Spent a very nice weekend with Rit, Vita and Bobbi (their dog :-) ) at their home outside Riga. Went into Riga, out and about and then down to one of the - long - beaches in the gulf of Riga.

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After visting the beach and looking at the countryside, I can see why Rit bought Kawa, they're going to have a lot of enjoyment out of her...

An overnight stop in Holtenau and we're away after refuelling.

The day is glorious, hot sunshine (though little wind for sailing) and we make good mileage eastwards.

All good things come to an end and an easterly wind picks up and Kawa is finding it hard going in shallow water with F4 blowing (around 2 - 2.5 knots!!).

Anyway, a long slog to Bornholm where we refuel again and head off to Latvia.

The original destination was Riga, but Rit has decided to go to Liepaja as it is closer and he needs to get back to Latvia and work. This cuts nearly 200 miles off the trip and we have a cracking sail in a SW F4 - 5 and arrive in Liepaja at 2 am on Thursday morning.

We finish on the boat a few hours later and drive to Rit asnd Vita's house outside Riga for some sleep

Motored along the north coast of Holland and Germany and arrived at Brunsbuttel in the early hours of Saturday morning and passed through the lock there into the canal.

Not allowed to proceed until 0330 so an hour or two sleep and then a 4 am start (53 miles to go...).

Sailing is not permitted in the Kiel canal so we motor all the way to Holtenau at the East end, north of Kiel, all in all, a nice days travel.

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Finally arriving at the east end lock gate around 3 pm:

The forecast over the next few days was NW force 5 - 6 so we decided to go the inland route, down the canal to Amsterdam and up the Markemeer and the Ijselmeer to Terschelling: this was definitely the highlight of the trip.

and one of the locks:

Joined the yacht on the Sunday afternoon and met Ritvars and Vita, his girlfriend.

Checked the boat over and left around 5pm. A nice trip out of Chichester Harbour and then headed towards Dover.

Very windy going through the straits but fortunately downwind for us. A few thunderstorms, a bit of lightning and squalls but nothing much going across to Ijmuiden.

Arrived late on the Wednesday night and, unfortunately, Vita left the yacht as she had been ill since a few hours after leaving Emsworth.

Another delivery on Sunday.

Off down to Portsmouth to see Mids and have a few beers tomorrow night and then join Kawa, a 30' Iroquios catamaran on Sunday.

Hopefully be away Sunday afternoon and across the North Sea, through the Kiel Canal (to Kiel) and then, maybe, onto Riga, Latvia. If it finishes in Kiel, hopefully I'll get down to Hamburg to see Roger Smithdale for a day or so.