After a hull inspection at Lake Ammersee and an equipment inspection in Brunnen, Switzerland, we had actually planned to go training on the Baltic Sea/Denmark. Because of bad weather and storms, this was moved to Croatia instead. From Rabac, we wanted to row around the islands of Cres and Losinj.

But even there, the weather gave us trouble. On the first day, strong wind, rain, thunderstorms, and fog. I struggled with seasickness, which Walter could only laugh about. From the second day on, we had pure sunshine but strong winds—of course mostly against us, not with us—so strong that at times we couldn’t row against it at all. We ended up taking unplanned breaks while watching the wind, sometimes changing our route, and then continuing at night when the water was calm. The full moon was a great help for that. The heat was also tough on us.

The equipment was tested again thoroughly, everything tried out.

It all worked well, and we had eight exciting days—or rather, nights—of rowing.