Baltica Project – Ready to go!

Blog written by Zuzanna

Our trip was supposed to begin in the historical capital of Poland, the city of kings, Krakow. Unfortunately, the weather cheated on us: the level of water in the Vistula river was too low to pass the 'Przewóz' water-gate. This water-gate is well known among kayakers and sailors as the most tricky place on the whole river. Even Marek KamiÅ„ski, Polish explorer, mentioned it in his guide as 'a true nightmare'. It was constructed years ago and now it is unnavigable at low water levels. This is why we had to make a decision that we will not sail through Krakow, but start our expedition just a few kilometres outside of the city, in a village called Grabie, where there is a very comfortable stony beach. Instead of starting the trip on Friday, we moved it for Saturday the 2nd of June.

Friday: the day began with a thunderstorm and since morning, the weather was only getting worse! There will be definitely more water in the Vistula river now :). Such an unpleasant weather surely scared away most of the people who usually go for an afternoon walk to the Vistula boulevards. At least we know that even if we had gone through Krakow, probably no one would have seen us = no occasion to spread the
message. We did some promotion in Kraków anyway. A bunch of school friends went to the streets during the night and sprayed the Baltica logo and website address on pavements in the city centre. Organising
that small event helped us improve coordination and communication between team members. Every minute we learn something else!!!

We had a lot of fun preparing 'furniture' and 'moving in' to the raft! For example, we built a table out of 3 old, useless plastic boxes and a piece of OSB. The table is multifunctional, it serves both as an kitchen surface and a small storehouse. We also found another use for plastic bottles! On the water it will be very hard to keep our things dry and in a proper order. Remembering that muesli is not eatable when it gets moist, we decided to put it into dry bottles that once had milk inside 🙂 Day by day, we are getting more and more creative.

So now we are all calling each other every half an hour to ask if something more is needed, if the other person could organise something else, if something something something… The so called 'reisefieber'
is very strong! 🙂 We already packed one car and tomorrow 7 o'clock in the morning we drive to Grabie. Even the raft-dog, Fleja, seems to be excited. What about you?

To find out more about teh Baltica Project ad it's mission click here: