rather funny because of the furry caps of those people.
    What was my impression of Copenhagen? The city is beautiful and old-fashioned buildings co-exist there with quite modern ones, which is very strange, but looks nice. The city is rather calm, not so many tourists, the plan is in some kind of order, so even I had no problem to find way back home (and I am definitely not well city-oriented). There is a lot of monumental buildings, palaces and museums. Everywhere is something interesting to see. I wouldn´t say it is boring, but there isn´t a lot going on there. And I must say that Denmark must be a really rich country, the city is clean and buildings are renovated, which is very nice. But there is also the second face of Copenhagen and we had an occasion to see it in the afternoon. At 2 p.m. we met at Lovis and went with Camilla, the girl from Natur Og Ungdom to Christiania. It is a district of Copenhagen, but it is more than this. It´s more like city in a city. It has it´s own laws and rules, people who live there are independent, they make their food and build their houses by themselves. Christiania is quite big, there is almost 1000 of people living there. They have their own hospital, hairdresser, blacksmith, stable and everything. The houses look rather poor, the roads are narrow for there are no cars there. But the place is very interesting. There are things like buddhist´s stupas and old stones with runic writing on it. People seem friendly, everyone knows each other. There are of course no monumental buildings, but there is a market where you can buy jewellery, clothes as well as hash, pot and even halucynogenic mushrooms. There was a lot of people there, in all ages, buying stuff like that which was pretty weird for me. I don´t think this should be allowed but it´s my personal opinion.
    Christiania is completely different than the rest of Copenhagen. It´s like another world.
    After this trip we had a dinner and Camilla and Susi explained us some things about tomorrow´s harbour action. Then we had a small movie show, when we watched movies about fighting against the highways, fighting for preserving the nature, homeless people and so on. This also was quite interesting. But I´m thinking all the time about this strange city I got to know today.
    Agata Kujath
    08-07-2000 22:30 Copenhagen
    Now we have water also!
    We ran out of water this morning, and it took some hours until we could get fresh water in the tanks. 2 tons of water is enough for the next few days. Not much to report from the ship, some maintenance and painting has been done during the day. In the morning we had a harbour action where we handled out cookies to people who used alternatives instead of cars. After that we split up in two groups, one who went to the „Reclaim the street party” (later stopped by the police) and one which visited the enviromental friendly areas in Copenhagen. I was visited by my parents so I did not participate in either.
    Pehr Söderman
    08-07-2000 Agata’s logg: More and more of Copenhagen
    I wouldn´t call the harbour action that took place in the morning a success. The idea was very good: we were staying in the centre of the city giving cookies and leaflets to people who use public transport or bikes instead of cars. In my country it would be a big success and all people would enjoy it. But not here. Danish people seemed really unfriendly, they didn´t want to get leaflets from us and they didn´t even took the cookies! They were saying some nasty words at us (I think so because I don´t understand Danish), or acting as if we didn´t exist. This wasn´t nice. During two hours of this action we distributed maybe 50 leaflets. So that is why for me it is not a success though our Danish friends told us that this is normal in this country.
    Later that day everything was just wonderful. After lunch we rented some bikes and went for a guided tour in Norrebro, a district of Copenhagen that is very ecological. People have some nice gardens around their blocks of flats, they select garbage into special bins and we even saw a totally ecological house with solar bateries and so on. This was very interesting and I hope to see this kind of initiatives in Poland!
    Later me and my friends took our bikes and made a trip. We biked rather far along the pier and get to a very nice place with a view t the sea and many stones put in one place. We sat on the stones, watched the sea and it was really wonderful. Then we went back to he ship and there was a small party. Camilla (from Denmark) made some chocolate balls (this is Scandinavian dessert, very fat, sweet and therefore tasty!), we had some chocolate to drink and Bibo was playing many songs on the guitar. As we know many of them, we could sing along. It was nice.
    Later we had to give away the bikes we rented and therefore we had to walk for the rest of the evening. We had a walk to the ship, we cleaned it a bit and had another walk, this time longer, just to see Copenhagen for the last time. We decided we want to come back here, because it is an interesting city. But in my opinion three days is enough to do some great sight-seeing, because we were in many different places and now I know Copenhagen a bit.
    In this morning we had a very small evaluation meeting (the big one will be in the evening) so I hope we will figure out some solutions to these problems, learn to be more responsible and helpful to each other and the rest of our trip will be more satisfying.
    Agata Kujath
    09-07-2000 22:00 Harbour of Falsterbo
    We leaft Kopenhagen this morning, and has used the engine the whole day. Nothing relay happend, we sleep tonight outside the openbel bridge to „Falsterbo kanalen”. The showers in the harbour was at first hard to find, but good and refreshing when found, In falsterbo the supermarket „Konsum” was open. There we bought food for the 'Swedish’ breakfast; some knäckebröd, kalles kaviar, Herrgaardsost (cheese), Lingonberry jam and alike. We payed the fine for the harbour and got a pink ribbon to show that we paid. Tomorrow we will have some better wheater (sailabel weather).
    Pehr Söderman
    09-07-2000 Agatas logg:Good-bye, Little Mermaid!
    We left Copenhagen at about 11 o’clock, hoping to sail peacefully whole day. Before breakfast there was some not nice situation on our ship, because some of the people had a small party the evening before and they didn’t do the dishes. When the breakfast group woke up, we saw plenty of dirty dishes on the table. That is why we had to have small talk about responsibility and things like these. This was just right after we had left Copenhagen and waved bye-bye to Little Mermaid. This was so called Evaluation Day. First we had meetings in our national groups about things like motivation, expectations, planning of the day, teamwork and so on. Then we had meetings in international groups and at the evening at the plenum. It took us quite a lot of time to discuss everything, make new groups (as few people left us) and so on. We planned a little bit our work for next days. That was very tiring but interesting. We hope that from now on things would go better. At the evening we reached Falsterbro, harbour in Sweden, which in fact was not very beautiful. A big highway nearby, nothing more. But there was one good thing in it – showers! At last!
    Agata Kujath
    10-07-2000 Rötvig
    This day started inocent enought with the trip through Flasterbo kanalen. But when we left the shalow waters we got the weaves straight from the front. First some people played in the water on fordeck, but soon everything got quiet. very quit. Most of the crew got seasick, and untill we reached shalow waters again (it took about 5 hours) thy were all under deck. But when we reached the harbor and everybody recovered we had a nice dinner…
    Pehr Söderman
    10-07-2000 Agatas logg: A BIG Storm
    I woke up at six o’clock! This is not a normal hour for me. But our friends from Sweden, from Fältbiologerna suggested that we should go bird-watching in the morning because the surrounding landscape is well-known of many different birds living there. It was true. We saw avocet, black-headed gull, cormorant, some kind of duck and…. what was the last one? We also saw all kinds of mussels living in the Baltic Sea. It was very interesting. Ah, the last one was the oyster-catcher. My favourite, in fact. Later we left Falsterbo and just as we reached the sea, the HUGE storm started. Waves were big and the water was everywhere, on our deck, on our sails… on us of course. Everything was wet! The wind was not very strong in fact, but the direction of it was so that the waves became bigger than they usually are. I was on the deck for some time but it was really windy. So I went asleep and slept the whole day! We all did it, we didn’t have much choice in fact because it is hard to make any seminars or even the water analysis in such conditions! We reached Rödvig, the south of Denmark, in the evening. We didn’t sail far away from Falsterbo because the wind wasn’t good for us. We hope anyway to reach Swinoujscie in time. With such crew everything will be all right!
    Agata Kujath
    11-07-2000 Rötvig
    As the winds were bad for sailing today we decided to stay another day in this harbour. Not much to report except for the showers. You had to pay 5 danish crowns for only 3 minutes of water. Atleast you could use swedish 5:crowns…
    Pehr Söderman
    Stralsund – Swinoujscie
    What went wrong…..? There’s three days missing in the life of the Harbour-tour 2000! You’ll have to use your imagination, all we can promise is that Lovis got safely to Szczecin via Stralsund, Germany.
    The second LOVIS crew
    15-07-2000 Szczecin
    The Harbour action in Szczecin started before noon. At eleven 'o clock there was exhibition called „Time for the Odra River”. There were many beautiful pictures from the area of this river. The next we saw a lecture about Odra River. In the evening we changed the participants on our ship.
    After we got to our rooms and left there our luggage, we went to the concert of drummer band. We had a great time there. Tired with dancing and the whole day full of many attractions we came back to Lovis.
    Dominik + Agnes
    16-07-2000 Szczecin/Swinoujscie
    It was our first night on the Lovis. After breakfast we had a long meeting about security on the ship. We divided ourselves into 3 watch groups: Bornholm, Öland and Wollin. Than we could go to Swinoujscie. We had to use a motor so it took us 6 hours to get there. We learned a lot of new words connected with sailing. We saw a lot of birds too, for example herons. In the evening we went sleep soon, because we had to get up early next day.
    Dominik + Agnes
    17-07-2000 Swinoujscie – Nexö
    We left early in the morning (about 6 A.M.) We had 60 miles to Bornholm. It was our first day on high seas, so many people had a seasick. That’s why we had to eat on the deck – it was so difficult for them to go downstairs! But we know that in few days we will feel just great seeing big waves. After this hard for us day we got to Nexo. Sailing in the evening sun we saw Bornholm growing in front of us, Denmark – at last! (at last of course only for Danish people!) (and all the other people who couldn’t wait to get to this lovely country) (very expensive country!). The first impression of Denmark: factories and fishy smells. Toilets on land (easiest reached when swimming across the harbour), and showers (after Christian took a small talk with the harbourmaster :-) ).
    We like each other and we like Lovis, this is going to be great. We saw hedgehogs in the town!
    Agnes + Signe + Dominik
    18-07-2000 Nexö – Christiansö
    Today we had to cover just 20 miles so we left the interesting island Bornholm about 2 P.M. this trip was more exciting for us because people felt much better and all of us could stay on board and look at the rough sea. We got here to Christiansö at about 7 P.M. and then we went to see beautiful and unforgottable views. These two islands (Christiansö and Frederiksö) are so small that we could visit both of them within 1,5 hours! We didn’t know that we was going to see such amazing place and now (just after sightseeing) we are full of uncommon impressions. These small islands are not how you usually imagine Denmark, but small and stony with a few small colourful houses and a lot of birds. The nature all in all is very rough here with the wind blowing over the bare rocks, forcing the plants seldom to grow above knee-height. After the last couple of days of sailing the group is now starting to feel more united and these isolated islands have helped to strengthen this feeling. In the evening a spontaneous fire show was initiated by Elina who showed her talents in acrobatic fire throwing. And by the way we composed a „Harbour-Tour-Song”. (If you want to sing it in order to imagine the great spirit of our Tour you can sing it with the melody from „California Dreaming”!):

    1. All the winds are good
      And the sky is grey.
      We’re on a sailing trip
      Sailing night and day.
      You have to know the wind
      that’s all we have to say
      Baltic Sea dreamings
      Have brought us all the way.
    2. We went into this port
      We passed along the way.
      When we stepped out of the ship
      The ground appeared to sway
      But soon we will set sail (set sail again)
      We haven’t come to stay.
      Baltic Sea dreamings
      Will bring us all the way
    Agnes + Dominik + Signe + Katrin
    19-07-2000 Christiansö – Sandhamnen
    Unfortunately we had to leave this beautiful island in the morning after taking a very cold waking up bath from the cliffs. Today we had a very good long sailing day. We managed to cross over to Sweden with a great wind from Southwest. Not many from the group got seasick, we’re getting tough! We arrived in Sweden just as it started to rain! Welcome to Sweden! Since it was raining we decided to watch a movie about „Reclaim the streets-parties” in London and Stockholm. It was like having a big common sauna with yogi-tea. One person who wants to be anonymous had to go alone swimming in the ocean because nobody wanted to join her. Other people used the time better by doing a great rain dance.
    Shadow of the day: A broken waste-water pump! From now on we have to wash the dishes in big plastic bowls!
    Signe + Katrin
    20-07-2000 Sandhamnen – Kalmar
    Rain… and birthday! That’s all to say! No, not really, but the rain and not so much wind are the things which influenced us the whole day! (Sasha the „birthdaychild” must have been a bad boy the last years!) Today we were glad to sail up the Swedish coast. Everybody were very happy after ending the watch! Under deck we made different things. But the best of the day which most of the people unfortunately missed was a great workshop Klara held. She told as about „meeting- and oppression techniques”.
    Another great experience was to arrive in Kalmar. It was cold, grey and misty, the town just a shade and there in the middle was a big yellow tent and six „FÄLTBIOLOGER” standing there with a lovely smile on their faces waiting for us. They offered us a spectacular program for the next days in Kalmar.
    Signe + Katrin
    21-07-2000 Kalmar
    The program:
    Now the fun could begin!
    As the press came in the morning it rained! As we biked to watch a water project it rained! But as we came back to relax the sun started to shine!
    Later we planed the harbour action for the next day. And after that we got a wonderful dinner in a first class restaurant in Kalmar because we were the guests of the town Kalmar. Very civilised after a week on the sea. Afterwards we visited the musical „Hair”, an outside performance. It was a good idea, especially because it was a really nice evening, but unfortunately it was in Swedish and the atmosphere didn’t get better by the fact that the place was right beside the prison! But all in all a very cultural day!
    Signe + Katrin
    22-07-2000 Kalmar
    Today we had more program! First we walked into the city to make our Harbour action. There hadn’t really been anything planned by the Swedish group so we had just decided on the ship to make it some kind of fun event, where everybody could practise their artistic skills. So in the middle of town we put up our information material and started joggling, painting faces, doing acrobatics, playing with a diablo and much more. It wasn’t very political, but good fun.
    In the afternoon there was a lecture about Baltic Sea ecology and initiatives for protection and co-operation in the area. If people had not been so tired after the last days of excitement it would have been excellent. In between there was also room for a bit of advertisement for Kalmar (it seemed like the city council people saw more reasons of us choosing Kalmar for the Swedish harbour in the project than we did).
    In the evening there was arranged a concert with three local groups. The first band basically got killed by no people being there to watch them. The second band didn’t sing at all but had style, the third band was cool and really made people jump. Later there was time for a moonlight swim, without a moon but with clouds.
    Signe + Katrin
    23-07-2000 Kalmar – Grönhögen
    Goodbye Kalmar … We left Kalmar before lunch after doing a bit of laundry and packing our things together. As the motor started running we bid our Swedish friends farewell and motored out in the big blue.
    Right after the departure from Kalmar we made some water analysis, to have a look at the environment in the Kalmar bay, the results will follow later. It was good to do some practical things instead of just doing a lot of talking (maybe the politicians should try doing that too …) A lot of talking did we instead in the afternoon when we had our first evaluation meeting. We haven’t finished yet, but the result so far is that problems and questions have been discussed in smaller groups and have been taken up in plenum. The group is divided by interest conflicts, one part of the group sees this more as a amusement trip, while the other part is more for environmental and co-operational questions. It seems like there has been some trouble with the communication before the trip, so a lot of people didn’t really consider what it was they wanted with the tour before going. It’s of course a problem, but now we just want to figure out how we’ll handle it (a bit like our meat discussion earlier in the week). So far the tour has been really great, and this shouldn’t ruin it – maybe instead be used as a strength … Get the best from everybody.
    We just have to learn to listen to – and respect each other, that’s the start of co-operation. It will be interesting to see how this evaluation ends, how it will change the rest of the tour. To night at dinner (while eating pasta with nuts, white cheese and yoghurt – Polish speciality … ???) people were already making a new effort to communicate with other people than they usually talk to.
    I’m looking forward to see what tomorrow will bring, the group seems motivated and ready for the adventure of the tour … crossing over to Klaipeda, Lithuania.
    Tove + Signe
    24-07-2000 Grönhögen – Klaipeda
    Another birthday and a rescue! What a day!
    But the first action today was a bird-watching early in the morning. These crazy seven people stood up at 5 a.m.!!! Sorry, but we are not crazy. At 7:30 a.m. we started our adventure crossing the Baltic Sea to Klaipeda. We had a great birthday breakfast for Signe who now, if she was a guy could marry in Poland!
    The whole day many people slept and there was not much wind! But in the time from 12 a.m. till 4 p.m. there was no wind! So we drifted in the waterway „Ölands Södra …”. Until we started the engine around 9 p.m. we made just 12 miles. In the breaks between sleeping and eating we had a full program: Water analysis, making masks and a discussion about „Open space methods for decision making” stood on the timetable. After the dinner which was made by our Lithuanian participants we had a really big rescue action: Johannes suddenly dropped his „Birkenstock-Shoe” into the ocean. First the captain decided to turn back the ship. Then all of us gathered on deck to help catching the shoe. We were laughing and shouting and trying to fish the shoe with harpoons and nets. It was a great fun and a fantastic teamwork! And finally we got it! That is the way of waking up people…….
    The evening bid a possibility to try some Lithuanian food (in the vegetarian version) – very nice soup and bread-spread with a lot of garlic. In the evening the reality of our three watch system became clear, sailing all through the night. I personally found myself standing between 04.00 and 08.00 on the poop-deck (and it was too foggy and rainy to see the sun-raise). But it was cool to sail into the morning and the atmosphere in the watch was great.
    Signe + Mimi + Katrin
    25-07-2000 Somewhere on the Baltic Sea …
    During the night the wind had grown a bit stronger, breakfast on the move. With more or less happy faces people showed up, for in the most cases to return to the sleeping bags trying to catch up on sleep after the night.
    It’s amazing how people fall into a everyday life rhythm, no land – no worries! During the day it was pretty quiet on board; some slept, some relaxed and others just bummed around enjoying life. By now most people are getting use to the movements of the ship, fortunately… otherwise this could been a rough tour for a lot of people. We are now out of the ferry, cargo- and tankship highway 99; thank God! Now the navigation is a bit more relaxed – at least the chance of the getting run over by a ship doesn’t seem so great anymore. This is not really the time for seminars and workshops, people are too tired, a bit seasick or concentrated on being on watch to make it possible.
    In the evening the Swedish group prepared Swedish food for us: yellow bean soup with bread, and pancakes (baked in the oven to make it easier) with whipped cream. All served on deck in the fresh wind.
    For us awaits another night of sailing. Since the night is dry some of the group has decided to sleep on the deck (maybe that will make it easier to wake up at 03.45!), lying outside under the stars, getting sung to sleep by the wind in the sails (and the odd yells from the watch-group) and rolled by the waves….. can anything better be imagined?
    Signe
    26-07-2000 Arrival in Klaipeda
    Grey….. everything is grey.
    During the night the lights from Klaipeda were spotted, unfortunately the waves and wind made it impossible to sail direct into harbour. After two days without land under the feet, people are looking forward to a change of the horizons. Still it was with sadness we during the morning saw Klaipeda growing in front of us, this port means the end of the second tour of the harbour-tour 2000. During the last two weeks we’ve crossed over the Baltic Sea twice, seen new places, met new people. Why does everything good have to end?
    Klaipeda didn’t show itself from it’s best side as we entered the harbour, the greyness of the big cargo-ships and buildings blended into the sky without any other contours than the big wave-breakers along the entrance of the harbour. Not very inviting! Interesting was it also our welcome greeting from Lithuania – a flyer starting with: Lithuania is a nice and guestfree country, but…… and then a whole page of things that you should be careful about when moving around in town, this including everything from taking care of your belongings to being careful about making new friends. Thanks for the warning…… now it’s really easy to get to know the country with an open mind.
    Since a lot of the participants are leaving tomorrow, we had our evaluation meeting this afternoon. Everybody could agree on the tour being great with nice people, good sailing and a lot of fun. On the negative side the problems with communication, lack of program, difference of expectations and peoples sense of responsibility was brought up. From my point of view I missed a bit more concrete discussion of how we can continue the co-operation in the future. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!
    In the evening we met with the Lithuanian groups – cool to see them again. They gave us the program for the nest couple of days, Klaipeda here we come!
    Signe
    27-07-2000 Klaipeda
    The last day on the ship……. Actually the plan was that people should have left the ship tomorrow, but because so many people are leaving today we decided to go of the ship together and let the people staying a bit longer stay in accommodation organised by the Lithuanian groups. It’s a shame ending earlier, but better than people leaving the ship over a period of 24 hours. We started together – we end together!
    After two weeks of sailing the ship looked quite messy, something had to be done. The whole morning was for cleaning, people working together getting it done. In between the people started leaving, funny feeling, who knows when we’ll see each other again.
    In the afternoon there had been planned an excursion to the Kursius Neringos and I can’t help feeling sorry for the people who left early and missed out on this one. We took a small ferry (which by the way sails right past Lovis about 40 times a day) over and had a guided tour of the forest and dunes/beach, afterwards there was time to walk a bit around and have a look at the area. It was nice to get the cleaning fumes blown away by the wind, and get to see a very positive side of Klaipeda. In the evening we went out for dinner with our Lithuanian friends.
    Signe
    28-07-2000 Klaipeda
    After spending the night in a military camp (the accommodation which the Lithuanians had organised for us!!!!!) we met this morning at ten o’clock by Lovis to start a handing out leaflets action. It was a bit strange because the information we were handing out was in Lithuanian and Russian, so it was hard to understand any of it. We were alright met by the locals, with the small but, that the Russian speaking people didn’t really want to take the information from us.
    Today a water festival has started here in Klaipeda, apparently the happening of the year. This means that the town is filled with people, musicians, markets……. In the afternoon there was the official opening, where we were invited to take part (as watchers). It seemed quite all right, but in Lithuanian language!
    At six p.m. we officially change groups, the people going on the third tour are now on the boat. It’s strange with new people, well strange sounds a bit cruel – the feeling is just a bit like the first day of last tour, the feeling of facing a lot of new people who you don’t know, but who you know will be sharing great experiences with you. It’s hard to predict what will happened during the next two weeks, all I can hope is that it will be interesting, fun, challenging …
    Signe
    01-08-2000 Kuressaare
    Our adventure with sailing started three days ago. During this days we hadn’t touched the land at all. Most of us had been seesick at the begining because waves were really strong but now everything seems to be fine.I’am not sure if we want to sail more in the night since we have to get up very early or not sleep in the middle of night (it’s against nature) but there were also some good sides of this for example falling stars during all nights. Yesterday the polish group made „Pierogi” (national food) everybody liked it, specially Sina (she was happy like a child) ,but we the cooks promised one another not to make „pierogi” any more (it`s a lot of work about 5 hours-believe me).
    We are playing a very nice game which is called „secret friend” and we are making gifts wich is also very nice.The harbour in which we are right now is in Estonia it could be surprise because we were supposed to stop in Latvia but we aren`t.I have to write something also about weather-it`s wonderful. It´s so warm that today we went to the beach and swam in the sea. Although there were a lot of plants the fun was great and I for a first time was swimming in the sea which was not salty.With every day we are better in (un)furlinig the sails (I hope the crew think the same), Auxias from Lituana teach us knots and some more thinks are happening but I´ll write about it later because I´m going to sleep right now.
    Good night.
    Burak
    03-08-2000 Harbour of Sviby / Vormsi
    We are out of time, I´ve just asked people around me about what date or day is today and nobody was able to answer me, but at last I found good informed person.Yesterday we stoped on an island called Muhu and we had nice,calm evening.We left that harbour very early in order to be on Vormsi before 12 a.m. and we are. First point of programme was excursion of the island – it was nice but nothing speciall except old factory and older orthodox church. Some people liked it so much that they even visit (climbed on) the roof ( I did it also).
    Next point of the programme was short video about some action in London, called Mayday 2000, after this engaged the discision about diffrent ways of protesting it was very interesting but not to long because we decided earlier that we would like to have a camp fire tonight. Finally only few people went to make camp fire rest of people went sleep. Unfortunately just after lighted the matches it started raining and was not only little rain but quite big one.I was not there but only some persons who are trying to dry themself right now told me this. I almost forgot that today we also were swiming in the sea, just near the ship, the most exiting was jumping from the top of bowsprit – I mean really exiting.
    Burak
    03-08-2000 Harbour of Sviby / Vormsi
    Now I´m back from outside. It is still heaviely raining and my weet soaked clothes are hanging around me in the communal room. Oh what an exiting day this was.
    We left the habour of Muhu island very early in the morning. Unfortunatly we had no wind so we had to go by the engine to our next planed destination – the island of Vormsi. No sailing manouver for today but for that more action on land. At about 11 a.m. we departured to an island excursion. Some people were more interested in the flora and fauna of Vormsi and walked around with Mikkel the biologist but some other people and me desided to find a very old beautiful cemetry with celtic crosses. Which meant walking through the countryside, eating wild rasberries from the side of the small road, leaving little villages behind us, discovering houses which were almost in ruines. The most impressing one was a church from 1889 which was surounded by a becoming scrapyard.
    After a lot of walking we finally arrived at the cemetry which had a very peaceful and calmig athmosphere.
    Luckily on our half way back to the ship we get a lift and finally to give into my desires we went straight from the ship swimming in the sea. It was very refreshing and I won´t forget what I felt this very special moment when I jumped from the top of the bowspit till I dived into the water. I had to do it again I loved the feeling.
    A bit later we enjoyed our warm dinner and then I get more and more nervous because I was getting to hold a lecture about Mayday 2000 in London. I showed a videofilm made by the the Independent Media Centre London and talked about Direct Action. The people on board liked it.
    By the way there was something we liked because it`s a sign of a good ecosystem but it was very difficult to cope with this awful lot of moskitos. To round up this day we wanted to make a big campfire. It became very late and also some people forecasted a storm but there were still some taft ones who wanted to try. My clothes and me has never been so fast saoked with rain then at this night. I was singing all the 10 minutes on our way back.
    Now Loreena McKennith is singing in the background . Her softly deeply emotinonaly music is making me fall asleep.
    Melanie
    03-08-2000 Sviby / Vormsi
    I just want say thanx to Signe for these texts in the logbook.
    And also some greetings to my best friend ! (Anita !)
    Michel
    04-08-2000 Ruhükula / Islands of Estonia
    Friday – Open space
    After breakfast we left the beautiful Estonian island Ormsö (the old swedish name for it). We couldn’t set sails because of the shallow water, so the engine worked for us most of the time. Instead of sailing we had a lot of interesting workshops and discussion in a so called „open space day”. Signe and Mikkel from Denmark introduced us how it should work. Roughly the idea is that everyone will have their opportunity to work with and talk about what they are really interested in. So we had many different discussions, for example about reclaim the streets and alternative living. We had a lot of inspiration from each other. It was a great day.
    In the evening we watched a movie. It was about the human behavior I think.
    Words from this day: Sunny weather, nice view, actions, awake people, interesting points, guitar, lithuanian, german, danish and swedish songs, learning other languages, happy people
    Camilla
    05-08-2000 Tallinn / Estonia
    Saturday – arrival to Tallinn
    I was in the early morning sail group and experienced the arrival in Tallinn. Except the sunrice it was not a very nice experience. „Leave the harbour at once!” They wanted som buerokratic paper that we weren´t informed about. So, goodbye Tallinn, we said and went to a harbour nearby. It was almost full, the only place left for our big ship were at customers kay. So we experienced that you must have your pasport with you to the toilet! We felt like we were in jail. As a miracle the estoinian girls Ester and Merit found us. They had a tight programme for us, so we tried to be awake although we had sailed all night. We started with a sightseeing tour in Tallinn, a bus was waiting for us in the harbour. Before we went on sightseeing we had a name game outside the nice walls of Tallinns old town. On the tour we looked at old memories from the danish time with the danish flag falling from the sky, and from the swedish time.
    The town is very scandinavian I think, with some wooden houses and the city walls. The old town of Tallinn was very nice. We had lunch at a resturant it was nice, although the people thought that chicken is vegeterian (!). After lunch we went to a seminar. A man named Valdur told us about the Baltic Sea the enviromental problems. Also about which things the enviromental organizations work with in Estonia. It was very interesting, but so heavy – Valdur talked all the time. We were all very tired but a nice lady came with cookies, apples and juice all the time.
    After this interesting lectury we went back to „LOVIS”, and many people took a nap, because the plan was that we should go to a disco.
    The disco were very big with three different floors. Disco, live music and karaoke were a good mixture. Sina were the dancing king, she went solo on the dance floor. When the karaoke started everyone sang a song and it was really funny. Pernille from Denmark had her own way: screaming! Robert made a big succes when he sang „Unchain my heart”. Late at night we all went happy home very very tired.
    Camilla
    08-08-2000 At Sea between Tallinn and Hangö
    Twisters (again) !
    This morning at 6.00 a.m. I woke up because of a „nice” heel angel of LOVIS. When I got out I saw two huge black twisters (= tornados, taifuns, Windosen) at our starboardside – just 3 seamiles away. 5 years ago a friend of mine and me met 40 of them near Gotland/Öland. Wind speeds up to 360 km/h in the center are possible.
    Sooooo …We took the sails down and tried with a zigzag-course to avoid a „collision”with these horrible phenomena. Under the black clouds there was rain – of course – and hail ! There were hailstones with a diameter of 1 cm. A real experience.
    Twisters on the Baltic Sea ? Here are small evidents !

    Michel

    13-08-2000 Turku / Finland
    After a nice evening with a campfire, anchor watches and a beautiful sunrise at Duveholm the ship stayed 2 days in Ecotopia / Maasarii.
    Today we arrived in Turku – the last port of the Harbourtour 2000. Have a good way back home. Be carefull and remember: DON’T MAKE FRIENDS is a bad suggestion.
    Michel