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Santa Maria - St. Petersburg, RUSSIA



Woke up to get on with my shift, change of scenery, color of water changed to yellow-brown- ish. We are situated in the eastern section of the Baltic sea, heading for Kronstadt, Custom Check in. The clearance procedure went more smoothly than expected. Being the last boat of  the fleet to pass through has its advantages. Ahead of us we have one good hour of channeling, foreigners are asked to keep themselves within the official traffic route. This can only be done motoring, whoch is what we did  most of the time in Russian waters, maybe that's the reason why the fuel was so cheap?

Having squeezed Santa Maria in to her berth, it was time to get some information, which Andy from Hanse Sailor happily gave us,  his recommended showers on the 3rd floor I never used though. The peninsula is not only home to the River Yacht Club,  I also counted a dozen wedding-clubs - the clubs were popping up all-around, a klondike for most of the hopeful money makers. I predict that max a third will survive the summer. A Playground for daddys sons and daughters, for enough Roubels everything is allowed, even a heliport was used rather frequently, presumably closest port for busy businessmen.    Every evening we witnessed the parade of the newest, most potent western cars, squeezing through the narrow, sandy and bumpy cart way,  to disappear into one of the different clubs. The parties were lively with the clubs competing to have the loudest music and this until 3 to 4 am, thus the harbour was not the ideal place to recipe for the next days tourist attractions.

Once in St Petersburg, we were part of the tourist scenery, cruise ships with new tourists flooded the sites every day, and we can consider ourselves being rather lucky, having Vladimir and his crew organizing   guided tours, that way we got special treatment all around. At the Hermitage, we were let into the theater, got a short introduction, before being split up in 6 groups of 20 person. In the next couple of hours were got to visit all the buildings, with a short introduction to the importance of the room, building or personality behind it.

Some of us used the last day to bunker for the coming anchoring's in Finland, in the early afternoon we witnessed a Russian bikini  photo shoot, on top in front of a muscle car.  They started shooting on port, an step by step they came closer to our boats, until they ended up on board one of our boats. Rainer even managed to join the girls on some of the pictures. One of those should top the photo competition, category "in harbor"

On the last night we had our own wedding ceremony, not that we did wed somebody, but we occupied one of the locations, one of the quieter ones. So we had to organize the noise ourselves, some of the lonely skippers stood for that, to the great  amusement of the rest. Good fun for everybody, but as for every sailor, the sea was calling, we were ready for a change in the scenery.

Next morning we tucked a way to kronstadt again, this time to leave Russia. As we berthed, a last crew was cleared out, and to our astonishment the custom closed for lunch, I think this surprised Vladimir as well. We had no idea of when they would open again. After two hours the woman with the stamp was back, and the procedure could continue. Then we had to get out of the eastern appendix of the Baltic sea, which we luckily could sail having the wind from behind.

Regards
Erik


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