Thursday 7 June
Skipper joined Mate on deck at 0300, to take his watch. It was already daylight and as the wind was building, Mate helped him set the first reef in the mainsail before retiring. At 0500 the motion was unpleasant, with a quartering sea creating a corkscrew effect through my hull with every wave, so Mate got up again to take the helm while Skipper took in the second reef. We passed another uncharted yellow buoy, flanked by marker buoys – top secret or temporary? Certainly a hazard waiting to trip up the unwary, especially on a tiring night passage.
By 0700 the wind had veered to the West and was still F5, maintaining the uncomfortable swell on the port beam, so Mate gave up trying to sleep below and returned to the cockpit, where she napped between bouts of seasickness for a couple of hours.
At 1415 it was decided that we were far enough North to have cleared most of the prohibited sea area dictated by Kaliningrad, as commercial vessels were clearly crossing it well South of us, as could be seen on the AIS display on the chart plotter, so we turned East five miles short of the Northern extremity line, shook out the reefs in the mainsail and ran downwind, with the waves more squarely behind us, and the motion much more comfortable. Of course, the wind now began to ease as well.
Mate got some quality rest between 1700-1900, and then enjoyed last night’s leftovers of a small portion of prawn linguine, before taking the 2000-2300 watch so Skipper could enjoy the night sky tonight. The wind dropped to a variable F1-2 before filling from the SSE F3-4, allowing me to sail faster than I needed, as we didn’t want to arrive before full daylight for safer entry into an unfamiliar port. Mate decided to enjoy the sailing, and worry later about our arrival, depending on conditions prevailing by that time. At 2130 she changed course by 20˚ to clear the path of a large passenger ferry that was heading out from our destination. Another spectacular sunset.