A Baltic Route

 

We love to visit new places when we are out sailing. At the same time we love warm weather and real summer. Because of the last, the areas by the North Sea, like the Norwegian west coast and Northern UK,  are not so tempting. Which again now leaves few areas undiscovered in our nearby coasts. 

So we looked southeast to the south Baltic. We had never been there. Maybe for a reason, not too many Norwegians sail that way and we did not know much about what to expect. Maybe relatively small and cramped harbours with simple facilities?

After having sailed much of the standard coastal route down the Swedish west coast we headed for Klintholm, Island of Møn, Denmark. A good starting point for a leg of about 38 nm to the first harbour in Rugen, Germany. 

West- southwesterly winds are common over that route. But the winds had been light and variable this early summer, and even though some SW had been forecast, it did not come. To our disappointment we had to motor most of the way, till the inner waterway entrance. For some reason the wind picked up a bit right there. So we sailed the marked waterway towards Vitte. This area has some real shallow waters outside the marks, so it is important to read the chart and stay inside the narrow waterways. Also, Vitte is the entrance to the popular Hiddensee recreational area, and ferries sail the narrow waters all the time. They expect to pass leisure traffic without problems.

We had of course read up on internet what we could find on marina guidance about Vitte. There seemed to be some guest space in the Vitte Kommunalhafen, but as the harbour master had not answered our calls, we were not sure where to go when arriving into the harbour. No signs to be found other than tying up forbidden all over, there was not much else to do than take a temporary spot and try to find the harbour master. Which was not easy. To our luck, a couple of professional touring sailboats had talked to the harbormaster earlier, and when they arrived we were informed of where we could stay.

Finally tied up. There is actually no designated guest space in the harbour. Boats can go to the Vitte-Lange Yachthafen north of the main harbour, but such a typical German harbour with berths between narrow poles gives few opportunities for a catamaran.

Vitte is a special place. There are lots and lots of tourists arriving with the ferries every day. Because people are not allowed to drive their cars there. So they leave the cars outside Hiddensee and take a ferry. In the very small town there must be a dozen bicycle rental businesses, as by bicycle is the way to move around the area. Horsewagons take hotel guests to and from the harbour, and they also offer sightseeing tours. The town is neat and clean, we even saw someone hired to remove the horsedroppings as soon as they were found. 

Even though Hiddensee and Vitte are full of tourists, the harbour has an authenthic athmosphere with smelly fishing gear and equipment. The Germans love fish, and there are som cosy restaurants seaside.

Some "Backfisch" in one of the waterfront restaurants tastes lovely.

On the west side of the town, there is a loooong white beach stretching to the south, where it should be almost impossible to be crowded.

Harbour fee was around €15 in this harbour, which in 2022 must be said to be very reasonable seen with Scandinavian eyes.

The next place we headed for was Schaprode to the southeast. Which we did in no way find as interesting as Vitte. A small community with some OK restaurants, but mainly people seemed to come there to park their cars before continuing by ferry to Vitte. 

So we left the next day for the much more well-known town of Stralsund. A town with a long history of connections with Scandinavia, and one of two larger towns in the area. Greifswald looks to be of approximately the same size. In Stralsund they were arranging "Harbour weekend" these days, with a full marina and regattas in the sound. As the winds were favourable and the weather pleasant, we decided to anchor outside the breakwater. But the marina otherwise looked OK, with quite good capacity.

Dinghy landings close by were not abundant, but if taking the whole trip around the breakwater and into town, this nice place was available. Between bridges, so only small wessels could go there.

The days in Stralsund were good. But due to some necessary work with the wind sensing equipment on board, we did not explore much other than streets and restaurants.

Next on the list was the Usedom area. A name and area completely unknown to us before starting to plan this trip. Rugen has several other interesting harbours, but visiting everywhere was not possible even with our generous summer season. A fresh northwesterly came up, and it was exploited to effectively push us over to Usedom. That was after a delay at Stralsund bridge, which seems to be notoriously opening after schedule. 

Peenemunde was the first available stop for us. The place is known in WW2 history for being the location for the development of V1 and V2 bombs. We found a harbour with limited guest facilities, but lucked in with a wide berth in the main harbour. There is not much to the surroundings today as we saw it, only a few small restaurants, some museum facilities and a camping ground. Still quite a few tourists find their way here at times, according to locals. 

Because Peenemunde was part of former Eastern Germany and thus for many years under Soviet influence, it seemed that there were a lot of military activity here also after WW2. Picture shows an old Soviet submarine.

Going further south, we passed Karlshagen, which might have been a better stop. The town is connected to the gigantic beach strip on the east side of Usedom. On the other hand, Poland would also offer much of the same. 

Now unfamiliar and strange harbour names started to come. We stopped at Wolgast after only a few miles. A nice and tidy little town on the west side of the strait. Funny memory? The waitress in the China restaurant filled our glasses fully to the rim. Unfortunately it was from our own bottle.

It is a good idea to plan the sailing according to bridge openings on the way, as there can be several hours between.

Sailors move with the wind. It was not much of it the next day, but we managed to reach the Stettinner Haff and arrived outside a town strangely named Ueckermunde. Took some time to remember it. The weather was nice and warm. From the seaside a canal goes up a river to the town. By the canal opening was a nice beach area, so we then anchored and had a bath in the sea. The water is really murky inside Usedom (as also inside of Rugen), but we have not heard that it is polluted. Lots of people were bathing. About a mile up the canal the very sheltered Stadthafen can be found. It has capacity for a fair amount of yachts. There are other harbours on the way up the canal too, but they are with between pole style berths. Not for us. There is also the Ueckermunde Lagunenstadt, which is a holiday resort. Not our style. A couple of days in the town center suited us better. The weather was still warm, so the next days afterwards we chose to stay at anchor outside the canal and beach area.

Ueckermunde Stadthafen.

Ueckermunde beach.

Then time had come to visit Poland. Neither of us had stayed there before, so we did not really know what we would find. Had tried to search the internet for some sailors experiences, but had not found much.

First stop Swinoujscie Marina. Another difficult name to pronounce. Unexpectedly large ships sailed the canal we came into from Stettiner Haff, but the reason is the supply line to the big  town of Stettin further south. 

Swinoujscie Marina is a fine marina, with quite good capacity and a well sheltered location. Always a slight queue at the marina office due to oldfashioned procedures, but it was all very orderly. Town center is about a kilometer away. Visits to the grocery store and town center were made quick and easy by the availability of rental electric scooters in Swinoujscie. 

To the nortwest of the marina there is a large area by the beach, with hotels, shops and restaurants. I got a spanish holiday town feeling, except for a bit lower temperatures. Very tidy and orderly. For sure a bit of a tourist trap, but sometimes it is OK to just walk around in the trap, enjoy the athmosphere and see lots of people. 

The beach itself has nice white powdery sand and a lot of space. The Polish coast would be overwhelmed by foreign tourists if it was not for one factor. The water is fairly cold. The Baltic sea is known for it. We had fine warm weather on our trip, but very seldom we saw anyone swimming. People would mostly wade. Then again last part of june may be a bit early for summer waters to be heated. Anyway, the southern coast near Swinoujscie seem to be warmest from temperature charts.

After Swinoujscie it was time for new unfamiliar harbours with strange names. After a day of low wind, we finally arrived outside Dzwiwnow. The harbours in this coast have breakwaters leading into sheltered waters. The breakwater inlets are known to have dangerous cross currents when there is stormy weather. 

Researching Dzwiwnow we had found four potential places to stay. The first one to starboard, Marina Polmax, looked like not much more than some old wooden jettys, and it was on the opposite side of town. We turned into the the first one to port. It was mostly a fishing boat harbour. Possibly we could have stayed, but it did not appear cosy. So we continued to a brand new marina called the Port Jachtowy. It was closed, there was a European dinghy sailing championship, and there must have been a hundred sailing dinghies in there. Only one possibility left. By chance we were right in time for the bridge opening  needed to continue inbound to Dzwiwnow Stadthafen. The berths there fitted catamarans perfectly. Did not appear rock solid, but the weather was calm. 

 Dzwiwnow Stadthafen. Not packed at the time we arrived. The harbour fees we paid in Poland were at about half or lower of the price level common in Scandinavia.

Dzwiwnow had quite a lot of tourists, mostly Polish it seemed. Only a few hundred meters to the northwest of town  a vast stretch of nice beach could be found. 

Main street Dzwiwnow was nice and tidy with lots of souvenir shops.

The ubiquitous polish tourist boats. We saw them in all harbours. There must be a lot of Polish landlubbers on vacation at the coast. The boats unly motored a mile or two outside the breakwaters, but they managed to attract the tourists. 

Biedronka became a favourite grocery store in Poland, all kinds of good food........

...like delicious strawberry cakes.

It is best to sail this polish coast in summer when the weather is mostly calm, as there are no archipelagos or islands to shelter behind. We were in luck. A warm southeasterly set in. It made it a bit unpleasant in the harbour in the morning, but once out it in open sea it was silk sailing towards northeast. 

Arriving outside the Mrzezyno breakwater, we anchored and enjoyed the warm weather. Afterwards we went up river, and were guided to a berth by the harbour master. 

 Good shelterd harbour, and lots of room for us.

Attractive waterfront in Mrzezyno.

Wind for the next destination Kolobrzeg was low, but it is only 10NM away, so no problem. With a temperature in the high twenties and calm sea  we decided to just anchor south of the breakwater. We do not see many sailors doing such anchoring for the night. Hardly at all. We find that in the right weather conditions, especially when it is really hot and nice for bathing and relaxing, it is perfect. In such conditions the marinas are just too hot.

It was not so easy to spot on Google Earth a good place for tying up the dinghy in town, so we found a place inside the breakwater. Where we should not have been according to signs, but there was no trouble. 

As a cruising sailor, one must find opportunities, also when a bit non-standard.

We stayed two nights outside the breakwater. Consequently we do not know much about the town marina. But it looks fine from pictures and information. The next day, still in fabulous weather, we took the dinghy to the beach north of the breakwater. There is a nice area, again resembling a Spanish beach strip. 

Kolobrzeg beach.

Silk sailing continued to Darlowo, Again we stopped outside to enjoy the weather. But not for the night. A weather change was forecast. 

The calm anchorage turned to this overnight.

The Marina Darlowo is situated 2,5km from the town center. But it is a fine harbour with facilities in the harbour office, close by the marina. And there is a busy restaurant and tourist street in the vicinity, by the inlet bridge. There is also the Marina Rybacka on the other side of the river, slightly closer to town. But we found it a bit in the middle of nowhere.

We wanted to see Gdansk, and it would have been attractive to go by our own boat. But our plan was to go to the Danish island of Bornholm after Poland. The prevailing winds are westerly, so it would be much better to leave from Darlowo. The solution was to go by train to Gdansk. And after spending some time sorting out apps and webpages for routes and tickets, so we did. Spent a couple of hotel nights there.

Brisk westerlies prevailed when it was time to leave Darlowo, there was only one weather window with a more southwesterly component in a whole week. So we felt we had to take it. Even with a close reach it was not pleasant, the sea was very choppy. It took around 8 hours to reach Nexø, Bornholm.

Because we did not know what to expect, this Baltic route turned out to be better than anticipated. Good weather contributed a lot of course, but then again I believe warm weather is more common by these coasts. Harbours and anchorages were fine, there were no problems finding good food. Prices in Poland are not as comparatively low as they used to be known for, however still cheaper than we find in Denmark and Germany. We are glad we tried it.