Cape Town is only 20NM away! We had a wondreful trip. The South Atlantic Ocean was kind. We had smooth sailing and gentle swells all the way. It's exciting to return to my home town after a four year circumnavigation around the world. What an acheivement! Pangaea has not ceased to amaze me over the past four years and today will be a special day for myself and my team.
Despite difficult weather conditions during the last week, we arrived in Warsaw perfectly on time, at 12 o'clock on Monday, the 18th of June. Until now, we made breaks in bigger cities on our way mostly to
change the crew and make some necessary technical amendments to the raft, but stay in the capital of
Poland is something slightly different. First of all, some of the people involved in organisation of the project, come from Warsaw, so we had a great help from them on site and the project was promoted in the city even before we actually completed building of the raft! So as at schools in Kraków, the Baltica team held presentations at schools in Warsaw.
We anchored at resto-bar located in the exact city centre of Warsaw, at the river bank, neighbouring the Copernicus Science Centre, called 'Cud nad Wisłą' (what means Vistula's Miracle in Polish :)). The name
of the place perfectly corresponds with its atmosphere. Everyday thousands of people stroll around the Vistula boulevard in this place, and these thousands of people get to see our raft! We painted a banner
and hung it next to the raft, promoting our idea and giving the most basic information about the project. We planned to spend 3 days in Warsaw, 3 days full of attractions!
Remembering that our crew is an international team, we prepared some touristic attractions for them in between of 'project duties'. Writing 'duties' I basically mean taking care of the raft and promoting the project. On Tuesday evening we gave a presentation at 'Cud nad Wisłą' that was followed by a regular afterparty during which the crewmebers were being asked hundreds of questions about the project. Strangers would come to us to have a little chat about the raft and personally, I think that such a direct talk was the best way of promotion. The raft definitly attracts people! We even had some spontaneous lectures for kids from Warsaw schools, who went on a trip with their teachers and met us accidentally. We talked with the kids about taking the responsibility for what we do and where we live and about the art of seeing beauty and potential in what seems to be trash to other people.
It appears that a group of young people from Warsaw share our ideology. They live in a place called 'squat' – that means an abandoned building, often with unclear legal status, which place they 'bring back to life' on their own. When I first heared of squats, I associated them with dangerous communities of drug addicts and alcoholics. I couldn't have been more wrong!!! They are only normal people who just live a different lifestyle, but most importantly they lead serious social and ecological projects! The abandoned building where they live serves also as a 'common-room' for children in difficult family situations. They organise lessons of different kinds for the kids. Once a week they go dumpster-diving for food and they prepare an open-meal out of what they find, they reuse absolutely everything and give many objects a 'second life'! At least to me, meeting these people was a very inspiring lesson of life and I felt proud to talk to them about the Baltica project.
But still our main activity in the capital was promoting the project in various medias. Although it's the European Football Championship that currently makes people here most excited, lots of newspapers, radio stations and TV stations showed their interest in the Baltica project! We gave a lot of interviews and made many contacts that should be very useful in the future.
And now we resume the journey in the direction of the Baltic Sea.
Adventure, here we come! 🙂
'Ahooooy!' we shout to a group of fisherman standing and the river bank and staring at us (as if we were doing something weird or unusual, I have no idea why…).'Ahoy!' they answer shortly. 'Where are you coming from?' 'From Kraków!' 'Seriously?' they ask. Now they stare at us…. 'And where are you going?' 'To the Baltic Sea!' we answer, proud of our raft. 'Woooow…. You must be joking. Good luck, anyway!'.
We follow this scheme of a talk at least 10 times a day. Although we aren't the first group ever to build a plastic bottle raft, people still find the idea quite innovative or simply crazy. We receive lots of support and help from the locals, and a lot of attention too! This is what makes us most happy – the chance of influencing the inhabitants of cities, towns and villages located by the Vistula river.
We left the charming town of Kazimierz Dolny on Wednesday evening with the plan of getting to Warsaw on Monday. But we're on water and so it's the river that dictates the terms. This week we faced some really
difficult conditions. It is especially hard to navigate the raft on windy days, and we had 3 days of wind and rain both in places where the raft currently was, and also in places where we came from. It created a wave of higher water level, moving from Kraków to the sea. It reached us near PuÅ‚awy and accompanied to the capital.
This week we were mainly discovering the beauty of the river on our way. We set up our tents on sandy beaches, desert islands and observed wildlife of the river. However, the purity of these places is always
disturbed by a terrifying amount of garbage, thrown into the river. We, ourselves, witnessed a situation where someone threw some trash into the river, not eve trying to hide what he did. So each time we stay for the night on a beautiful spot, we make a clean-up. The greatness of nature is particularly noticeable in these places, as despite so many harmful factors, life continues to develop in the Vistula river. The fact that its riverbed is not completely regulated is a blessing for the river, because it strengthens its ability of self-purification.
We no longer swim in the river since we passed Puławy, an industrial city where they produce nitrates. Since then, some kind of a yellowish foam floats on the surface of water. Paradoxically, we expect the water to get slightly cleaner once we leave Warsaw, as there are many filters and wastewater treatment plants installed on the river in the capital.
But regardless of the weather or even the condition of water in the river, the crew is having a great together. The raft brings together many inspiring people from different cities of Poland (and not only! this time we hosted an Erasmus student from Taiwan for one day with us; and from the next week on our team will become definitely international) and it is impossible to get bored during the trip! Even after 16 days spent on the water already, I'm looking very much forward to the next part of the trip!
In just another two days Pangaea will reach the south African coastline. The last few days may be a little rough going but in all it has been a fantastic trip with steady winds and calm seas.
Blog written by Zuzanna
It took us only 4 days to sail through the Vistula river between the two beautiful touristic cities of Poland, Sandomierz and Kazimierz Dolny, and yet we had so many adventures on the way! According to Marek Kaminski's guidebook, the Vistula river between these sites is presented in the best of beauty and I can totally agree with what the explorer said! This time, our crew was composed of 5 people only:Julia, Krzysiek, Grzesiek, Maciek and Zula, but we had many more activities on our way than before.
After some sightseeing in Sandomierz, we left the harbour and sailed into the plain river. I almost forgot how difficult the beginnings are 🙂 In good weather (and with experienced crew), it is quite easy to steer the raft, but our first day together on the deck was windy and we had serious problems on the water. Of course each person went through a safety briefing and had knowledge on how to behave on the water, but it was a new situation for 80% of the team. Happily we moored the raft in a beautiful place where San meets the Vistula and two huge rivers continue their way to the Baltic Sea.
Each expedition needs some sun and some rain also. We reached Józefów nad WisÅ‚Ä… in the pouring rain. There we had a great time at a local school, where I met children of different age groups and talked with them about environmental protection. I was very surprised to see how well-educated in the question of ecology the kids were. Józefów nad WisÅ‚Ä… is a small village situated in area protected by a program 'Nature 2000'. It turned out that people involved in environmental protection often visit this school and give presentations to the kids.
It felt great to continue what they are doing! Kids were extremely interested in the animals of the Vistula river, and, obviously, technical details of the raft really enjoyed time with them. Later on, we had a meeting with Robert Rudolf – ornithologist from Józefów. Each year, he organises a bird-watching camp on an island on the Vistula river. He took us to the island where we could see how exactly they work, and he explained the importance of bird ringing and shared his knowledge with us. Unfortunately it is now bird breeding season and we didn't get the chance to observe many rare species (but we saw a grey heron!).
I'm very happy that the Baltica project pomotes local ecological initiatives and hopefully thanks to us more people will hear about bird ringing program. I wish we could spend more time on the island, but there was a long way ahead of us to cover and other breath-taking views to see… We saw the 'gull-island' (according to what the ornithologist said, the island is a home for more than 15 thousand of gulls every year!) and the recognisable buildings of Kazimierz Dolny on Tuesday afternoon and sailed into the port with full grace!
A view with a different angle from Pangae's pilothouse. How are you looking at the world today?
All is going well here. We have 20-30 knots of wind on the beam and are cruising at 11 knots. I love the Southern Ocean with its big swell and nobody around since we left Brazil. Another 1250 nm to go and the weather is looking good for two more days.
The Baltica Project is an initiative of Polish Young Explorers that incorporates environmental education and action leading to preserving a unique region with adventure – crossing over the last of the European great lowland rivers, which at least partially retained its natural character: the Vistula river.
During several weeks a group of Young Explorers will travel on a raft made ​​of PET bottles and other recyclable materials. The total lenght of the route is 861km between Krakow and the Baltic Sea. On the way, the participants of the project will document the beauty of the valley of the Vistula river, carry out measurements on water purity, share their newly acquired knowledge with all encountered people who would only show interest. We planned various activities along the river: clean-ups, promotion of healthy lifestyle, presentations about the expedition and the importance of water in human life.
To find out more about the Baltica Project please click here:
Early morning the best part of the day!
After a difficult week Pangaea finally seems to be making great progress. Big swells and strong winds have subsided and Mike and his crew are now taking advantage of the great conditons. Pangae is currectly sailing at 11knots with an ETA in Africa around the 23rd of June.
