Trouble at Sea? Sailing Past Russia | Sailing Florence in the Baltic Ep.239

We are leaving Poland and we're heading to Lithuania but we have to pass Kaliningrad or a Russian enclave so we are sailing past Russia and a large Russian military base. It was all well and good and I was feeling good until that warship changed course to be on a intercept course for us but I don't really want to visit from a Russian warship thank you very much. We're sailing Florence from the UK on a 3,000 mile anti-clockwise loop of the Baltic. This section, sailing from Poland to Lithuania, means sailing close to Russian waters and this is the part of the trip that we've been most worried about. So we are leaving Poland and we're heading to Lithuania and the weather forecast is fabulous. It probably couldn't be any better. We're on a fairly straightforward reach with the wind blowing off the land so it should be fairly flat water and good fast sailing. The location however leaves a little bit to be desired. We first have to sail past Hel, which isn't as bad as it sounds, that is just the Hel peninsula of Poland, but then we have to pass Kaliningrad or a Russian enclave so we are basically sailing past Russia and a large Russian military base. As we are going to be passing close to Russian waters we're being super careful with the current situation so we are going to stay at least 12 miles offshore to stay outside of their official territorial waters but their exclusive economic zone extends out from the borders out to sea until it meets a line in the middle of the Baltic where the other side is Sweden. We don't really want to go out all the way around that because that would add many many many miles to our trip. So we're going to stay outside of the territorial waters but when I looked on the chart there's also some military practice areas so it extended us a set of waypoints outside of those as well so we're being super cautious and then the other problem we have coming across here is GPS spoofing which we witnessed on our last passage coming into Poland where a lot of the ships suddenly weren't appearing on AIS and then when we zoomed out we found them all clustered in another position on the chart so I think that's because their GPS position was being spoofed. So we've taken precautions for this passage in case we lose our GPS position we'll have to do a little bit of old school nav. We've actually written down our bearings and distances to go. Luckily it's pretty straightforward because we're going to be reaching so if we lose our GPS position we can just sail on a bearing for a set number of miles which is recorded on the log and then change course to the next bearing sail set number of miles and then when we approach the shore we should be able to use the radar to align some features on the shore with the chart to know exactly where we are and know whether we need to turn left or right to get to our port in Lithuania. It's also really helpful that the wind is forecast to blow from the same direction for the entire passage so we know that if we turn downwind and we sail downwind then we are effectively sailing away from Russian waters. It's 120 miles from here in Poland to the port that we're heading to in Lithuania so we are going to be sailing overnight and we're going to be making a lot more use of the radar on this passage because although the visibility is effectively good we are going to be sailing through the night and we're not expecting all of the ships to be on AIS. And that port that you mentioned that we're going to in Lithuania Amy, what port was that? Oh yeah I can't, I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce the name of the port. We'll put the name of the port here because neither of us are brave enough to try and pronounce it. Well it's glorious conditions but it's just picking up a little bit as forecast so I think we'll stick a reef in the main sail and we won't be leaning over quite so much and it'll be a little bit more comfortable and that does make me sound like a complete cruiser rather than a racer. I never would have done this in the old days when it just pushed on harder and faster. Now we have single line reefing which means all that reefing, put the first reef in the main sail there just with one line so that pulls down both the clew and the tack of the sail and then the slack of it there's a purchase system in the boom that links the two together. Now a lot of people say there's too much friction in those systems. This is the system we've had on Florence since we bought her and it's always worked very well for us. I do have to just tidy up where the reef line goes on the end of the boom there just so we don't get the line running over the sail and chafing but most of the time you can just reef like that really quickly without leaving the safety of the cockpit so we really do like the single line reefing. It works really well for us on Florence. Only reef one and two are single line, reef three because there's much longer lines going further up the sail that can't be taken up in the boom so that we've got two lines for that one for the clew and one for the tack so we can still do everything from here safely in the cockpit and it's really quick especially when you're going almost upwind and you don't have to round up from downwind in order to do it. The other thing to note if you're new into sailing is that putting a reef in doesn't often slow you down that much so that only really drops 0.2 of a knot, 0.3 of a knot in boat speed. We're now a bit more upright, things are a little bit more comfortable on board and then if the breeze does pick up we haven't got a problem because we've not got as much sail area up so it's a safer prudent far more cruisy thing to do but doesn't cost you that much It's a beautiful day out here, the sun's shining, we've got very small waves and really lovely gentle winds but I can't say I feel fully relaxed. Earlier when Matt was on watch he had a ship that was not showing on AIS and was showing on the radar. It was a very long way away but he took a photo and zoomed in and it was most definitely a warship because he can't tell the nationality of it from a photo. This afternoon on my watch I've been following a couple of ships which are not again on AIS but are consistently showing on the radar and they seem to be sort of following the edge of the territorial waters of Russia because we're now off the coast of Russia rather than in Polish waters. They're not showing on AIS and they've just got close that I've been able to take a photo of them and spot them on the horizon and they both look also like warships but different warships to the one that Matt saw so I'm just keeping an eye on them and seeing if they get any closer. They're currently now 5.8 miles away is the closest one. We're currently about 10 miles off the edge of the territorial waters so that's about 22 miles off the coast of Russia but once we get past this headland that will increase but for the moment this is kind of the closest point that we're going to be really. Interestingly neither of us have noticed any AIS spoofing which is what we experienced when we were coming into Poland and just passing the Help Peninsula. Ships were showing to be in a different position on AIS than they were in reality. That doesn't appear to be happening today because a lot of the radar ships that we're seeing are matching up with where there should be a ship on AIS and I haven't seen any ships that I would expect to see on AIS that haven't been other than the warships. So even though it's really beautiful out here and absolutely idyllic sailing conditions I'll be very glad when we have reached port. Luckily that ship that was closest to us that I'm pretty sure was shadowing us but I was tracking on the radar has now turned around and its distance is becoming greater all of the time so that's hopefully no longer a concern. We've still got a lot of miles to sail past the Russian coast though so we've still got to stay vigilant but we're actually now at the point the visibility is so good that I can see the coastline of Russia on this headland that sticks out. It's very flat land and I can't see much detail but I didn't think that we'd be able to see it by eye. Matt's on galley duty this evening. People often ask if he ever cooks and he certainly does. He makes a very good spaghetti bolognese and he often makes a couple of days worth at a time so that's what we had for dinner last night and that's what is for dinner this evening so hopefully just a very easy reheat and make some pasta to go with it but yeah looking forward to that it smells delicious. Your spaghetti bolognese. Thank you very much. I know we're at sea but it's calm but we're still at sea so bowls it is. No chance of that staying on a plate still. Well it continues to be a beautiful beautiful sail out here but the breeze is now dropping off and has gone round to more of a reach so we're generating less apparent wind as was forecast. Pretty accurate to the forecast but time to speed up a bit because we're down to just under five knots so it's gonna shake that reef that we put in earlier back out again. I can really see the coastline of Russia over on our starboard side now. Looks quite sandy to me from here. Don't want to get any closer particularly. Looking forward to what it's going to be like in Lithuania when we get there. It should be sometime in the morning. Well that's the first break we've had on Florence in quite a long time. I just headed up from our waypoint so we're clear of Russian waters we can head up and head towards Lithuania now but as I did so I sheeted in the main sheet and then it wouldn't come in any further it seemed like it was jammed so I just came up forward to have a look and I found a broken bit of the cheek of a block on the deck from the where the main sheets led through the base of the mast so I'm not sure when that's happened it can't have happened that long ago because I scrubbed the decks recently and I would have noticed that on the deck but unfortunately it's not just broken the side of the cheek of the block it's also cut into the main sheet a bit as well so I'm gonna have to replace not just the block but also the main sheet as well. Not a problem because we do have spares on board but yeah I think in order to keep us going upwind at the same time I'll pull the vang on tight to hold the back edge of the mainsail down and put another block and tackle out to the tow rail hold the boom across and then I should be able to let all this off and work on it whilst we're still sailing. Now I can let off the main sheet. To be honest this main sheet's pretty old it could do with replacing anyway it's what was on Florence when we bought her over 10 years ago and it sits out on deck in all of the UV so it's actually looking quite weakened anyway so it's not the end of the world to have to replace it. Yeah so I don't know if you can see it's not just taken the outer off the rope it's actually cut into the inner as well it's actually gone through about half of the rope so that definitely needs replacing and it's too far down it I can't just end for end it. We've got something similar in the in the locker a tiny bit thinner won't be quite as comfy on the hands when we're using it but it'll do for a while until we can get something better. This one's been nicely whipped on in the past but for now it's going to tie a bowline. Bowline's not as strong as a splice but it'll do for today and we can sort it out when we get there. Cool right now I can let off the rope put on there and this will go back to being on the main sheet and that's all fixed. It's not a bad night to be out boat bimbling on the deck is it? Our gorgeous sailing conditions. I mean we're close hauled again now so hopefully the breeze will shift back and make it a bit more reachable. We are going directly towards where we want to go in Lithuania the place that neither of us can pronounce. Yeah so I'll just tidy all that up and it'll be as like nothing happened when Amy gets up for her watch. It's interesting that that ship that Amy saw earlier that turned around and went back, the warship, it looks like it's just patrolling up and down along the outer edge of the 12 mile territorial limit because I can see it again on the horizon because it's fat calm you can see things about five or six miles behind us. So that's him there and just hit watch and it gives us distance 4.89, bearing 176, its course and speed of 9.7 knots. It's quite useful. The weather was all well and good and I was feeling good until that warship changed course to be on a intercept course with us. Hopefully he'll turn around in a minute. He is five miles away but I don't really want to visit from a Russian warship thank you very much. That's that warship that Matt's been tracking. Thankfully after approaching to just 1.5 miles from us the warship turned around and left us to continue sailing towards Lithuania. It's just approaching midnight and I'm coming to the end of my night watch. It's been a fairly straightforward watch thankfully. I've just had to put a reef into the main sail because the wind's got up a little bit and I have had some radar returns that haven't been showing on AIS but I believe that they're just being anchored ships which are close to the edge of the Russian economic zone. So we're actually now coming to the end of that and we'll soon be into the Lithuanian economic zone which I'll be very happy to reach. We've had fantastic sailing conditions, really easy reach and Florence is easily doing high sixes and sevens so we should be there fairly early in the morning. It'll be light by the time we get there but it should be a fairly early arrival. Matt will be getting up in a minute to hopefully relieve me from my watch so I can get some sleep. I didn't manage to get any on my earlier off watch but hopefully the conditions have been calm enough and it's been dark enough and late enough that he's been able to get a good rest. Sailing into port in Lithuania at dawn was a relief. Despite having had near perfect sailing conditions all the way it was difficult to fully relax and enjoy the sail. We knew it was incredibly unlikely that anything bad would happen to us crossing here otherwise we wouldn't have done it but there was just a small niggle of doubt at the back of our minds. Lithuania is the fourth country we have visited on our quest to reach 10 countries this season. This city of Klaipeda is Lithuania's third largest city and its main seaport but it's also famous for being the gateway to the Curonian Spit, a UNESCO world heritage site famous for its spectacular beaches and dunes. The marina here is inside the moat of an old fort and so in order to get us into the marina they had to open the bridge and that's done by hand which is really cool and then the marina is really friendly and the guy who works here had lived in England for a couple of years so he speaks really good English and they have a nice tradition where they hoist the national flag of the country of visiting boats. There was a German boat when we first arrived but now we are the only visiting boat. One of the most recommended things to do here isn't in the city itself it's just the other side of the river so we've taken the ferry over and obviously brought our folding bikes and we're going to explore this bit of land that there is that basically separates the Baltic Sea from the huge lagoon. There's loads of cycle paths through the pine forest and to the sections of beach here and the spit is formed up of dunes so I think a lot of the trees were apparently planted to protect the dunes because they were moving so much. We just learned that C in Lithuanian is Dura. Sounds a lot like whiskey to me. I wonder if that has any link to the Scottish island of Dura. I'd love it if anybody knows. There are lots of different routes over the dunes and to various sections of beach but I did read that you've got to be a bit careful as to which section of beach that you choose because there are male beaches, female beaches, family beaches, some are nudist and some aren't. I don't quite know. I'm guessing this is a male beach. I can't quite understand if it's nudist or not but it's obviously not one that we can go to together. So we've come across another sign which is obviously both male and female but we have a very differing opinion as to whether these people are clothed or not clothed. I believe they're clothed, Matt thinks they're naked. See, last we had a different thing across the boy's crotch so it looked like clothes. I think there's only one way to find out. Okay, place your bets now. Naked or not naked? I reckon we'd have to get our kit off when we get to the top of here. I don't think there's going to be anybody there. Oh, we won't know! I think it would be a bit rude to get the binoculars out and be searching down the beach to try and work out whether you're supposed to be clothed or not. There's no child. There's no child? So maybe the family beach has got children. You're doubting your view now. No, she's got bikini bottoms on. No, there are clothed people. There are clothed people. Okay, I win. Definitely need to keep the camera pointing this way because, yeah, the one that we did pass is definitely male only and it's definitely nude. It's a really beautiful beach and it stretches on for miles. I think it's actually nearly 100 kilometres long and it goes all the way past the Russian border. So if we were to cycle on this cycle route for another 50 kilometres, we'd reach the border of Russia. So this whole spit of land is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and I believe that further south the dunes get much higher and they're the fastest moving dunes in Europe. See, I think that means family clothed because I don't think there would be one for family nude. It's clearly a lady wearing a bikini and a child and a man in trunks. So I think I was right and Amy was wrong. Maybe. Are you going to check? I can go and check. Okay. I win. There were clothed people on the other one. It doesn't mean anything. It does. I think it meant that it's optional. I think it's all optional but it's quite clear. It's not clear. That's the whole point. It's really not clear. Finally we have a sign that decides to debate. I don't think I need to translate this one. Nudisty. Back in the city, we were on the hunt for somewhere to try some of Lithuania's national cuisine. So since we're here in Lithuania, we thought we'd try a few of the local things and this is local soft drink which is made from leftover rye bread which is then fermented. It's not alcoholic but apparently this is the soft drink to try here. That's actually not too bad but it's very different to anything else. I wouldn't really know what to compare it to. It's nice. It's flavourful. It's like a bit of the wheat flavour that you get when you have beer. It's obviously flat and mixed with, I would say, a bit like a fruit juice. It's... I think not. I'm not sure what the bits are floating in it. Do you eat them? I don't know. You've just got to gulp and hope you get one. I got one. It's definitely not bread. What is it? Oh, it's like a fruit. It's like a little fruit of some kind. It's like a, I don't know, a raisin or a... It doesn't really have much taste to it but the drink's nice. And then we've chosen two of the most what seem to be traditionally Lithuanian dishes on the menu. So we've got a cold beetroot soup which I believe is mixed with, is it kefir or kafer? I never know how to say that. Fresh herbs and I think also cucumber in there as well, maybe radish. And then it's served with hot roast potatoes. I think there are several versions of this soup around the Baltic in Poland and also in neighbouring Latvia but this is the most famous one apparently. That's delicious. Really fresh tasting. I bet it's lovely on a hot summer's day. And these are traditional potato dumplings filled with minced meat with some sour cream and crackling sauce. So that's the dumpling filled with meat. So this is apparently the national dish of Lithuania. It's really good with sauce. I'm not quite so sure how they've made the potato dumplings quite so glutinous. It wasn't exactly rave reviews so we've just got one of each and we're swapping. And it was not exactly rave reviews coming from the other side of the table. The filling's okay but the glutinous potato I'm not so sure about. You cannot dish the national dish. I imagine it's a like depth of winter cold night comfort food. Well the beetroot soup I would definitely order again. The bread drink I would order that again as well. The traditional dumplings however... Next time we head further north visiting two more countries as we continue our challenge to visit 10 new countries this season. For extra updates in between these bi-weekly videos and to find out what we're up to in real time head over to Patreon and join the crew. Continuing our voyage on Florence would not be possible without the support of our patrons. Thank you to all of you and especially to our star patrons.