Delivery trip, Szczecin, Poland to Haslar Marina, Portsmouth

On Wednesday 16th May Lucinda and I flew to Szczecin, Poland carrying the maximum luggage allowed by Ryanair.  We found the marina and Imagine looked wonderful, albeit without sails and with some work still to be done.  This included rebuilding the saloon table and reversing the navigation lights so that green was on starboard and red on port. The sails went on late on Thursday and we found that the reefing system would not work.  By the following morning the sail maker and rigger had made alterations and we had a viable system.  Mike Davis (MD) and Stuart Withington (PSW) turned up at lunchtime and Iain McLuckie (IM) arrived in the evening bringing paper and electronic charts. We had filled the tanks with fuel and water and made the decision to start early the following morning even though we hadn't had a test sail.

So early on Saturday 19th May our delivery journey began.  We motored many miles through fresh water canals and lakes until we reached the Baltic Sea.  As night fell we tied up in Lohme, Germany, the biggest boat by far in the marina. We left early the following day and made the long passage to Fehmarn Island where we tied up alongside the only pontoon in a small marina. We then had to try and measure the height of the mast and estimated that it was just less than 20 metres.  Early next morning we crept very slowly under the 22 metre bridge next to our mooring hoping the calculations were correct.  From there it was 39 nm to the entrance of the Kiel canal.

Many large ships pass through the canal and we were squeezed over to the starboard side. After 21 nm we were able to refuel and from a marina round the corner walk to a supermarket for provisions. We stayed the night 20 km from the end of the canal in what is best described as a layby with the boat strung between two lines of posts while the big ships thundered by on one side.

Although navigation was allowed from 3 am it was still pitch black at that time and we finally left just after 4 am. By 6 am we were in the lock into the North Sea.  This was Tuesday morning and we then continued without stopping to Portsmouth where we arrived on the Friday afternoon. We had very heavy wet fog from late Wednesday afternoon which lasted until late morning on Thursday. It was a nerve racking time glued to radar and AIS as we passed through busy shipping lanes. Otherwise the weather was pretty good. We lost quite a lot of our fresh water because of a leaky pressure release valve and some of the instruments were giving inaccurate readings. However we got safely to Portsmouth thanks to MD, PSW and IM, with Lucinda looking after us magnificently despite the lettuce freezing.