Gotland, here we come!

Monday 13 July 2009 Byxelkrok (Oland) – Visby (Gotland)
Ships position 0730 UTC
57*19.68N 017* 00.37E
The big day has come. We are going across to the island of Gotland today… Exciting. We get ready and sail at 0800 UTC. The wind is still slow, but should pick up some during this fine day. Sunny and clear visibility. Barometer slowly rising. What more can we wish for. Ok, to get to the other side maybe?

After two hours at sea, the wind gets a little better, between 5-6 ms. We average 4.7 knots SOG according to the log. Good enough. We see several large vessels in the shipping lane. But we have them on AIS and keep far away from the lanes. At lunchtime we cross a thick layer of algal soup, a token of the pollution in the Baltic. It looks bright yellow in the otherwhise grey green seawater.

At 1715 we get outside the port of Visby with heavy shipping traffic all aroud us. We nearly get run over by a large container vessel. As I call them on VHF they answer and notice us, a spot on the waves, nothing for them to just run across. But they let us off the hook and go around behind us, 150 m distant. Huge shadow tearing past.
We have decided not to go into Visby, a big commersial marina, but look for a very small fishing harbour that we have seen in a book about Gotland (Gotland by Kryssarklubben). We finally find it and after some debate we slowly go through the very VERY narrow harbour entrance that luckily is well marked. But we are scraping the marking buoys on either side. The harbour is nice and almost empty, quiet and friendly. Flundraviken 57* 40.07N 018*19.50E. From here we have walking distance to the town Visby. Feels good to be here!

Author: captain

Johannes, born in 1960 in Zierikzee, The Netherlands. Owner of S/Y Isabell. Retired environmental toxicologist, now living aboard and sailing south.