This is "Onbekommerd"!

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

As far North as we'll go

We are now in Gilleleje, the most northern harbour on Sæland. It's also as far north as we'll go this trip. We are at 56 degrees 20 minutes north. Although technically when we leave the harbour tomorrow on our way to Hundested we will be a bit further North, this is 'officially' as far as we'll go.

This morning we still had good, free Internet and this is how the boat looked:





Gilleleje is a very nice, quite substantive fishing port:





Tomorrow the destination is Hundested. From there, there is a good train connection to Copenhagen, which the boys will use to get back on Thursday. Greg will then stay with Sean in London for another week and fly back to Cape Town on 8 August.

Our plans have changed a bit. We really like Denmark and to 'do' the North German lakes and Berlin as we were intending to do, would require us to move to Lübeck post haste and then spend some 5 hours a day motoring to get to Berlin and back to Holland by the end of September. That really is not what we want to do, so we will slowly go back South, either through the Store or Lille Bælt. Then possibly to Lübeck, but after the Lübeck - Elbe canal turn starboard and head towards Hamburg. Then via the Geeste to Bremerhaven and the Küstenkanal further West. We can then, depending on the timing, decide to go either to the North of the Netherlands (Groningen), or more South and enter via the Rhine.

It's the first time we are actually planning the 'way back....'

Monday, July 30, 2012

Helsingør, Hamlet's castle

After spending the night on Ven, in Sweden, we left for Helsingør which is on the Danish side of the Northern entrance to the Øresund. On the Swedish side is Helsingborg and the Sund is only just over 3 miles wide at this point. Back in the 14th century, the Danes built a castle here, so that taxes could be levied on ships wanting to sail through the Sund. The castle was eventually called Kronenborg. It features in Shakespeare's Hamlet as Elsingore, the castle of the 'King of Denmark'.
Today it is a World Heritage Site and we went to see it, after we tied the boat up in the Helsingør Marina.





Kronberg Caste from the water.






Harold the Dane is sitting in the catacombs of the castle. Folklore says that he will wake up and defend Denmark when it is in danger.





Of course we had to have another 'braai' with the boys.....





Before the rainstorm struck.

Location:Campingvej,Helsingor,Denmark

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Kyrkbacken, Ven, Sweden

Today, the boys hoisted the Swedish courtesy flag!





Between Denmark and Sweden, in the Sund, there is an island called 'Ven', which is actually Swedish and we decided to spend a night there.
It is actually a very nice place to stop. One of the three harbours is called 'Kyrkbacken', which literally means 'behind the church'. This is the view of the church from the harbour, which explains the name:





It's a very pretty and rural place. And quite a small harbour. This is seen from the church:






With our South African background, we decided to have a 'braai'. That was a bit of a mission, we bought a 'ready to go' braai (which is not very South African at all), plus it started to rain a bit. But our South African braai masters did us proud and we had nice braaied chicken:





Back to Denmark, Helsingor, tomorrow.


Friday, July 27, 2012

Copenhagen. And a surprise!

We have spent the last two days doing the 'tourist thing'.

Tivoli and of course the 'Lille Hafvruen' are old hat to us:





And a big surprise today was the arrival of our boys! Greg, Sean and I have been planning since January to have them with us for Lyn's birthday tomorrow. So today, without her knowing about it, they walked up to the boat and said 'hi mom'. An emotional moment, it is 15 months ago that we were all together.





The boys will be with us until Thursday, so we are looking forward to share a bit of our 'travelling life' with them. Tomorrow we'll stay here to celebrate the (50 th!) birthday. On Sunday we'll move on, possibly to the island of Ven, which is actually Swedish.

The weather is still good, but is expected to change overnight. Forecast is a bit of rain, but not too bad for the next few days.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

København

Note that this is the second post today, the first one shows yesterday's pictures.

There was almost no wind this morning, a perfect day to get to Copenhagen, the seriously unofficial destination of the trip.
From Bøgeskov, we had to cross the Køge Bucht (sorry, Bucht is German and not Danish but it is what our charts say as they are German). That is a 14nm trip, so a bit over 2 hours. Then it's still another 2 hours to get to the marinas, which tend to be North of the city (there are a few to the south as well, but they don't have as good access to the centre).

First you get to Drogden Light, with a huge 'windpark' behind it.





And then to the Øresund bridge, the bridge wich connects Denmark and Sweden.





It is 55m high. We don't cross underneath it, as part of the crossing close to the Danish side is actually a tunnel which we pass over. The tunnel and bridge take a railway line as well as a motorway.

There was a fair amount of 'pleasure boat traffic', motor as well as sail, but not a lot of commercial craft on the water.

Now we are tied up in Svanemølle harbour. It is huge, with over 1100 berths (we are in 1007). Very different from what we have seen and come to enjoy so much over the past few weeks. But very conveniently positioned with the public transport to the city centre a few hundred metres away.

So for the next few days we will be sight seeing, doing a bit of 'admin' and last but not least, celebrate Lyn's birthday. We won't post a blog entry every day, but more as needs dictate. In principle, we plan to leave here on Sunday, we are still mulling about the route from here: North or South, that is the question....

Location:Strandpromenaden,Copenhagen,Denmark

Yesterday's pictures

I still owe you some pictures from yesterday's interesting trip and as I don't want to cause confusion with today, I'll post them here separately.
The entire trip was past Stevn's Klint. First we came to the church of which part fell into the sea:





Then we got to Stevn's Fyr, the lighthouse. Here you can see really well how the chalk layer erodes and the limestone above stays in place. We wonder when there will be a big cave-in here:





And then of course we got to Bøgeskov, in the middle of nowhere (but what a nice place!).





Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The middle of nowhere

Just a quick post without pictures. We are in Bøgeskov, which is a two hour trip from Rødvig, but it feels like the end of the world.
We decided yesterday to stay in Rødvig for another day. Although it was not blowing all that hard, the outlook for the next few days is a lot better and as we were going to travel all along Stevn's Klimt (see previous post), a no-wind day would give us a chance to concentrate on the scenery and not as much on the boat. So we had a great trip this morning, with a view of the Højerup church (see again the previous post) from the water. I'll post a picture tomorrow, the reason being that the signal here is extremely weak. This is because it is very remote, the nearest shop is 7KM away. Fortunately we are ok for food and drink! The Danish mobile phone operators have clearly forgotten this part of the country, I even got a 'Welcome to Sweden' message on my phone a few minutes ago and we are not really close to Sweden.
Where we are is about 15nm South of Copenhagen. As you need to go around the industrial area of the town and the marinas are North of the city, it is a 28 nm trip tomorrow, which should take us just under 5 hours (we tend to average 6 knots or a bit more). So we should be there mid-afternoon and will certainly have a signal that is good enough to post some pictures.



Sunday, July 22, 2012

The church that fell into the sea

From Rødvig, we got onto the bikes for a nice rural cycle trip:





The destination was Højerup, which is on Stevn's Klint. Stevn is the name of the area, Klimt means 'cliff'. Stevn's Klint is a cliff, consisting of chalk at the bottom and limestone at the top. The bottom chalk layer dates from Cretaceous times, up to 65 million years ago. The limestone on top is from the Paleogene era. In between is a thin, dark layer, which is called the 'Fish Clay'. The Fish Clay is believed to be deposited when a huge meteorite hit the earth 65 million years ago. It caused a large ash cloud, which obscured the sun and caused extinction of many species (including the dinosaurs), as the absence of sunlight caused the plants (food for the species) to die. The fish clay is very rich in Iridium, which is also a known component of meteorites. Stevn's Klint is the first place where the 'fish clay' layer was seen and it is the strongest support for the meteorite impact actually causing the Cretaceous - Paleogene mass extinction. The difference between the layer below the fish clay (soft chalk) and above the layer (hard limestone) is explained by the difference on animal life before and after the impact.





As the soft chalk continuously erodes away because of the sea, every now and then the limestone above breaks off and falls into the sea. This happens for instance on 16 March 1928. At that occasion, the choir of the church at Højerup (built around 1250) was undermined and fell into the sea. The rest of the church stayed behind (at the time it was already not in use anymore). Where the choir was, there now is a balcony which has a great view!




The church as seen from below.




The view from the balcony.

All in all, we have had to freshen up on a lot of geology, the last few days. Very interesting!


Saturday, July 21, 2012

When in Denmark.....

Rødvig, where we are now, is a convenient stopover between Copenhagen and 'the South'. Because of that, it tends to be a busy harbour, especially in the holiday season which runs from midsummer at the end of June until mid August. We have long ago learned that it is important to arrive before 2 pm to get a good berth and here in Rødvig it is especially the case, now at 9pm the harbour is packed.
Apart from the yacht harbour, there is also a fishing harbour:





The other thing we have noticed is the popularity of ice cream. I mentioned that already in my post from Skarø. It's not only kids that eat ice cream, whatever weather it is, adults like it just as much! As the weather has improved a bit (I would not say it is nice and warm, but a bit more sun at least), we decided to join in. There are at least three ice cream stalls within a stone's throw, so we went to the one with the long queues, assuming that this must be where the best product is sold. We were not disappointed!





Tomorrow is another bicycle day. We are going to see the church on the cliff of which a part fell into the sea. More in tomorrow's post!

Location:Havnepladsen,Rødvig Stevns,Denmark

Friday, July 20, 2012

Faxe kalkbrud

We cycled the 6KM to the town of Faxe, to see the quarry. Now this is not an ordinary quarry, it is the world's only fossilised coral reef. It dates from 63 million years ago, 'just' after the meteorite impact which destroyed much of life on earth (including dinosaurs), which was 65 million years ago.
The coral reef was 300m under the sea level and of course there were many creatures living in the reef, ranging from small molluscs to sharks. These fossilised with the reef and today the limestone teems with little fossils. The quarry is actively mined, but you can go into a non-working part and be free to look for fossils. They also organise guided walks into the quarry, with a geologist who shows you what to look for and gives a bit of a background to the area but also to whatever it is you happen to find. As part of the tour you even get a hammer and chisel!

Here are some pictures:





The dispersed chalk dust in the lakes, gives them a blue or turquoise colour. The more recent lakes contain the most calcium dust and are more vividly coloured.






In this close up you can see the coral structure clearly.






One 'fossil' looking for others?






In this piece of 'rock', you can see a snail. As the snail grew inside a piece of coral, it did not 'curl up' like the snails we know do. Lyn actually found a piece a bit similar to this but discarded it. At that stage we did not know what to look for. That's why it is worthwhile to have the geologist with you. We do have an imprint of a small crab and a small mollusc on board.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Faxe Ladeplads

The name of this harbour sounds a bit strange, does it not?
It is the harbour where the ships were loaded with the chalk that came from the limestone quarry in Faxe, a town about 6 Km from here.
The limestone deposits are 63 million years old and apparently still contain many fossils. We are going to stay here tomorrow and cycle to the quarries, which are still being 'mined' (the chalk factory is near the harbour here). There is also a museum there.
We'll report (with pictures) tomorrow.

The rumours are that the weather, which has been quite unsettled but not bad the last 10 days or so, is going to improve with more sun and higher temperatures. Let's hope that this is true. Today was good from a wind point of view, but we arrived at the tail end of a heavy rain shower and we had another shower with thunder and wind at the end of the afternoon.


Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Stege

Stege (on Møns) is a medieval market town. As often, the brochures somewhat overstate its attractiveness, but it is nice enough and has some interesting features.

Firstly, there is the church of St. Hans. Really, There is a church named after me here! Except that it was founded in 1240...
But a nice church it certainly is. As in all churches we have seen in Denmark so far, there is a model of a ship suspended from the ceiling:





There are nice frescos to be seen:







And after visiting the church we found a brewery:





......where we sampled the product:






Not sure what tomorrow will bring. If its nice, we will carry on to Fakse Ladepladsen. But, as always, it depends on the weather.

Location:Dybsbrostræde,Stege,Denmark

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Sjælland

This morning started quite early with a lot of activity. The wind had dropped quite a bit and by 7:30 the first boats were leaving. Even the neighbour's dog was ready to go:





In a 12 to maybe 17 knot wind we made our way to Vordingborg, our first stop on Sjælland. That is the island that Copenhagen is on as well. Although we officially don't have a plan or a schedule, you need to have some idea of where you are heading, so that idea is to be in Copenhagen for Lyn's birthday on the 28th. It looks likely that we'll be there, but again, it's not a 'requirement'.

With all the islands, Denmark is of course also the country of big bridges. This is one linking Sjælland with Falster:






The approach to Vordingborg is quite attractive:





The tower you see is the Goose Tower, so called because it has a golden goose on the top. The original goose was installed there by King Valdemar Atterdag in 1364. The current one dates from 1871. The Goose Tower is the only remaining bit of one of Valdemar's nine castles, there are also some ruins which are in the process of being restored (a bit, it seems).

Weather permitting, we will go to Stege tomorrow.

Location:Nordhavnsvej,Vordingborg,Denmark

Monday, July 16, 2012

The 'anti-squeaks'.

It has been blowing hard today. A steady 6Bft, with gusts up to 8. For the South Africans: between 25 and 35 knots. So not many boats left the protective environment of Femø harbour. Only late in the afternoon, when the rain shower activity and hence the gusts diminished, did a motorboat (who, according to public opinion did not understand what he was doing) and 2 sailing yachts go out. Only one boat arrived. The restaurant in the nearby village offers free transport from and to the harbour for customers and it appeared that this was a popular service. We had a quiet day, Lyn did a lot of work and played the piano, I sorted through over 500 pictures that we jointly took since 12 June in Fedderwardersiel.
One problem with this wind is that the boat pulls on the front mooring lines. With every pull (and that means every 2 or 3 seconds), there is a 'squeak', caused by the tight lines rubbing on the cuts in the gunwale. That does not sound too serious (and it is not!), but inside the front cabin it is a pretty loud noise. And the pulling on the lines also reduces the lifespan thereof.
There is a solution for this, which every self-respecting boatie in this environment uses. It's officially called a 'mooring line compensator', but we call it the 'anti squeaks'. Here they are:





Rubber fittings, around which you wind your mooring lines two or three times. The construction is such that the compensator 'grabs' the line at both ends, and when the boat 'pulls', the compensator stretches, taking most of the strain. The result is no 'squeak', so a good night's rest.
I had seen these useful gadgets a few times before, but not like here, where they are an essential part of the boat's equipment because almost all harbours have mostly 'boxes' to moor in, plus are relatively exposed to the wind.
We bought our first two anti-squeaks in Kappeln a few weeks ago and an extra (heavy duty) one in Svendborg last week.

The forecast for tomorrow promises lighter winds, especially in the morning, so the expectation is a general exodus quite early.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

A much better place!

A one hour trip this morning, brought us to Femø, which is indeed much better than Fejø. The harbour is well maintained, the sanitary facilities are clean (and the showers free, which is unique to Denmark so far!). The wifi Internet is fast and there is a small supermarket right at the harbour.
So as a result, the harbour is packed. And with the wind approaching 20 knots it's interesting to see more people arriving and trying to tie up their boats safely. Sometimes, the dinghy is used to get a mooring line to a post across the harbour:





We just hope no one will come in late tonight and hit that line, but that's unlikely. It is helpful to get to these small harbours by 2 pm, after that it is hoping you'll get a nice berth.

Apart from the harbour, the island seems nice as well:





Quite a bit of agriculture here. We saw a number of tractors, one going onto the ferry to the mainland.

As mentioned yesterday, the forecast for tomorrow is that there will be plenty of wind. Looking out from Onbekommerd's cabin over the sea, and feeling the pull on the mooring lines, it's quite likely that we'll be here tomorrow as well.

If anyone wants a map of our Denmark trip so far, please leave a comment and I will send you a link (I'll remove any email addresses from the comments before I post them). I'll also see if I can add that map to the blog, but that might take some time.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Every day is different from what you think it will be!

One of the great aspects of our life on Onbekommerd is that each day is different from the previous one. Not only are we more often than not in a different harbour, but living so close to nature you are very aware of the differences in weather for instance.
But in addition to that, you cannot predict at all what the day will bring. Yesterday, our stop at Omø was more or less forced upon us: the combination of the weather, the distances to the possible choices of destinations as well as the fact that it is usually not a good idea to arrive much after 4 or preferably 3 to secure a good berth all pointed towards Omø. And it turned out to be one of the nicest places we have been in quite a long time!
For today's destination, we had studied the books and pilots. Which of the islands in the Smålandsfarvandet to visit first? It all pointed to Fejø, supposedly so good that it is often overcrowded. So by 8:30 we were on our way, as it was a 4 hour trip. When we arrived at 12:30, we wondered where the crowds were. The harbour is dilapidated and in serious need of repair. Apart from toilets, a few plug points and an old water hose, no services to speak of. The kiosk where you can usually buy ice cream and bread rolls in the morning has been closed for a long time. And now, at 10 pm, no harbour master has been to collect a fee (and no machine where you can pay - like in many harbours - either).
When we walked into the (equally dead) town, we were told that there is no money to maintain the harbour. But that means no guests, no ice cream sales, no customers in the supermarket and therefore no income. 40 or more spending yachts on Omø yesterday, maybe 5 tonight here. And it's a bigger island too...
Tomorrow, we plan to go to neighbouring Femø, just a few miles away. People here in the harbour tell us it's a better place than Fejø. We shall see. At the moment the forecast for Monday is not all that great, so a one day layover there is on the cards.

Friday, July 13, 2012

The washing powder island??

As predicted, the weather yesterday was not all that nice, so we decided to stay tied up in Lohals. Of course, you are not alone in a decision like that: virtually all of the 'sailing family' has the same views about the weather, so no-one left and no-one arrived. But a few had the same idea as us and took the bus to Rudkøbing, the biggest town on Langeland, about a 45 minute bus ride away. Rudkøbings main claim to fame is that H.C. Ørsted was born here, you undoubtedly know that he discovered electromagnetism ;-).
Here he is:





Otherwise, Rudkøbing was not all that interesting, but we DID have a hamburger and chips there, which is worth mentioning as we can't really remember having a hamburger this year yet (but we did have nice Danish chips in Svendborg a few days ago).

This morning, the weather was a lot friendlier and as a result there was a mass exodus from the town of Lohals.
We crossed the Støre Bælt, the waterway between Fyn and Sjælland. This is quite a busy stretch of water, with a few major shipping routes going under the impressive bridge which links the islands. The wind was quite light, about 12 knots max., but there was still quite a bit of very confused chop from the stronger winds of the last few days and the result was that it was like going through a washing machine, waves all over the place. After 2 hours, we arrived on the island of Omø, hence the lame joke as the title of this post. Sorry!

But Omø is very nice, with a very friendly 'feel' to it and a nice international atmosphere around the harbour. Our neighbours are Scottish, but live near Berlin, there are also Swedish, Norwegian, German, Dutch and of course Danish flags around.

We did our usual 'recce' and came across this nice house:





Tomorrow, the weather is supposed to be reasonably kind again, and we'll go further into the Smålandsfarvandet, the water between Sjælland and Lolland. We are now just over 11 degrees East of Greenwich and over 55 degrees North.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

The next island

Just a quick update, the mobile signal is slow here (only EDGE, no 3G), so I'll try one picture only.

We are in Lohals, on Langeland. A two and a half easy trip from Svendborg. We left early-ish, around 8:30 and were tied up just after 11 in at that time a rather quiet harbour. The town is OK, but nothing really special. After midday, the wind came up as expected and more boats came in. Not everyone manages tying up in a 'box' very well. It means tying the front of the boat to a jetty and the back to two poles, the boat sitting at a right angle to the jetty. It requires a bit of planning as you need to get the mooring lines around the poles before you have passed them, especially if the 'box' is quite long. The front of the boat is usually easier, also because there often are a few people from neighbouring boats available to catch a line:





The weather is quite unsettled, with sunny spells interspersed with rain showers accompanied with relatively strong gusts. The two weather sites we use give conflicting information about tomorrow, so it is not unlikely that we'll spend another day here before crossing the Storebælt towards the islands South of Sjælland.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Svendborg and an oil change

The plan was to go to Lohals on Langeland today. But it was always a bit doubtful: it is a 'crossing', although not a major one and the forecast was not great. We decided to give it a go with an early start as the wind would get stronger later and it was just a two and a half hour trip. When we got to the end of the Svendborg Sund, the wind was already around 18 knots, and as we do this for fun and not to prove a point, the decision to turn around and head for Svendborg was an easy one. So by 9:30 we were safely tied up in a corner of a very full harbour.

As Svendborg is quite a big place (well, the biggest one we have come to since entering Denmark, since Bremerhaven to be exact), we took the opportunity to restock in the big supermarket close to the harbour.
As we have already done about 200 motor hours this year, it was also time to give the trusted motor some TLC. Onbekommerd has a 6 cylinder, 6 litre, 105 HP Ford diesel engine. It requires very little attention, but every 200 hours it needs an oil change. So we pumped the 15 litres out of the engine into old oil containers (Onbekommerd has a pump on the engine for that). We changed the oil filter and then put 15l fresh oil back in and checked the level. So far so good. Then we disassembled the diesel filter to clean it. That's a very awkward job, the filter has been fitted by some masochist who does not realise that a 61 year old is not necessarily a contortionist. Anyway, that too got eventually done. Finally, we did the easy job of filling the grease press, a piece of equipment which lubricates and seals the propellor shaft.
Then we disposed of the old oil, the used filters and the oily papers and rags in the special containers they have here for that purpose. Of course the boat needed to be cleaned after that (and so did I!).
By that time it was time for tea.

The wind is blowing strong at the moment and there are rainy spells. But it is nice and cosy on board and now that dinner and coffee are also behind us, I am sure we'll sleep well.

Chances are that we'll be here tomorrow as well. The forecast for Wednesday is a lot better so that's likely when we will carry on. In that case, probably no blog post tomorrow, but an 'admin day'.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Troense and Elvira Madigan

We somewhat reluctantly left Skarø this morning, it was so peaceful and friendly there. But it was time to move on. As it was a beautiful Sunday in the school holidays, the Svendborg Sund was quite busy:





Our destination was Troense, on the island of Tåsinge. Near Troense is Valdemars Slot. We originally thought this was the Valdemar the Great, who is quite famous in Danish history, a King who lived in the 1200's. But it is another Valdemar, which made the 'Slot' (officially a castle but more what in England would be called a manor) less attractive to us to visit, although we did take a walk there.
Then we found out that Tåsinge is also Elvira Madigan's last resting place. Who is Elvira Madigan? you may well ask. Well, she was a Danish tightrope walker, who eloped with Sixten Sparre, her married lover. As they could not marry (because he was already married and father of 2 children as well), he shot her and then himself. This was in 1889. A Swedish film was made of this in 1967, in which the Andante of Mozart's C Major (K 467) piano concerto was used. The concerto is now sometimes (quite often actually) referred to as the 'Elvira Madigan' concerto. Anyway, the grave of Elvira and Sixten is here on Tåsinge and the pension that they lived in for their last few days was just around the corner from the marina. Lyn's piano project after the Beethoven's C Major concerto is the Mozart C major.

We thought about moving on after we had walked to the 'slot', but these little critters got into the water inlet for the exhaust cooling:





Removing mashed jellyfish from the cooling water strainer is a bit messy! By the time that was done (and fearing the same would happen again as the water teems with jellyfish), we decided to stay here for the night.

Half an hour ago, the weather changed (as predicted) with a big rain shower:





So the period of relatively sunny days with little wind is over for a few days. We'll see what's in store next and set our plans accordingly.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

The ice cream island

Somewhere we had read that Skarø had something to do with ice cream. So when we arrived here today, we set out to investigate.
Skarø is very small. I am sorry, it may be getting boring having to read about small islands, but it's the truth. About 40 local inhabitants. But also, and that starts to bring us back to the topic, 40 birch trees. It appears that the sap of the birch tree has certain properties which make it ideal to use in ice cream as part substitute for sugar. It also then enhances the flavour of whatever else is used in the ice cream. Thus, 'Is fra Skarø' was developed. This is the factory:





As you can see from the sign they also sell the product there and we sampled rhubarb and honey flavours. If you go to www.isfraskaroe.dk, you may learn more.

We walked around the island (which took about 2 hours, including he ice cream eating episode) and found a birch tree in the process of 'being tapped':





If these 40 trees are the only ones being used and the Skarø factory the only production facility, I fear this is not a big business. Maybe the website reveals more, I have not looked at it yet. The brochures we picked up 'Gourmet ice-cream' and 'Specially designed ice-cream' suggest that there is more than ( literally) meets the eye.

Friday, July 6, 2012

The Danish islands

As I may have written in a previous post, Denmark consists of the Jutland peninsula and a whole lot of islands. To be exact, there are 1419 islands of 100m2 or more. Of these, 443 are named and of these, 72 are inhabited. The smallest inhabited island is Birkholm, and that is today's mystery destination! Birkholm is 0.9 Km2 big, it's highest point is 2m above mean sea level and it has 10 permanent inhabitants. Most of the (very few) houses are used as holiday accommodation. We saw 30% of the population: a fisherman, the harbour master who came to collect his 80 Kroner and a lady who sells Tupperware (really!) from her shed.
Of course the harbour is also tiny, it's completely full tonight with 16 boats.

Here are some impressions:




Harbour.





Oops. The postboat, which calls twice a day (only once in winter) leaves at the same time as a boat enters the harbour. The entrance only takes one boat at a time.





This is the 'butik', the shop. The fridge on the left has bottled water and frozen bread. The one on the right ice cream (ice cream is a big thing in Denmark, which - considering the relatively low temperatures - is surprising). In between the fridges, second hand books and packets of sweets.




As so often, the shop works on an 'honesty system', this is the till.... Take your stuff and leave the money.

And of course lots of peace and quiet: