I See No Sea

2009 09 14 – Day 80 – Shanhaiguan

I rose early with ambition to climb the nearby section of The Great Wall, hopeful of a grand view over Shanhaiguan and out to sea, before checking out some of the touristy stuff in town and a visit to the shore before heading on to my next destination at the end of the afternoon. Seemed feasible.
A short but wobbly ride in a three wheel red Reliant Robbin wannabe got me to the Great Wall park before anyone else, including, it seemed, the park staff! At first, I was being told by my driver and others hanging around outside, that it wasn't open yet and I couldn't enter, but the gates were wide open and my persistence eventually revealed that actually it was just the chairlift that wasn't operational yet and if I was crazy enough to walk up, then of course I could enter! Which I did. At that point, of course some staff did materialise from round some corner or other to make sure I paid my entrance fee.

Didn't look too bad a climb.
Before I knew it I had my own personal Great Wall climbing coach:

Waddling up to my side and then bouncing on ahead, then pausing to grin back at me – come on Martin! It's enthusiasm was infectious. I'm not quite sure how it managed to bound up stairs twice the height of it's legs, but it was inspirational!

As the climb got progressively steeper I started to worry for my little chum, who now needed more regular breaks, lungs clearly working overtime, visibly heaving. But the panting pooch would not give it up... Until the onward path was a ladder into a tower:

Or so I thought! Down the other side of the tower and re-joining the wall, there was pooch, waiting for me! Clearly the little bounder had been this way before.

Entering the wooded crest of the hill I began to encounter beasties:

Spiders with leg spans of about 15cm, and possibly the hairiest caterpillar ever:

Good thing the temple at the peak had some guardians:

Over the other side, the scenery was quite different and the sun began to power its way through the smog, giving me hope of a fine view:

But time wore on and sun and smog seemed to reach a stalemate and I had to return to the town if I wanted to fit everything in.
By the time I was most of the way down, the smog had won and, though I had a reasonable view of the plain between mountains and sea that Shanhaiguan protected, I would not have the view to the sea that I'd hoped for.

But a wedding or two is not a bad substitute!

One of the two couples enjoying a photoshoot with the greatest of walls on their special day.

Back in town, visiting the First Pass Under Heaven, I got a consolation prize:

At last! A view of the sea!
Ok, not quite what I'd hoped for, but a fine artistic depiction of the strategic significance of Shanhaiguan and its position between mountains and sea.

The Saddest of Seas

2009 07 29 – Day 33 - Aralsk

The Aral Sea, which has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s, is another 30 mins drive from the ships graveyard and is like no other sea I've seen before: it's not so much like a big lake as like an enormous puddle. The incline to the shore is extremely shallow, and the sand at its edge is a saturated mud that threatens to swallow my feet and prevents my reaching the waters edge. Perhaps that's best, as this is a mournful shore. Despite the couple of ducks within sight and the handful of small birds that zip about after insects, the place feels dead.

It's a strangely quiet environment, the air is still and dry enough as to not really feel its touch. The sun is an impassive observer... there is nothing to 'do' here than contemplate the capacity of human 'development' to break the systems that created and sustain us.

Look, No Sea! Desert Ships Graveyard

2009 07 29 – Day 33 - Aralsk

An hour drive from Aralsk, over what was seabed, there is a graveyard of abandoned ships. Ships that lost their usefulness when the sea retreated too far from settlements. Scrap metal reclamation by locals has reduced the number of ships from twelve to five partially reclaimed hulls.

The desert floor is littered with shells, one of the few pieces of evidence that where I stand had a much greater history of being under water than not... until relatively recently.

I was interested to see the arrangement of scrub around this hull mimicked a bow wave.... wonder why that is?

My driver and I were the only humans out here and the isolation was tangible. I depended on him to get back to Aralsk... did I know the way back? The desert tracks were fairly well worn, but there had been rudimentary junctions and I don't remember which way we turned and where... and I didn't bring my compass...

Desert Dawn Drive

2009 07 29 – Day 33 - Aralsk

Local fixer Sirik had speculated a 9am start for my visit to the ship graveyard which is an hour drive into the desert that used to be sea. I had insisted that I wanted to get out there soon after sunrise, mainly for better lighting for photography, but also to avoid the searing heat of the middle of the day. So my driver and I set off at 5am, leaving Aralsk under the cover of darkness and witnessing the magic of the colour and light changes of dawn conjuring the desert out of the dark.

Providing for Pooch

2009 07 19 – Day 23 – Baltic Sea


I'm unaccustomed to seeing pets roaming passenger ferries so this sight was a bit of a novelty.
One guy was exercising a huge dog that he probably could have ridden, but unfortunately I didn't get a good pic.
Come to think of it this one's only labeled for cats and dogs... is that to stop people letting other animals use it, or to stop people using it!?

Tallinn to Helsinki

2009 07 19 – Day 23 – Baltic Sea

The passenger ferry port of Tallinn is a conveniently short walk from the old town. You can see some of the new town skyline between the two ferries.


Arriving in Finland is a fairly delicate manoevure for such a big ship, weaving amongst the islets and broken headland, including passing by Suomenlinna

Best 50p breakfast ever?

2009 07 19 – Day 23 – Tallinn

My foot passenger ferry ticket cost me 300 EEK (Estonia Krooni – what a great name eh?) and for only 20 EEK (at that time roughly 50p) extra I could have breakfast on the ferry. This is what I got:

It was great! And it was a buffet too, so I could go back as much as I wanted! If only I'd been hungrier, I only ate what you see in the picture! (plus an extra glass of fresh orange & there's plenty of grub hidden by that lettuce leaf) (Viking Line advertisement deliberate because the breakfast was so goddamn good they earned it!)

Estonian Bay

2009 07 15 – Day 19 – Baltic Sea


Christian Radich invited us over to watch the first cut of a documentary that had been filmed on their vessel during the race. Both ships dropped anchor in an idyllic Estonian bay and we shuttled over in our 'hip' boats because Radich didn't have hers.

Locals sailed or rowed over to take a peek at us: An intriguing sight no doubt, Tall Ships in the bay, echos of another era.

Boogie on deck with some gals from Radich while the sun goes down. Nice.

All good parties come to an end, but few have such a beautiful environment to soak up.

Swim Stop!

2009 07 15 – Day 19 – Baltic Sea

A beautiful day in the Baltic Sea and not enough wind to make the sailing exciting, so the crew decided we could go for a wee swim. Lovely.

A couple of things were surprising about swimming in the Baltic... that it was cold was not one of them! What was surprising however was that there were very localised pockets of warmth – I say warmth it was more like 'not as cold' but once you'd been in the water for a bit they felt war. You could swim 3 or 5 metres and the temperature there could feel quite different from where you came. The other surprising thing was how not salty it was. My previous experiences of accidentally getting a mouthful of seawater have been wincingly salty, but here it was just a bit salty... curious.

Leaving St Petersburg

2009 07 14 – Day 18 – St Petersburg

As with leaving Gdynia, the Tall Ships' departure was a bit of an event. Crowds lined the banks of the Neva to see us off and each ship in turn made its exit stage west, often heralded by hooting, honking, squeeking and booming of nearby ships' horns. Even the submarines joined in, their horn sounding more like a space age whale cry – quite otherworldly and odd sounding above the waves.

This is a couple of moments after a near impact! Apparently this ships old engine needs to be turned off to change from reverse to forward before being turned on again. The current was strong and they drifted backwards across the river towards us, only managing to engage their engines fully 2 or 3 meters from our port side, hence the deployment of their balasts to cushion the impact many of us thought was inevitable.... just like in the movies!!! :)


Leaving a modern harbour is done under engine as I mentioned elsewhere and apparently leaving under full sail like this is dangerous... nice sails though don't you think?


Being tugged out gave us a better view of those subs.


St Petersburg receives a mixed review from the trainee jury.

St Petersburg Arrival

2009 07 09 – Day 13 – St Petersburg


Navigating our way to port in the industrial shipping capital of Russia that is St Petersburg, we are reminded of the brutal reality of modern seafaring.

A far cry from the romance of our fairy-tale tallship, we are greated with giants of steel in the form of tugs, tankers, cruise-liners, cranes and submarines.

Sunrise at Sea

2009 07 09 – Day 13 – Baltic Sea

Since we weren't racing, my watch had very little to do this morning and were able to enjoy the magical beauty of the sunrise at sea.

The Result

2009 07 08 - Day 12 - Baltic Sea

But what about the race!? I hear you cry...
We came second. Booo!
By 6 minutes. ooOo!
Considering that the race took just under 55 hours, 6 minutes, after adjusted time, is tight.
Christian Radich had got the change in wind she needed and was able to utilise her speed to carry her home.
I later learned two facts that I think makes our achiement all the greater:
1. Christian Radich should have been racing with her two small 'hip' boats as we were (don't know the technical name for them). These boats create drag and slow the ship down. Apparently Christian Radich's were being repaired at the time of the race... like they didn't know the race was coming!
2. Christian Radich at times used professional helmsmen who'd come on board specially for the race, none of their trainees got anywhere near the helm during the race. Meanwhile on the good ship Sørlandet the trainees manned the helm 80-90% of the race. A good helmsman can maintain speed longer in tougher conditions and can get an extra knot of speed here or there
Despite these two significant, speed-influencing, factors, not taken into account in the handicaps (so far as I understand), the fact that we finished only 6 minutes behind makes our achievement all the more great!
Well done to Sørlandet's crew for guiding us so well!

Here's a screengrab of the route of the race

Calm After the Storm

2009 07 08 - Day 12 - Baltic Sea

As if the world knew the race was done. The sea was flat, the air a stroke, the sky a glorious blue. No more the battle with wind and wave and rope, just relax and bask and wonder at what we'd come through.

The engines were on and the helm lashed such that we were turning a slow 1 knot circle, waiting for instructions from race control.
What else to do but have fun at the extremeties of the ship?