16th July, Up the Baltic.

A much quieter day yesterday almost no traffic. Light winds from the North East saw us  slowly closing the shore. One boat we did see was a Folkboat heading South, running free   on port tack, as luck would have it we were on a collision course, I was also on port so with her to windward she should have given way but didn’t appear to be doing so and eventually I altered up into the wind to let her continue across our bow. He seemed surprised but asked where we were going and wished us bon voyage upon hearing. It was a lovely sunny day and the batteries  were receiving lots of currency from the solar panels which, as we’d run the engine for quite a bit overnight, they didn’t really need all that much.

I was mostly close enough to the coast to have a phone signal so had the pleasure of seeing the forecast of Northerly winds for the next few days. Obviously we’re heading North, on the bright side they aren’t as strong as they had been advertised  in the past so although it’s a beat, hopefully it  won’t be that unpleasant.

The water here is full of light brown scum, I’m not sure what it is, at first I thought it might be an algae bloom but it looks just like scum. Hopefully it won’t interfere with the cooler it’s been ongoing for 24 hours now so, quite extensive.

The other thing that there are a lot of are insects; millions of tiny flying ants with  lots of hoverflies and big, dopy, black flies.

By 1600 the wind died and we motored for the rest of the day / night. I had left over broccoli, potato and chicken and mushroom unpie for dinner with was possibly even better on the second night.

Before the sun comes out it’s surprisingly cold, I’m still in tee shirt, fleece and jacket with jeans  until it warms up in the late afternoon.

Sorry, boring day, not much to report.