A Personal Guide to The Baltic - LATVIA
Nicholas Hill
ventspils
Ventspils is at the top of the western coast of Latvia. It is a large commercial and fishing port.
The harbour itself is quite heavily industrialised, and new installations rub shoulders with some very crumbly communist concrete.
There is a new yacht club [EU funded], with stern to mooring buoys.
These were the first I had to tackle, and I was puzzled to see some boats already there, lines disappearing into the water behind them, yet no buoys. There were also some unoccupied buoys some way from the quay. Did the boats have stern anchors out? Well, there were no buoys behind the boats already there ... I made an executive decision and threaded a line through the ring at the top of the buoy, brought the end back on board, and motored slowly to the quay. Looking behind me, I saw the buoy had disappeared. It took me a little time to realise it was supposed to disappear!
Doing this singlehanded was not easy: if I made the stern rope fast, I was in danger of being dragged back. I went forward and threw a rope to a rather surprised harbour master. Then I had the fun of adjusting everything so I could step ashore.
berthing and facilities
Berting - well, see above.
The facilities were adequate and reasonably clean. There was a café on the lawn in front of the yacht club.
It was about a kilometre walk into town, but fortunately there is a small supermarket just outside the dock gates.
There is a fish processing plant about 100m from the yacht berths. When in operation - which is quite often - and the wind is in the wrong direction, there is a very distinct smell!
There is also a fueling point, not really for yachts, but you can get diesel there. The lady spoke no English or German, but Latvian or Russian. Neither are my strong points. The quayside has large black rubber fenders, which resemble the eraser found at the end of a pencil - except about a metre across. Not the easiest to tie up to.
Google Earth
The fish processing plant is just to the left of the photo!
The yacht club and Prospero.
Harbour views
mooring buoys bottom left ....
fueling point at white building to right of large yacht ...
All photographs copyright CNH/COH. Please ask if you wish to use them and please acknowledge the source.