a little detour.. to Croatia

little village on the Krka River

Primosten

I told you we were about to set sail for a grand Baltic tour on Röde Orm. Well.... we made a little detour to Croatia first. Another sea anyway... Magnus took on a skipper assignment for a week to the condition I came along. I was all for it even if it meant spending 7 days with 4 Swedish guys, between 21 and 25, all in the military and making a big hole in my little budget ! When I realized that age wise I could be their mother, it was a shock… Despite the tight living quarters of a 33' Elan, everything went quite well. No one can be grumpy with temperature above 28 to 30 and a water temperature around 28 degree Celsius clear and inviting. It is a superb sailing ground of hundreds of islands in the Croatian Archipelago. Tourism has not quite destroyed the coast due to severe regulations of the Croatian government. Though, charter business is a big industry and the marinas numerous and expensive, there is enough places to anchor and feel isolated. I did not have time enough to ''feel'' the country as I like to do. I only could guess how primitive it must still be in the Dalmatian mountains. If the country itself is Mediterranean with its perfumes of ''garrigue'', ''maquis'', rich in herbs of all kind, the people do not have the Latin attitude, or Latin root language and somehow it was disturbing not be able to refer to something I knew. We can still feel the strong hold of the former eastern block and it is hard to imagine that Croatia was in a bloody fratricide war not that long ago. I usually spend a lot more time in any country I visited (even when I do not wish to…) and I would have love to go in the mountains, visiting small villages, tasting local food. But our 4 guys had other ideas about their vacations and besides some sailing, swimming they were more inclined to eye some pretty Croatian girls!

On standby...

It is springtime and everything is blooming, full of life, nature is at its best in the Swedish countryside.
While bees are getting very busy, I try to be useful, amusing myself creating little improvements for the boat, adding my little touch knowing that soon it will be our home. Well... I have to come to peace with the fact that I do not have a home anymore, but rather share someone's else home, so I should restrain my ''little touch''....


Leaving always represents the same challenge to one'self :
that of daring

... I always considered myself lucky to have untie the dock lines a long time ago at an age where materialism was not an issue. I had nothing, so that was quite easy. When I started to get a little more confortable in my 40 footer ketch, fate gave me a slap. I lost everything in a wreck including my only home. Like little ants, we built another boat, bigger. But having learned a lesson, we gathered less in this 50 foot sloop than in the ketch. So when my life wrecked another time (only my life, not the boat...) it was easy to live out of my backpack. A habit I kept and that helped me through some other rougher times. But I know how hard it is or must be to let go, to untie the lines. This time, ironically, I share the feeling with my companion, helping him go through this strange time of parting with ''real life''. Me who never experienced that ! It feels like I have to start all over again, adding new experiences to my life which has been already quite rich in all kind of excitments. Sometimes, I wonder what kind of help can I give, surely not advices.
Should I be the little spark which keeps the fire going ? But what keeps this spark going in the first place ? I have it in me I guess, the only thing I really treasure : my adventurous spirit. I know if I loose it, I loose myself. Someone said : Eliminate something superfluous from your life. Break a habit, do something that makes you insecure...Is that my life motto ? So here again, at the first steps of a new adventure, starting all over again. But may be not, it is a continuation. May be I have to experience everything to understand how lucky I have been, how lucky I am, how fullfilling my life is...

plan B.... like Baltic or is it plan C, D may be ?

Rödeorm waiting ....


Spring is pointing its nose timidly now.. Although more than I can bear it vanishes shyly as low grey clouds rush in every other day dampening my longing for the Great Escape on open water... So forgetting the chill outside and the depressing sky I imagine new territories to explore this summer. Yes the Great Escape to gentler latitudes and clear warm waters (the ones I come from...) seem to be postponed.
Even if the disapointment of giving up (for this year) sailing the long Atlantic Ocean swells has not vanished, I feel the excitment of discovering new lands so different from the ones I am used to. The Baltic sea offers some wonderful sailing grounds borded by several countries.
Scandinavian summers are short and often pertubated but there is a multitude of well protected and isolated anchorages along the shore of more than half dozen countries. The water is cold, mosquitoes are famished but the landscape is often spectacular and places remote enough to my liking.
Above the horizon the sun feeling bad for its poor warming quality during the day steches its stay into the night sending a clear message : take advantage of every hour of the summer before the next round of winter.
So as I always do, I travel first by imagination letting my mind then my body get used to the idea of some cool days, chilly nights and cold sea water spray, such little discomfort for the privilege of sailing to some uncrowded beautiful places !

Spring Equinox

Nature awaits.....
This little guy is ready to shed his winter coat....

Me.. well, I am also waiting for the day the long Ocean swell will carry me away...


It is all about welcoming spring. So Easter it is called from Eostre, goddess of fertility. For the Saxons, the Celts, the Scandinavian the hare was associated with the mother goddess, it was her symbol. Eggs, representing the rebirth of nature were offered for the return of the spring.

So my friends, let's welcome Spring !!

From the bear's den

Told you about a migration did not I ? From Sonora desert to South Sweeden...
As I watch a gale go by through the window, I realize how big a jump I made lately ! But it is all good, I hibernate as bears do, waiting for the spring. My mind is at rest, my spirit flies high. I learn to know another country closer to mine this time but as unknown to me as was Mexico a year ago. It is true I am isolated in a farmland, but it is for the best. And not too far there is a cute seaworthy red ketch (Laurin 32) waiting also to go back to sea.... (to be continued... at the first sign of spring...)

celtic paradise

Bro ar re yaouank (terre des jeunes, land of the youth.

It is a place where time does not count, it is a paradise without latitude or longitude that Celts find in themselves without sextant or compass.

some thoughts from Bernard Moitessier

I am quoting Bernard because I cannot express myself any better. This is exactly what I have felt and still feel today :
....I try never to look too far ahead. I heave to emotionally. When everything is going wrong, you stop thinking, you just act on instinct, you just do what has to be done every day. And little by little things become clear.....

...The mind had shed anything that could harm it since anything that is useless can cause harm. An animal instinct alone which dwells deep within each of us had come to the surface to flower to take full possession of the boat/man unity, to give it the only order that make sense : hang on, whatever happened. Hold on, without trying to understand. And above all live in the present, forgetting everything else.