"Mazury-ichnie"

23.07.06

So we start in London as always with some transport crisis which threatens to make me late. Having just been to a wedding until the early hours, i woke up in the snooker room of my good friend Frosa's mansion in Chigwell and this is where this story truly begins...so i think to myself, surely 5 hours will be enought time to traipse across london to get to Luton airport from where my Poland flight was to depart. but of course, as i sit on the central line with the customary stare at someone with a backpack gets, some poor fella fulls underneath a train somewhere along the line and tour train stops for 10 minutes everytime.  I get off early when we get to liverpool street but of course all the connecting lines to kings cross are closed for engineering work and im already to meet Grace at kings cross. so i go down to Bank to come back up again, and low and behold, there is a power cut at king's cross so i have to cancel meetin Grace - which was highly annoying and i felt guilty dragging her out to wait at a dark station for hours...

sailing, swimming and drinking; living life the hard way

finally find a station that has trains to Luton besides kings cross but no trains run there, so im forced to walk 3 miles to the station after which i get on a train.  An express train nwhen i got off, but then the driver decides to stop at each stop 15 minutes later and then we have a 30 min delay as the train ahead needed police assistance lol - gods against me. so there's 45 minutes until the plane departs and when i get to departures, there is a HUGE queue. i move 5 feet in 30 min and almost gave up when the last minute desk flashed my flights. get through and they start calling my name - first time ive ever had to rush and almost miss my flight and do the walk of shame as luckily i get on the flight!! phew, what a rant...

Fortunately, on the other side, were Berenika's awesome grandparents who housed and fed me, and in their efforted english and earnest perseverance conveyed to me how i was going to meet up with Berenika, Tom and Leonard who had already been sailing for 2-3 days up near Gizycko...ah they were the sweetest people and the grandma created some excellent food indeed...this wasnt to be the last meal here...

24.07.06

Early in the morning, im escorted to the Warsaw central station, from where i will get the train which arrives on time, to Bialystok where i have a few minutes to find out where the connecting train to Gizycko will depart...even with my detailed instructions, it would never have been as effective as meeting some young english-speaking Polish people in my cabin who were going to the same place - which i did.  and Berenika's (or B from now on) lovely grandfather ask them in Polish to show me the way.  Spent the journey chatting to them and they were a nice couple from Krakow and they invited to come and stay at what they rate is a great place! one day soon.

On reaching Gizycko station, i arm myself for some power-walking, find the nearest map, and reach the bridge after a brief march to look for B and the gang who were arriving in town to pick me up.  Finally spot B by standing up on this random mound, and im directed to our 2 boats moored illegally on the bank of the small inlet canal that led out into the lakes.

There were 2 boats rented, ours was the "moon" with me, B, tom and Leonard and the other was the "sun" with B's girlies: Pika, Emilia, Pola, Asia...whom i met bearing pizza and beachwear! i was also attracting a lot of insects with my Lacoste scent and a wasp even landed on my outstretched tongue amidst the constanation of the girls and leonard.  The guys were carrying the 4L bottles of water like army weights, and large strings of sausage which would be our substinence for the next few days adrift on the lake.  What started a funny game of spitting cherry pips through the safety ring, became a daily ritual obsession for Tom!!

This was my first time sailing and it was awesome to see B taking control of a crew and the boat and the initial wind was not great enough for her to show off, but i was still impressed. the weather hadnt been great for the last few days, and as the rain clouds came in, it provided for quite a dramatic getaway to out place of sleep.  This was punctuated not only by Tom throwing cherry projectiles at the other boat (which was another continued theme throughout the trip) but also the unexpected (for me) arrival of a thrid boat which belonged to the dashing Kaia and her freak fitness crew-member, who i gather she didnt like. i forget her name :)

We moor and shower in some cheap shared toilet/shower facility, with the sort of shower curtains that you find in swimming baths which really dont reach the other side, leaving a large slit of nudeness, and have no-where remotely dry to put your towel and fresh dry clothes...though when staying on a boat, all the luxuries go out of the window and into the sea! The other guys kicked and screamed for a toilet on board, which was the size of a wardrobe!! you had to bend your head into your lap and do your business in pitch black and the smell was atrocious. suffice to say, only tom used it in the end.  A lovely Dinner was conjured by tom, with a tomato, sausage and pasta in the small stove and playhouse cutlery and was followed by some guitar playing and singing (Tom managed to bring both a guitar and a mandolin!) and we then went up to the bar on top of the hill to drink amongst other delights, some red beer and learnt our first words in Polish, to do with alcohol, which i forget already: red beer "proshe". or something. as i was the last to arrive, i had no choice of where to sleep, so i sleep below the feet of Tom and B, whilst leonard was positioned precariously in a coffin-sized slit underthe stairs, which he assured us was "cozy"...

25.07.06

the days just merge into one when you have no email/phone and your watch is stowed safely in your bag away from the water...ah just chilling it doesnt really get better to this, and its a blasting hot day where we get a fine roasting, especially the blanc white amongst us.  The day starts with a make shift breakfast of black coffee and damp cereal, but not before scrubbing the deck, what was meant to be a daily ritual, under the orders of Captain Stefanska...

we finally set sail on a day of still breeze, though B is still able to command a boat and i get a better taste of how the theory of sailing works with some nice in promptu diagram and watching lenny get to grips rather well with taking control of some cool turns on a section of lake which was sparsely populated with other not-so-novice crews.  Of course, we didnt spend all day doing this, and the day-long tutorial was broken up by sitting, singing random sailing songs and teaching B how to play save tonight on the guitar...

Randomly bump in to Kaya boat, who with the experience boat master, we could never really match for speed, but with a nice shout from B, we came round to a shallow section to anchor though on Tom's insistence, we were floating around trying to find this elusive patch of water in the vast lake that he became transfixed with... anyhow, i jumped in with my safety jacket and cooled down nicely by essentially flappin about, though the other guys swam... Cor, the wind picked to a nice breeze and B even let me take control for a little while and the wind was enough to even cause a nice tilt and a nice speed.  hehe so much fun.

Towards the end of the afternoon we call into a different port with many more boats and a glimpse of civililsation, though the place was haunted by this fiddle music coming out of a large barn like building, which we didnt hear the end of until we sailed away the next day!! arrggghhhh!. anyway, once we squeezed into a space near the entrance, we had a shower and a lovely sweet something, i think it was a crepe/waffle anyway with cream and blueberries...we then took a wander around town before coming back to the huge barn restaurant for some dinner.  Bartek, who was thingy's girlfriend met us at town and was instantly introduced as a fussbol opponent to Tom. Vintage, Germany vs Poland, and although Tom was 5 - 0 up, he somehow squandered the lead even with the chanting of me and Lenny!

26.07.06

More of the same; such a difficult life :) another gorgeous day it was and we practice again a few manouvres and went to swim.  Tom just couldnt get enough of being dragged behind the boat but at once stage we were going fast enough to cause him some trouble. the cherry flicking continued without a hint of ceasing :)

We cast assure through some windy passages to this weird place, which essentially had a uber-new petrol station, one bar and a supermarket, which everyone went to after docking and we stocked up on random snakcs such as this wonderful instant mash-potato.  Later after dinner, we sat around the dock and played guitar in the darkness and gazed at the star and got a little horoscope lesson from the girls. we also got to see a seeming ghost boat come out the mist and dock, or was that the filthy polish wine i was made to drink :P

27.07.06

Back to Gizycko on a particularly choppy lake today and the weather has cooled down somewhat, though this did not stop us from going to a little inlet beach and eating the mash potatoes and polish sausages whilst Mauritia systematiically tried to cut everyone's hair, even Tom's. B even spent sometime showing me the breastroke, though none of us could compete with her olympian standards.

nice international restaurant was the highlight of the evening, before which we shopped for crap and walked around town.  We had a proper feast and the germans on the group got some humungous Kartoffelpuffer which still haunts them to this day at the very mention of it.  Also memorable, was this hilarious singer trying his best to please the outdoor crowd with an overloud sound system beating next to my ear...

28.07.06

Woke up really late and then sailed a little, the only big event being that Berenika was pushed in by Tom, and twisted her ankle; but never fear, as Lenny was able to perform the rescue manouvre to retrieve our captain! We then anchored not so far from the port and went for a swim in some cold cold water and played some guitar and ate some shit under the sounds of the muffled bass from a music festival starting ashore.  Some famous polish band was playing and we returned early to get into the crowd for a close view.  Ate some crappy carnival food and spent the evening in this circus/carnival doing bumper cars and eating more desserts, then the hard core group drank till 4am until the end of this rave that occured after a bit of a walk...

29.07.06

we return to the sleeping germans for around 2 hrs kip, before we had to set sail, marginally getting caught by the port manager, and had to pay for an extra day...grrr...once we arrived back to the port from which the boat originally came from, it was an arduous task of cleaning the boat to a great standard and emptying the toilets...the cleaning spot was convenient a 100m up a hill from where the boats moored...more agaony, as the inspector found some "burnt" lifejackets, which we hadnt even touched and made us clean more. but even when we were ready, we had fucked off somewhere and it took ages before he gave some of the deposit back. AND all this before even eating breakfast...Starving, we taxi'd back to Gizyko to catch the train, and even with 1hr, we werent able to get the food in time to eat, so we had to put all our meals into pizza boxes and board the train with all this shit. and with all this shit, of course the train was full with no empty compartments. luckily the girls found the spacious bike compartment, and we all camped out there to sleep on the steel floor, until we caught our less busy connection back into Warsaw central...absolutely exhausting 6hrs but it went by faster than i thought, and then we went to B's awesome flat off a really cool sleep for a shower, delightful food from grandma and  a well-deserved kip, though the sleeping arrangement was more like a jigsaw puzzle! what a long day.