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Published: June 23rd 2014
One of the Lighthouses We Passed
reminded us of the east coast of the USWe left the marina in Warnemünde, Germany at 7:50AM on June 6
th with clear blue skies and 8-10 knots of wind so started off with a pleasant sail. It warmed up enough that we even wore shorts wile sailing – what a refreshing change from what it has been. We were headed to the city of Stralsund in Germany in order to break up our trip along the southern coast of the Baltic. It is located on the mainland of Germany near the island of
Rügen. In order to get to this city you must follow a very long and shallow channel of water, reminded us of our time in the Chesapeake. Fortunately it is very well marked, however there were times when we passed bits of water that were marked with 0 depth on our charts and water birds could be seen walking around! When we finally were in sight of the town of Stralsund we could see a ferris wheel among the medieval brick buildings indicating a festival was in progress. This is usually one of our favorite times to visit towns because there’s so much going on and usually this includes traditional dancing, music and crafts. We were
White Sand Beaches
unfortunately also kill the trees near by able to find a spot in the marina and by 6:15PM we were tied up, signed in with the harbormaster and then went out to see what was happening.
The festival was in full swing and we found out it was going to run for 3 days. Like any good festival there was plenty of food and music. This one had more of a fair atmosphere due to the addition of the rides such as ferris wheels and bumper cars. It was dinner time so we figured this would be a great place to get some local food. There was a stage where dancing was going on so took a wander down to see. To our surprise they were doing line dancing dressed in black jeans, Western shirts and black cowboy hats. Most of the dancing was done to American country music and at other times to songs such as Danny Boy with an up-tempo beat – I’m guessing nobody bothered to translate the lyrics. So much for traditional music and dance at local festivals! After having our obligatory German beer we then decided to wander off into the town itself to see some of the sights.
At the harbor they had a couple of military ships there for people to wander on and a few tall ships started arriving. We found out that they were expecting quite a few in over the next few days for the festivities. One of the ships located there was the German Reichsmarine Navy Sail Training Ship, the Gorch Fock I which is now open as a floating museum. It wasn’t open this evening so we just wandered by on our way into the town.
Stralsund was another of the Hanseatic League cities and as a result has numerous brick gothic buildings in the historic area of the city. At the Old Market Square stood the Gothic Town Hall built in the 13
th century. Behind that was the St. Nicholas Church built between 1270-1360 and still serves the community. St. Mary’s Church built between 1383-1473 is the largest church in Stralsund and has a tower 104 meters tall. We enjoyed walking around the town meandering through the various alleys and hopefully can give you a taste of what it looked like through the photos.
Even though it was a pleasant and easy
sailing day we find being out on the water tiring so headed back to the boat to get a good night’s sleep as the plan is to leave in the morning for a longer journey to Leba, Poland. Just as we laid down we started to hear the familiar “bang” of fireworks and then we quickly saw the flashes of light overhead. We poked our heads out and were treated to a great fireworks display that seemed to be almost overhead! Quite the ending of a very pleasant day.
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