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.

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'.

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.

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.

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:

Ærø

In the previous post, I promised a picture of Ærøskøbing. Well, here is one of the rather picturesque streets:






Or, with a few more people:







Ornamental doors are a big thing in Denmark too:






We cycled to Voderup Klimt, one of the cliffs rising from the sea in the archipelago. It was a nice ride as well as an impressive sight:



Tomorrow, we'll move on to yet another island, not far away from here. Which one? See tomorrow's instalment.

Location:Strandvejen,Ærøskøbing,Denmark

Ærøskøbing

Just a quick post without a picture, that will come tomorrow.

After a very short (4.65 nm) trip we arrived on Ærø. When a Danish place name ends in "ø", it means it's an island. The converse is not true: not all islands end in 'ø'. It's similar to the ending in 'oog' in German or even Dutch, which also indicates (even means) 'island'.

Some time ago, I promised that we would get to places with more 'Scandinavian vowels', and this is probably as good as it gets as this time around we are in Ærøskøbing.
This is known as the 'fairy tale' town, as it has not changed a lot from when it was built in the 1600's and in fact the restrictions on building and renovating are such that not much can be done.

It looks very pretty, we'll post pictures tomorrow. The harbour is very lively, especially since the weather is nice and sunny. Every harbour we have come to in Denmark has a 'grillpladsen', a place where you can 'bar-b-que' or 'braai' your food and eat it. This is extremely popular in Denmark and almost always we see families using these facilities for lunch or dinner. Of course they are spotless, in good repair and are used in such ay manner that they stay like that. Here in Ærøskøbing the harbour even has a galley with a stove, oven and refrigerator which the yachties can use!

Tomorrow, we'll stay here, cycle around over the island and do some provisioning as there is a very nice supermarket right next to the harbour and we plan to be on some (very) small islands after tomorrow.

Watch this space!