This is "Onbekommerd"!

Friday, August 31, 2012

No paradise at the lock

Yesterday, I reported that we were headed for 'Paradise Lock' (Paradijssluis). Well, we are in Meppel. So what happened?
We left the little guest harbour in Assen at 8 sharp as it was literally a few metres from the first bridge, which was supposed to start operating at 8. Indeed, about 5 minutes later, the bridge keeper arrived and we were on our way. Unfortunately, the weather was quite a bit worse than the last few days and there were occasional rain showers and quite a bit of wind. The 'Drentse Hoofdvaart' is not bad, but it has a busy road running along it. On the other hand, the (many) bridges operate very smoothly and the people operating them are very friendly. There are also quite a few locks (a total of 7 today) and we were by ourselves in every one of them.
By half past three, we got to the Paradise Lock. Now we were here last year as well, and made a note on the chart which suggested it would be a nice place to stop. We even had a picture of it:





But the reality today was different: the noise from the road was more than we remembered and the mooring places were occupied by a few old, rusty unoccupied boats (we have seen this a few times in the Netherlands now: free mooring places, intended for tourists, being used to long-term store old barrels). So as it was not all that late, we decided to move on to Meppel. Now Meppel is about to close down for winter (from tomorrow, 1 September, the lock into the town only operates on weekdays and then only 3* 1 hour slots a day), but it's a very nice town so we took the same place underneath the windmill as we had last year:





This, by the way, is last year's photo!

We'll stay here until Monday, so there might not be a blog post tomorrow.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Near Assen

We are two days further.
From the Zuidlaardermeer, we went to Groningen, the capital city of the province with the same name. A lot of people like Groningen, but it does not do a lot for us. Difficult to put your finger on, but a combination of noisy (in the harbour) and dirty (like - sorry to say - so many Dutch cities).

This morning we set off in a Southerly direction, the Noord Willems Kanaal and the Drentse Hoofdvaart. As there are quite a few bridges plus some locks, the progress is slow and more then six hours after leaving Groningen, we are just past Assen (well, actually in a small 'guest harbour' in one of Assen's outskirts. Some 17 nmiles in 6 hours, that's really slow! But the weather is agreeable and the scenery is nice, so who cares?
Tomorrow, we'll continue in the same vain; I have counted over 25 bridges plus 4 locks to our intended next destination, the Paradise Lock. Sounds inviting, doesn't it?
More tomorrow.


Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Another record?

When I switched on the GPS this morning, I was surprised to see that we were at 7degrees East of Greenwich. I know that the German island of Juist is at 7 degrees, there is a plaque in the marina to show that. But a place in the Netherlands? But of course the GPS does not lie and looking at the map, I found that we were close to the most Eastern point of the country. Never too old to learn!

But that's by-the-by, today we set off from Musselkanaal to the Zuidlaardermeer, a lake near the town of Groningen. Not a particular long trip, about 35 Km, but the significant fact is that we had to pass 59 bridges (of which 56 had to open for us) and 7 locks! That certainly is a record for us. As soon as we left the guest harbour at Musselkanaal, a small convoy of three boats was established. For the first three hours, the bridge- and lock keepers coordinated everything and we passed the first 5 locks and 25 bridges. Then it was lunch break, and at 1pm, our private two (!) bridge / lock operators reported for duty for the second part of the trip:





There they are, on their scooters. They stayed with us and operated the next 34 bridges and 2 locks, just for us three boats:






Of course during the locking procedures you get the chance to chat a bit and so we found that they do this up to 4 times a day and get up to 100 boats through the canal on a busy day. But today there only had been 3 boats ahead of us. And the 'convoy' on the way back (their last 'trip' of the day) appeared to consist of only one boat! After two and a half hours, we emerged into the Zuidlaardermeer. It was in all quite a tiring day: as the canal is both narrow and shallow (1.2 m), Onbekommerd has a displacement of 10 tonnes and the bridge operators urged us to go faster than one really should, the boat 'sucks' itself close to the bottom of the canal with the result that it needs a lot of heavy steering corrections. Add to that a few very sharp turns to be negotiated and you have a lot of effort on the steering wheel, which is unusual as normally Onbekommerd required very little steering corrections!

We'll sleep well, tonight.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Back 'home'

It's difficult for us to say what's 'home'. We love Cape Town and it's probably our first 'home'. And after a year in London, we were quite happy to call it 'home' too, we really love that city! But for us on 'Onbekommerd', the Netherlands is definitely 'home'. So although we really enjoyed Denmark and will go back there next year and are ok with Germany too, we were happy to cross the Dutch border just before midday today:





The day started when we entered the Haren - Rüttenbrock canal at 9:





It's a nice canal (apart from the busy road on the port side). You form a small convoy (in our case 3 boats) in the first lock and after that the further 2 locks and 10 bridges are ready for you. Well organised!

At the Dutch border, the convoy gets re-established (in our case after the 12 to 1 lunch break) and you move through a whole lot more bridges and locks, some of which are manually operated!





This plethora of locks and bridges, plus the maximum speed of 6 Km/hr in the canals makes for slow progress, which meant that we got as far as Musselkanaal, instead of Stadskanaal which is about 10 Km down the road.

But we are in a nice guest harbour here, close to our first Dutch supermarket where we immediately bought 'koffiemelk', 'stroopwafels', 'ontbijtkoek' and 'kano's', the latter being Lyn's latest crave!

On past Stadskanaal tomorrow. We have a vague plan and see where we'll end up.

Location:Havenkade,Musselkanaal,The Netherlands

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Last stop in Germany

Yesterday, we did the Küstenkanal. That is about 60 Km from Oldenburg (on the Hunte) to Dörpen (on the Dortmund - Ems Kanal). It's a pretty boring exercise: mostly as straight as an arrow, with just trees on either side and a noisy road behind the trees. The water is dirty, it's like moving through a green soup with solid bits in it. No wonder that the inlet strainer for the cooling water for the exhaust got blocked. Fortunately, this happened near the only small marina on the canal, 10Km from Dörpen, where we stopped to clean the strainer. On the Baltic, the water was crystal clear, you could see the bottom of the boat every day. The strainer was sometimes blocked by jellyfish or by seaweed although only once as bad as here (with jellyfish, in Troense).
The yacht club in Dörpen was full, as it was the day of the annual 'Hafenfest' (harbour party). But the friendly harbour master found us a place next to another guest boat. Once the kids going wild on little inflatables were done (when it got dark, actually), the party noise was not bad at all. It is getting dark quite early now, in comparison to 2 months ago in Denmark. Then we had light until close to 11pm, now we have the light on before 8!
This morning we set off relatively early, but the lock keeper at the first lock was not very helpful and made us wait for an hour:

The men in charge of the next two locks, now on the Dortmund - Ems Kanal were much more obliging. Also, this canal (actually a canalised part of the river Ems) is more attractive and not as dirty. By 2:10 we tied up in the quiet but well equipped marina at Haren (that's Haren in Germany, not the one in the Dutch province of Groningen). We are currently using the washing machine and tumble drier flat out!
Tomorrow, we will enter the Haren - Rüttenbrock Kanal and get back into the Netherlands. As always, that requires a SIM card change which may or may not be possible tomorrow. So if there is no blog post tomorrow, you know the reason!

Friday, August 24, 2012

Up another river

The harbourmaster at Elsfleth told us that the best time to leave to get up the Hunte with the tide would be one and a half hour after low tide. It's quite surprising that quite far from the sea, the effect of the tide is still so significant: the tidal difference at Elsfleth is 3.2m and the tidal current on the Hunte up to 3 knots!

Anyway, as low tide was at 14:15, we had lost the entire day to kill at Elsfleth. That's not easy, as it is not exactly the 'centre of the universe'. This is the main shopping street on a Friday morning (which is also market day...):





But we did find a good supermarket. And the facilities of the 'harbour' (actually just a mooring jetty along the river) were good. So not a bad place for an overnight stop only.

Once we got under way, we passed the 'Gorch Fock', a nice and quite well known square rigger:





We are now in Oldenburg, in the 'Stadthafen', very near the old town. As almost always, the harbourmaster is very friendly and helpful.

Tomorrow we will 'do' the Küstenkanal, which is known to be long (60 Km) and boring but the best / quickest / shortest / only way apart from the East Frisian islands to get back to Holland.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Stuck in the mud?

The plan was to leave Bremerhaven at low tide today. That was at 12:15. So in the morning, we went to buy bread rolls and a few other necessities. And when we got back to the boat at 11:30, the tide was so low that we were stuck! Even the river Geeste had almost dried up:





That was a bit of a surprise, we did not think that the water would get THAT low. No problem, we just waited and by 1:30 we were afloat again.
Now we still needed to get some diesel. As we had not filled up since Helsingør, it was not a little bit: we took 314 litres! The filling station is - at low tide - quite a bit higher than the boat, so they hand you the hose suspended on a rope:





Once the boat's thirst had been satisfied, we left Bremerhaven and went up the Weser. Initially it was a bit busy, with ferries, tugs and pilot boats but it quieted down after a while.
Our original plan had been to go to Oldenburg, but as it was later than planned we decided to call it a day at Elsfleth. This is where the river Hunte meets the river Weser. For pleasure craft ('sportboote') there is a jetty with power points and water right on the river. When the harbour master came to collect his €12, he told us to switch the anchor light on at night. That's a first for us, but of course we complied:





A bit later, a big barge arrived to tie up behind us:





Not a bad idea to have the anchor light on to ensure you are spotted!

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Hello, anybody there?

Of course the problem with a blog is that it's a bit one-way traffic. You write things, but you don't really know if people read them. Yes, we have a 'stats' feature on blogspot which tells us how many page views there were and from which countries, but there is not a lot of detail!
Yesterday I issued a little challenge and I only got ONE response (by email, that was nice to get!). So who is actually reading this??
Now the challenge is still open: what does that sign mean? Answers via email (for those who know my email address) or via 'comments'.

We are now in Bremerhaven. The second half of the Geeste was very quiet, we saw two other boats. When we got out of the lock at Bremerhaven, we were back on tidal water. It was just past low tide and the river looked very different from when we left here on 16 June. The wooden structures you can see in the picture were under water then. The 'prikken' (the wooden branches to mark the underwater obstruction) are just visible, tied onto the wooden 'frames'. You have no idea what's under the surface!





Tomorrow, we'll have our final tidal stretch, up the Weser and the Hunte to Oldenburg. We'll leave Bremerhaven at low tide, around noon and let the current help us up the rivers.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The 'highway' back to Holland

At 8 this morning we entered the lock in Otterndorf (not that we wanted to leave early, but there is a tidal restriction to that lock). We were the last boat in (out of seven) and all but one were Dutch! On my way to the lock keeper's office to pay the canal dues, I remarked on this to one of the other Dutch skippers, who suggested that we could sing the 'Wilhelmus' (the Dutch National Anthem).






The reason for this concentration of Dutch boats is that this canal (actually part of what is called the 'Elbe - Weser waterway) is part of the main inland route from Holland to the Baltic. Yachts will have to drop their mast, but they avoid the 'German Bight', an area which often has inclement weather. So today we all pottered at 8 Km/hr (the speed limit) down the canal. A few diehards will have done the 62 Km trip in one day, quite a few did what we did: stop in the quiet town of Berdekesa for the night and carry on to Bremerhaven tomorrow.

Lyn has been collecting 'road signs' for her educational programme. Our challenge to you for the day is to tell us what this sign means. Answers in the 'comments' please!





Monday, August 20, 2012

Another circle completed: Otterndorf revisited

The last time we were in Otterndorf, it was the 15th of June, at the start of our Baltic adventure.
We left Hamburg at 6:45 after a restless night in this harbour with lots of waves.
In spite of the early hour, there was quite a bit of traffic in the harbour, especially from the extensive ferry network. Once the main port area was behind us, the ebb current picked up and we were swept down the river at speeds of up to 9.5 knots (our normal 'through the water' speed is just above 6 knots, so quite a bit of tide behind us. The problem is that as you go towards the sea, the source of the tide, you get less 'time with the tide'. To explain this: low tide at Hamburg (our point of departure) today was 14:24. But at Otterndorf (our destination), it was at 10:50, three and a half hours earlier! Now generally speaking, once you pass the moment of low tide, the water starts flowing up the river again. So you 'miss' over three hours of this lovely ebb current. Anyway, soon after passing Brünsbüttel, the tide changed as expected and for the last two hours we only did around 3.5 knots over the ground!
That still got us into Otterndorf at 2pm. Over seven hours, but we covered a record 50.3 (nautical) miles. Not that we try to break long distance records, but the Elbe does not have a lot of convenient harbours to stop.
The stretch between 10 and 12am was also a bit influenced by a 12 knot Westerly wind appearing. The wind against the tidal current produces a nasty short and steep chop, which caused Onbekommerd to pitch quite a bit. Good that we had 'prepared the cabin' as we always do on open water!

We tied up in front of a Dutch motorboat and went over for a chat. It turned out that the crew consists of a really nice couple in their 80's! They have been going to the Baltic for over 30 years, so don't expect us to stop soon!

Tomorrow we'll go through the tidal lock here around 8am. About 4 or 5 hours to Bad Berdekesa though a nice canal. We are already looking forward to the smoked eel from the best fish smoking outfit in Northern Germany!

Sorry, no pictures today. The Internet connection is quite slow.



Sunday, August 19, 2012

Summer is here! Into Hamburg

We have been quite happy with the weather, the past few months. Many people around us, Danes and Dutch especially, have been complaining. But really, we have not had a lot of rain, when the wind was too strong, it was never for more than two days and it has not been cold.
Now however, summer has really struck. The last three days have been sunny and increasingly hot, with 34C today. So we have all windows, the roof and all three sides of the cockpit tent open. And we are in summer wear:





Yesterday, we finished the Elbe - Lübeck Canal and got to Lauenburg, today we went down the Elbe to Hamburg. Now I need to talk a bit about German 'boat drivers', especially motor boats. We get on well with the Germans we speak to on a one-to-one basis. They are friendly, courteous and accept our attempts at their language gracefully. But if you put a few of them behind the wheel of a boat, beware!
First case: you may remember from the previous post that they have a 'convoy system' in place in the Elbe - Lübeck canal. That means that when you get out of the lock, you all calmly move at the maximum speed to the next lock in sort of an orderly fashion, right? WRONG! What you do is when you get out of the lock, try to get to the front of the convoy so that you can get the best place in the next lock. By the way, there is NO 'best place'. The lock is big enough to accommodate all of us comfortably. The result however is that the whole convoy goes FASTER than the maximum speed. The keeper of the next lock knows at what time the convoy is expected (the lock keepers communicate) and he'll keep his lock closed until the appointed time. So now the whole convoy wants to tie up, to wait for the lock.... But wait, there is not a lot of space to tie up in front of the lock and we all want the BEST place (which does not exist). So lots of aggro. Not for us, we move at the maximum speed, get to the lock last, see all the moving for position in front of us, move into the lock last, find a good place and smile at the people. We are 'ONBEKOMMERD'.
Second case: it's a nice, warm, summer Sunday. So all of Hamburg is out on the Elbe. In their big, fast, motorboats. No speed limit (this is after all also the country with no speed limit on lots of motorways). "I'll show you that my boat is faster than yours". Lots of boats going fast nowhere and back. The waves on the river are bigger than on many a crossing in the Baltic.
So the German motorboat skippers as a group have not endeared themselves to us. We'll see how it goes the next week or two on our way back to Holland. But if this is a taste of what's to come, visiting Berlin in the future will be by train.....

As we left Lauenburg early-ish this morning, it was still quiet on the river. We followed the channel, which is indicated by markers on the shore:




When you see one of those, it's time to cross to the other bank.

By 10:30 we got to the big lock at Geesthacht, only to see the lights go to red about 2 minutes before we got there. I quickly called the lock master on the VHF to ask politely if could still join, but he wanted nothing of that. So almost 2 hours later we got into the lock with 3 big commercial ships and another 5 or so pleasure craft (sportboote, they call us):





That seriously messed up our route plan, now we had the tide against us for the last 10 miles or so and could only make 4.5 instead of 7.5 knots over the ground.

When we got to Hamburg, this ship was also there:






But they were worried we had pirates on board:





Anyway, we are tied up in the Hamburg City Marina after a long and hectic day. The marina is ideally situated if you want to visit either the city centre or the red light district (Reeperbahn), neither of which we want to do. Otherwise, up till now, it's noisy and because it's right in the harbour without any protection, the boat is rolling as if we are at sea. Really, we have partly prepared the boat for a crossing whilst we are in port!

The plan is to leave early tomorrow, by 7 at the latest, on the outgoing tide and see if we can make Otterndorf. If not, there is a plan B as well, Glückstadt.

Location:Baumwall,Hamburg,Germany

Friday, August 17, 2012

Mölln

A few km's upstream from Lübeck, the Elbe-Lübeck canal starts with the first of a total of seven locks. The lock keeper will set up a 'convoy', by waiting until a reasonably big groups of boats has collected and then locking them together. As there is a strictly enforced speed limit in the canal (they measure the time you take to get to the next lock), the whole convoy gets to the next lock together. That lock will be open and prepared for the convoy, so there is no wait after the 'entry lock'. Works well! We were lucky to be the last boat into the 'entry lock', without any waiting time at all. This is what the convoy looked like at the entry to lock #2:





Around 2:30 we got to Mölln, our planned overnight stop. A very nice old town, not 'spectacular', like Lübeck but with a well preserved old town centre. As we tend to like small places better than big cities, we actually prefer this laid back place over its famous big brother!





Mölln is also known for its connection to 'Till Eulenspiegel' (Tijl Uilenspiegel for the Dutch followers). He is / was a folkloristic jester from this part of the world who supposedly lived around 1300. Till supposedly died in Mölln. Unfortunately, the 'Blogpress' app that I use to do these post from my iPad has no easy feature to post links (other than me writing the HTML myself), but if you look up Till Eulenspiegel in for instance Wikipedia, you'll learn more.
Of course the town uses the 'Till - link' to its maximum, tonight there is a 'Till play' in the town square, which we won't attend as its all in German.

Here is Till:





Tomorrow, we will do the second half of this canal, to Lauenburg, after which we'll enter the river Elbe and will be directly connected to the North Sea again.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Lübeck

It generally was a rainy day today. Lyn did some work, I read a bit. When the rain stopped, we cleaned the boat to get rid of the salt of the Baltic. We put the washing into the machine ashore. And we took another walk through Lübeck.
As mentioned earlier, this is a beautiful and very old Hanseatic town. It dates back to the 8th century, but burned down to the ground three times before 1300. And was severely damaged in 1942 during the Allied bombardments. A lot of that damage has been restored, but for instance the cathedral ("Dom") is so huge that it is probably impossible to restore it to its likely former glory. To be honest, we found that they have done a pretty poor job on the 'Dom' by including a number of modern 'features' in the stained glass windows, the altar and the pews (no pews actually, just modern chairs....).
But all in all, it's a beautiful and interesting town.
Here are some pictures:















Tomorrow, we start up the Elbe - Lübeck canal. It should take two days to get to the Elbe at Lauenburg. But we hope to be able to post our experiences from our overnight stop, probably in Mölln. Four locks to pass, for the first time since Kiel on 17 June, exactly two months ago!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The end of the Baltic adventure (for now). Lübeck

After an hour and a half motoring this morning, we left the Baltic when we entered the Trave river at Travemünde.





We have enjoyed the Baltic enormously. It must be as close to the the ideal 'boating water' as it gets: a choice of large, modern, well equipped marinas, small and not so small active fishing harbours, idyllic islands with sometimes tiny harbours, there is just so much to choose from. And then you have large and very open sea areas, more sheltered passages and narrow 'sunds' and 'fjords'. And we have only seen a small part of Germany and Denmark (and not to forget, the Swedish island of Ven!). So it is very likely that we'll return here next year, with the Götha canal and Stockholm as likely destinations.

Anyway, we motored about 2 hours up the Trave to get to Lübeck. That is a very nice stretch, in parts it's quite rural:





There are a few small towns on the way:





But you also see quite big ships:





And the you get to Lübeck, an old Hanseatic town, first built in the 8th century.





We are tied up within 5 minutes walk from the 'Altstadt' (old town). From what we have seen today it is very attractive. But we'll stay over an extra night and post more impressions and pictures tomorrow.

Location:An der Untertrave,Lübeck,Germany

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Quite a big contrast

Although it was not 'champagne weather' today, we moved on to Grömitz. The wind was 12 to 15 knots, but it was directly 'side on', which for us is the worst direction as the waves make the boat roll quite a bit. We solve that by steering either slightly upwind or slightly downwind, which is extremely effective and makes it perfectly acceptable - you just cover a bit more distance. After about 3 1/2 hours we got to Grömitz. This is a typical German seaside resort (Kürort, they call it). The marina is huge, modern and very well equipped but full of local yachts and even at 1:30 pm it took us some time to find a berth and then one from which it is really difficult to get from board.

After we had lunch (and no, we could not make coffee 'en route'), we walked over the promenade and reflected on how different Germany is from Denmark. Denmark is laid back and relaxed. Although there very clearly are rules, these seem to be there to help people's enjoyment. And the rules are not 'in your face', everyone seems to know them and abide by them.
Here, in Grömitz, everything is superbly organised. Signs everywhere. Do this, don't do that. Regulations galore. But not to serve the enjoyment of the visitors. You even have to pay (€3) to go onto the beach! Of course it is all very clean. As is Denmark.
There is nothing 'wrong' with Germany. The good thing is that people actually obey the rules and things work. But relaxed and laid back? No, that's not German.
In a future post, I'll try to talk a bit more about Denmark.

For now, the plan is to go to Lübeck tomorrow (reservations recommended, so I sent an email and promptly got a confirmation). It is supposed to be a really nice old Hanseatic town, so we may well stay there an extra day.

Sorry, no pictures today. The boulevard here looks a bit like I expect the Spanish 'Costa's' to look. And that's not really worth a picture.



Monday, August 13, 2012

A 'champagne cruise' back to Germany

The weather yesterday was as expected. We woke up at 7 to no wind at all. And the forecast was for light winds until late afternoon, so by 7:20 we were on our way south through the Guldbergsund.





An hour or two later, we passed a 'wind farm' with 162 windmills:





As there was no wind, zero KWh were being generated, so the cost per KWh was infinite.....

This is 'champagne cruising', not because we drink champagne (no alcohol when under way and we finished the Champagne on Lyn's birthday anyway), but that's what it's called.

After the wind farm, there was a 3 hour crossing of the Mecklenburger Bucht. Although we have GPS plus a plotter on the laptop, we also do 'old fashioned' navigation when there are no marks to refer to. It's fun as well!





By the time we got to Burgstaaken, 7 hours after leaving Nykøbing F, the wind was about 5 knots. Not good for the participants in the Kite Board Pro competition that was planned. Greg also competed here, many years ago.





Late in the afternoon, the wind picked up to around 15 knots. By that time we were safely moored and had walked to Burg, the nearby town.

This morning, I cycled to Burg to get the German Internet working on the iPad again. Lyn is doing some work. We may stay here for a day or two before moving on, weather dependent. Still two fairly exposed stretches until Lübeck, from then it's rivers and canals.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Possibly our last Danish stop

We were sorry to leave Femø this morning. It was a beautiful day and there was a nice relaxed atmosphere in the harbour. We really enjoy these little Danish island ports and it was our last one for this year. But looking forward to the weather predictions as well as our travel plans, moving on was the right thing to do. Over a mirror-like Smålandsfarvandet, we went to the Guldborgsund, a river-like water between Falster and Lolland. We are now tied up in Nykøbing F (the F meaning it is the Nykøbing on Falster, not the one on Sælland).
We are right next to the grain silos. That is of interest, as the season is clearly changing and we see farmers harvesting the grain everywhere, on Femø but also along the Gulbergsund:





The resulting grain is delivered to the silos next to us:





Fortunately, activity appears to have stopped for the night!

Our original plan would take us to Nysted on Lolland tomorrow. But with another good 'motorboat day' predicted for tomorrow (light winds and plenty of sunshine), we will probably make the crossing back to Germany tomorrow. From here (we first have to get out of the Sund), that is about a 7 hour trip, to Burgstaaken on Fehman. Our Danish 3G card will not work there and I can only recharge and re-activate the German one on Monday morning, so there won't be a blog post tomorrow evening. In case the weather turns out different from our expectations, we'll still go to Nysted and there will be a post.

Friday, August 10, 2012

A circle completed

We are back on Femø, we were also here on 15-17 July, so we now have completed our 'tour of Sælland'. If you would like a printout of the chart so far, leave a comment and I'll get it to you.

The trip from Agersø was relatively uneventful. The wind had not dropped as much as had been predicted, so the first half was actually quite choppy. After that, it calmed down enough for us to make coffee, that is sort of a yardstick for 'nice weather'.

We got to Femø by 1pm to find plenty of space. But a few hours later, the (small) harbour was full and in the end a few boats had to turn around and either anchor outside the harbour or go and try their luck somewhere else. Our rule is to get to the destination by 2 pm, especially on a small and popular island!

Sorry, we have no interesting pictures today. Tomorrow we enter the Guldberg Sund between Lolland and Falster. With a bit of luck that will provide some picture opportunities.


Thursday, August 9, 2012

To travel is to live

The title of this blog post is from Hans Christian Andersen. Why a quote from him, you may well wonder. Well, apart from the fact that we quite subscribe to the thought behind it, we went to HCA's birthplace on Tuesday. We spent four nights in Kerteminde. The wind remained stronger than we (and most other boats) liked, and Kerteminde is not a bad place to wait for a few days. For one, it is half an hour by bus from Odense, which is where Hans Christian Andersen was born. So we went there and visited the museum that is in his birth house. Many of this sort of museums can be quite boring, but this one is very well done. HCA was an avid traveller and the quote, with an explanation, was displayed there. Here is HCA himself:





During our Kerteminde stay, Lyn also had the opportunity to catch up on some work.
This morning, the weather was a bit better and the 'musical boats' circus started: everyone leaves port and tries to get to the next harbour in time to get a good berth. As there are so many harbours, you seldom end up with the same people, although it does happen sometimes that you meet up with a boat you saw a few days earlier.

We are now on Agersø, an island just North of Omø (see the 'washing powder post' a few weeks ago). Another nice, laid back, small island. And, although the peak season is coming to an end, the harbour is full. We try to get to our destination before 2 pm in order to get a good spot and so far this has worked.

This is Agersø:





Tomorrow, the plan is to go to Femø, that will be the first time we revisit a harbour. But it's nice there and it is on our way to the Guldborg Sund, the narrow water between Lolland and Falster. That should be almost like motoring down a canal. Femø should be our last small island. After that, two more Danish stops before we cross back to Germany.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Staying put in Kerteminde

This morning was rainy and this afternoon quite windy. So, with a few nice days of motoring behind us, we decided to have an 'admin day'.
As the forecast for the next one or two days is not that inviting either and it looks pretty good after that, it's likely that we'll stay here a bit longer. The harbour is good, the supermarket nearby and we have wifi Internet, although for some reason only on Lyn's laptop. But as she is the one needing the admin, it's an inconvenience and not a train smash.
Next blog post only when we get to the next destination, which should be the island of Agersø.


Sunday, August 5, 2012

Odden - Sejerø - Kerteminde

As promised in my earlier post today, here is the story of our trip since the day before yesterday and now with pictures.

To the North West of Sælland lies a reef (Sælland rev). In the reef is a narrow opening, the Snekkeløb. The pilot books contain lots of warnings about the reef and the Snekkeløb in particular. But it was a nice and relatively quiet day, so we asked the locals on the boat in front of us in Odden what they thought about going through the Snekkeløb and they assured us it would be no problem. So we set course to the bright red and green buoys that mark the passage. To the East of the reef, there were many small fishing boats. We passed through the gap, which is a few hundred meters wide and about 3m deep easily. On the West side was a bit of chop, but not more than we are used to on an average day. Once we got over the 10m depth contour, the water got much calmer and we could make coffee.
After about 3 hours we reached the island of Sejerø. There is a fairly typical Danish island harbour. We managed to get a prime spot, right in the corner near the kiosk, the harbour office and the shore facilities:





As always there is a church nearby, with nice mural paintings and the obligatory votive ship hanging from the ceiling:





Everywhere, from the Dutch island of Texel to the North of Denmark, kids fish for crabs in the harbour. These two lads were busy for hours in front of Onbekommerd.





As the peak season is drawing to an end (the Danish schools start in 8 days' time), there are 'havnfests' everywhere. The one in Sejerø last night went on until 1am. Fortunately, the music was not too bad.....

This morning, the plan was to go to Ballen, on Samsø. But as we left, our neighbours warned that it would be very full in Ballen and we would be lying 4 or more boats deep.
Outside the harbour we consulted the charts and the laptop plotter and as it was a beautiful day, decided to skip Ballen and go straight to Kerteminde, which is on Fyn (Funen). That is 34 miles, so close to 6 hours motoring. But hey, it was sunny and there was virtually no wind, ideal 'motorboat weather'.
On the way we even saw some dolphins playing around the boat! And also things like this:





A high speed ferry in the Store Bælt.

Kerteminde turned out to be a pleasant place with a good and big harbour. In most harbours you find 'grillpladsen', places to have a barbecue / braai. Here they even have fresh herbs at the grillpladsen:





As mentioned a few times before, the Danes love their ice cream. Kerteminde has a prize winning ice cream store, where the make their own cones, right in the shop:





So we treated ourselves to one:





As I write this, the Kerteminde havnfest is still in full swing. It is supposed to end with fireworks at 10:30, which is right now. Let's hope it's true....

Between Sejerø and Kerteminde

Sorry, I did do a post last night and sent it off as well, but the connection was so bad that it does not seem to have reached the server (although it claimed 'success').
We are now far away from land, in the Støre Bælt, and we even have a 3G signal here!
We should reach Kerteminde around 5pm and I will do a post with pictures from there. As the weather is ideal: sunny and no wind, we decided to do a relatively long day.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Odden Havn

We had a slight change of plan: the original idea was to take a 'side trip' from Hundested up the Roskilde Fjord. But we have a few fairly long and exposed stretches coming up, for which we would prefer light winds. The forecast for the next few days promises exactly that, so we cancelled the Roskilde plan and set course for Odden. This is a small fishing harbour on the North Western extreme of Sælland, a peninsula called Sællands Odde. When we left, it was still partly cloudy with a 12 knot Westerly blowing but as the morning progressed the clouds disappeared and the wind decreased as per the forecast and we ended up having a great trip.

The fish they catch here is sold, either fresh or freshly smoked right at the harbour:









We bought some smoked salmon pieces and will have a feast tonight!

Tomorrow, we pass through the Sællands rev and head for the island of Sejerø.