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| Wisła Smiała - Wiki photo by Pumeks |
10.6º C overnight. Cold, grey
clouds with a blustery westerly wind. Bill had run out of bread, so I gave him
a half a loaf of rye as we’d still got some white bread and toasting sliced
bread. Set off at 8.35 a.m. heading into Gdansk to see the shipyards and the
Napoleonic fortress at Westerplatte. Set the video camera up on the tripod on
the front deck and started filming as we went under a new suspension bridge.
Beyond it was a railway bridge with a swinging centre section (which was high
enough for us to get underneath) and some very battered wooden fendering around
the piles on which it stood. Not long after that the shipyards began appearing
on each bank. A small fast police boat (a semi rigid inflatable) came to have a
look at us, he went past us, turned round and went back where he’d come
from.
Loads of ships were under construction or awaiting repair. A great orange
painted ship had Kingstown as its home port and a helicopter landing pad above
its front deck. All the floating docks were occupied by ships. A very large
crane on a barge set off from the bank on our right and went past carrying a
large rectangular construction on the end of the crane hooks. A large ferry
boat went across carrying cars from one side of the river to the other. A trip
boat overtook us then another one came towards us, the latter was a
paddlewheeler with paddlewheels on each side. At Westerplatte we went past the
fortress, called Twierdza
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| Ferry across the river at Wisloujscie - Wikimedia photo by M Minderhoud |
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| Fortress Twierdza Wisloujscie Wikimedia photo by Andrezej |
Wisłoujście, which looked very much like the
fortifications Vauban built in France. We winded, as to go any further would
have taken us out into the Baltic. The ferry was setting off again with another
load of cars. A pilot boat, heading out to sea, had to stop and let it pass.
Mike called me to steer while he went in the cabin. When he came back he said
what’s our tripod doing in the water? The video camera and tripod had gone
swimming (trying to commit suicide and join the other two dead cameras) and was
being dragged along by its twelve volt cable. I pulled it back on board and
water poured out of it. Well, that’s the end of another camera! Mike said I’d
left the legs of the tripod at unequal lengths which made it unstable and the
wind had blown it overboard. I thought I’d left it secure with one leg between
the
moped and the day tank. Mike dried it out, took its covers off and hung it
up in the engine room to dry out, but didn’t hold any hopes that it would
survive as I had left it turned on, on standby. We decided that a circular trip
around the city was out of the question as there was yet another pontoon bridge
blocking the through passage. Next time maybe. I made a cup of soup to warm us
up. We motored back through the shipyards. The sun came out briefly, but black
clouds were gathering over Gdansk. We’d planned to arrive at the pontoon bridge
at Sobieszewko at its opening time of 1 pm. The paddle wheeler was catching us
up, we thought he was going
to go through the bridge too, but he turned and
moored at a quay before the bridge. The wind picked up as another squall hit,
just like the day before. The waves coming from behind us were getting quite
choppy and at one o’clock there was no sign of anyone coming to open the
bridge. Mike sounded the hooter. Nothing. I tried the phone number on the sheet
of paper given to us by the Polish yachties. It said invalid number – there
must be a Gdansk area code to go in front of the numbers. At ten past the
bridge workers appeared and opened the bridge. Mike was not happy about being
kept waiting while the boats were being bounced about by the waves and asked
the guy if he needed a new watch as we went past. From the blank stare, he
either didn’t understand or couldn’t hear with such a strong wind blowing. The
black clouds rolled on by and the sun came out, but it was still windy as we ran
down to the lock at Przegalina. The landing stage Bill had previously spotted
in the old channel of the river had no access to the bank. The pilings by the
lock had no bank access either and the dolphins looked a bit too far apart for
our length. We went into the lock and asked the keeper if there was anywhere to
moor overnight. He said it was OK on the other side of the lock. Bill thought
when Mike said “tie up on the other side of the lock” he meant in the lock and moored on the other
wall. Mike paid for the lock - Bill would pay
for the next one. The wind was
howling through the lock chamber, as it was blowing directly from behind us and
covering the boat roof in sand off the lockside. It was a bit more sheltered
beyond the lock and flood barriers. Three ancient accommodation barges were
moored next to the dolphins on the right bank, so we went to ask if we could
tie to one of them overnight. The end one looked inhabited and a bald sunburned
bloke came out with something smoking as we went past. I asked could we tie up
overnight, he shrugged, so Mike turned the boat around and moored next to Marta
of
Warszawa (Warsaw), who had seen better days, all three were very old boats.
Bill moored Rosy behind us. It was 2.50 pm and the sun was out again for a few
minutes before the next shower of heavy rain. The “something smoking” was some
wood in a drum the guy living on Marta had just fired up to make charcoal for a
barbecue. We went in and got on with some chores. The video camera wouldn’t
power up to eject the tape. Mike applied power to it with batteries to get the
tape out. Most likely the processor was fried. Hope we can save the tape
.
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| Fortress from the river bank Wikimedia photo by M Minderhoud |
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| Gdansk dockyard cranes Wikimedia photo by esbi |
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| The pontoon bridge at Sobieszewko Wikimedia photo by Merlin |
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| Old lock at Przegalina Wikimedia photo by Nandi |
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| "New" lock at Przegalina Wikimedia photo by Pumeks |
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