Hungary
Back at the Balaton after around 40 years. I had come here with two friends when the Iron Curtain still existed and Hungary was part of the “Ostblock”. We had spent a camping and bathing holiday, meeting many young people from Eastern Europe and making some friends from the West whom we then met again back in Germany. The place was booming with young people, specially from East Germany since they could travel here easily and spent some time in relative freedom compared to the limitations they faced back home. This time we have rented a holiday apartment, with swimming pool and BBQ sets in the Garden. The lake is a few hundred meters away.
The fist day we are out already on my brother’s Sancara II. It is a Norwalk Island Sharpie NIS23, exactly the same model as our Magayon we had built in the Philippines and later transferred to Makassar.
It was a nice sunny day, almost a bit too hot if there would not have been the for tropical standards cool water around us, with moderate wind in the afternoon. The electric Toqeedo took us out of the Marina, we set sails and then we sailed across the lake to the Northern shore, dropped anchor there for some swimming, and then sailed back. Kata did the perfect docking maneuver when we came back.
On the way back with both sails without reefing we made up to 6.4 knots speed.
The first time since in Indonesia 25 years ago I was helming a NIS. I regretted that we had not taken care of our boat better, we had in fact hardly used it in South Sulawesi and at the end it was ruined by red fire ants when it was sitting on its trailer for several months unattended.
