During this winter we’ve had a possibility to follow up at close range the building of Nauticat Suwena. Now it is time to move on and enjoy cruising her. The hand over will be on 20th of May and shortly afterwards we will start the summer 2011 cruising. Setting us up aboard Suwena it feels this time like we are really moving our home. All our stuff need to be packed and transported to Turku, 600 km away.
On the last visit to boat yard she was in a test pool and we got a nice feeling how she swayed beautifully in the wind. Now we are even more impatiently waiting for a summer. The stories about building Suwena can be found under the Nauticat 441 tag.
Nauticat provides yacht familiarization training for all clients. The briefing lasts for a few days. After that our summer voyage can start. For this summer we have planned a route where we can experience new places and sail in a different conditions from archipelago to open sea. Our target for next summer is to go around the northern Baltic Sea. The plan is to lengthen the open sea legs gradually and at the same time learn the handling of the new boat.
Turku will be the starting point and from there we will cross the Kihti to Åland archipelago. From Mariehamn we will go towards the Sweden. Our target is to explore the Stockholm archipelago. The visit to Sweden will culminate with midsummer party in Visby in Gotland island. We’ll also see what kind of Hoburg’s visit ceremony we will have when passing the southern tip of the Gotland. After all the Old Hoburg has the command of the Baltic Sea under the watchful eye of the King Neptune and he does not look at landlubbers passing his territory with the good eye.
The bigger challenge than the visit of Hoburg is the crossing of the Baltic Sea from Gotland to Lithuania. We can pass Gotland either from the north or south or we can wait suitable crossing time on the east coast of the Gotland. Despite of how we do it we will have the passage of over 24 hours. During this winter we have been preparing ourselves on how to manage our first overnighter at sea. With the sailboat crossing the sea is not always straight line because we need to consider also the wind and the sea currents.
In Lithuania we will first go to their only harbor city Klaipeda. From there we will continue to Curonian lagoon. Curonian lagoon is on the west coast of Lithuania, separated from Baltic Sea by 98 kilometers long Curonian spit. Curonian spit is more like an sand dune and Curonian lagoon is the biggest lagoon in Baltic Sea. This sounds like an adventure that we must experience.
From Lithuania we’ll continue to Latvia where we will stop at least in Liepaja, Ventspils and Riga. The stop in Riga will be a little longer as we think the biggest metropolis in Baltic states will offer a plenty of things to see and experience.
Then it will be already time to move to familiar waters from our 2009 voyage. Saaremaa island was one of our favorites and we plan to visit there again. Afterwards it is time to seek out some new places in Estonia. E.g. last time we had no time for Hiiumaa island. The visit to Estonia will finish in Tallinn.
After Tallinn it is a short leg to Helsinki putting five Baltic Sea countries behind us. The plans for the rest of the season are still open. By that time we’ll be anyhow full of new experiences cruising with Suwena.