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X-Yachting 2013
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x-yachting 2013 119 x world and carefully secured to ensure protection for our new
home
. the commissioning was well and truly over and the holiday had begun! russian dawn from stockholm it was a
run
to hanko in finland and then onto haapsarri, on the finnish frontier border. the tiny island has a population of just three or four during winter and swells to all of 100 in summer. we were underway the following morning at 2am to
sail
the final 95miles to russia. one curious thing about
sail
ing in the baltic in summer is the lack of darkness at night – even at midnight we had a hint of dawn. it makes for glorious
sail
ing if the conditions are with you. the climax of our trip had to be our arrival in st petersburg. coming into fort kronstadt under vessel tracking control was somewhat intimidating initially, accompanied by many hydrofoils that reminded us all of “thunderbirds are go”, although the best decision we made was to employ the services of guide vladimir ivankiv. vladimir was on hand when we arrived at the customs dock and then met us again at the central yacht club. the yacht club is still developing, but if you can maintain a sense of humour it all works out in the end. he also organised a trip out to the summer palace, which was just mind blowing in its opulence, as well as taking us to a local supermarket for a
run
down on the necessities (milk, bread and vodka) so that for our remaining 10 days we didn’t end up buying buttermilk or sour cream, as has happened in the past... from st petersburg we did a
run
back to helsinki and onto tallinn in estonia – definitely somewhere we would like to revisit having sadly
run
out of time. we left katherine safely back at x-yachts in haderslev after
sail
ing some 2500nms over nearly three months. next we intend to
sail
the atlantic rally in november and enjoy several months of cruising in the caribbean before donning our warm clothing once more to return to the baltic and
sail
the east coast of sweden and up to oslo in norway. our plans are very fluid. our boat is our second
home
and we will slowly make our way
home
to australia – one day – but the journey for this x-65 has really only just begun. christening katherine in haderslev katherine at anchor in rodhamm
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