Stockholm is far away.....

When last night I was packing the pilots (the books telling you about harbours and routings) for the Baltic away, my eye fell on this map:





In the left bottom corner you can just see the Netherlands. Kiel looks quite near to it. Stockholm, the furthest point of this trip is also clearly marked. You can more or less see our trip, from Kiel up the Danish west coast. The island in the Kattegat is Læsø. Then Göteborg and the Trolhätten canal, lake Vänern, the Göta canal, north to Stockholm and down the Swedish east coast via Vastervik, Kalmar, Karlskrona and Simrishamn back to Denmark and then Kiel. Quite an adventure to be sure!

Out of the Baltic

With some sadness we saw the lock doors at Kiel Holtenau close behind us this morning. It means the entry to the Kiel Canal and therefore we have left the Baltic. But the thought that we'll be back here next year makes it easy to carry on!

We were fortunate in that a group of yachts were allowed into the 'small lock' together with a coaster (a smallish sea going vessel). Usually they don't allow yachts when they use the small lock for 'big ships'.
The ensuing trip to Rendsburg, which - from this side - is one third of the way down the canal was as usual: interesting but uneventful. You see a number of big ships either coming towards you or passing you, but as they go relatively slowly there are few waves and its no hassle.
We stopped at the Rendsburg Sailing Club, a harbour known by most Baltic crews. It has good facilities, reasonable WiFi and a nice restaurant where we treated ourselves to a 'meal ashore'.

From here its about 5 hours to Brunsbüttel where we enter the Elbe. To Otterndorf it is only 9 miles from Brunsbüttel, but a tricky stretch it is: the Elbe is a very tidal river and you have to go to Ottendorf on the outgoing tide. But the prevailing Westerly winds will create a very nasty steep chop against that tide if they are more than about 10 knots. So we need relatively light winds for that stretch and at the moment it looks like that will not happen before Tuesday or Wednesday. And as Rendsburg is a much better place than Brunsbüttel to wait for the weather, we might be here for a few days, which is no problem.

If there is no news tomorrow, there might not be a blog post. But before we start moving again, I'll let you know!

Location:Rendsburg

Side trip to Kiel

Today we took the ferry from Laboe to Kiel. Its a nice one hour trip, during which the boat stops at about 5 different places. It takes you right from our harbour to the centre of Kiel for 4 Euros. Pretty good we thought!
The purpose of the trip was to see what Kiel looks like but also to buy some stuff for the boat. Quite simple stuff, like prop shaft grease.
According to the Pilot (the book that tells you everything about sailing in the Baltic), there is a 'large and well stocked chandlery in the Kiel city centre'. So we asked the Tourist Information and they told us there was a small shop in town and a big one a few KM away. So we first went to the small one. We asked for what we needed, whereupon the owner tried to sell us winch grease. When I explained that this was way to specialised for what we needed, he started a long diatribe which boiled down to telling us that the reason he was so poorly stocked was not him, the shop owner, but us, the customers who buy things through the internet. Well, with that attitude it is no wonder that there is no 'large and well stocked chandlery' in Kiel anymore for the thousands of yachts that arrive here and cannot even buy things through the internet!
So we went to the big shop instead. It was big indeed, but 75% was clothing and the rest mainly expensive bottles of boat cleaning materials. The prop shaft grease was only available in very small (250g) containers of dubious specification. Again the manager was most unhelpful. When we needed something in Denmark a few months ago, everyone went out of their way to help us. Not here: take it or leave it.
Add to that the queue jumping to get on and off the ferry and we wish we were back in Denmark or Sweden again! Just a different people. See my post about the Elbe - Lübeck canal last year. The Germans (and I dont want to generalise but it feels like it) see everything like a competition that they have to win!
Anyway, the ferry ride was nice, we treated ourselves to lunch in Kiel and still enjoyed the day. Our plan is to enter the Kiel Canal tomorrow and get as far as Rendsburg. From memory there is reasonable WiFi there, so there might be a blog past tomorrow again.

Through a fog bank to Laboe

We have not shown you any sunsets for a while and yesterday in Bagenkop we were treated to a nice one, so here we go:






After getting ourselves and Onbekommerd ready for another 'crossing', we set off around 9:30. The weather was as promised: sunny and no wind to speak of. Ideal!
A bit over an hour later we noticed the horizon disappearing. The visibility decreased and soon we could not see more than 50m! The two yachts that had left the harbour just before us disappeared from view too. Fortunately we were not near any shipping routes. We could see up to 2 miles on the radar (including the yachts mentioned) and on the VHF there were several yachts closer to the shipping lanes asking the big ships to look out for them on the radar. This lasted for over an hour and then the visibility improved slowly. First we could spot the yachts and a bit later a big ship in the shipping route quite far away. We had already changed our course so we would pass West of Kiel lighthouse so we did not have to cross the Kiel - Baltic route at all, only the much quieter Kiel - Flensburg one.

Soon we saw Kiel lighthouse, which is quite a landmark. And to the East of it there was a lot of shipping. By this time it was nice and sunny again:





From the lighthouse it is about 6 miles to Laboe, one of the popular stopping points for yachts coming from or going to the Kiel canal. So that's where we are now, back in Germany and the Danish courtesy flag has been replaced by the German one. Laboe is not a 'guest harbour' at all. Like so many (if not all) German harbours it has no guest places but a system where a green shield indicates that the normal occupant is away and the place available for guests. Now it is out of season and mid-week, so there are very few places available as the owner is 'at home'. I think we have the last one (and we arrived at 2pm).

We'll stay here tomorrow and take the ferry into Kiel itself, which we have never seen. On Friday we'll go into the canal, to Rendsburg which is not quite halfway to Brunsbüttel which is where it connects to the river Elbe.

Location:Laboe

Last Danish stop

I think I forgot to mention that we were in Spodsbjerg yesterday, the only harbour on the East coast of Langeland.
Today we moved to Bagenkop on the southern tip of the same island.
It was an uneventful but pleasant trip, with still between 1 and 2 knots of current against us which added a bit to the 18 mile voyage.
The harbour was almost empty when we arrives around 2. Now, at almost 8:30 it is full.





With the expected conditions tomorrow, we expect there will be an Armada on its way to Kiel although it should be better for us than for the sailing yachts as the wind is predicted to be between 3 and 6 knots (from the North).

So tomorrow we should be in Laboe, just outside Kiel. Now in Germany we don't have a SIM card for the iPad. It's a very difficult process to get one, with registration of your passport etc. and very expensive too. So we'll rely on WiFi in the harbours. From experience Laboe is ok, as long as the harbourmaster is on duty and you can get an access code from him (if he is not on duty you pay the harbour fees at the beer stall and they don't always have the cards with the access codes. So the long and the short of it is that the regularity of our posts will suffer a bit in the next week or two. For family: we can be reached on my (Dutch) mobile phone number if and when required.

Location:Humblevej,Bagenkop,Denmark

About currents and waves

We were aware the the Smålandsfarvandet, the waters between Sælland and Lolland can get quite 'choppy', even in not too strong winds. Last year, on the way from Omø to Fejø, we experienced 'washing machine conditions' in light winds. So we were not surprised today when, in a 12 knot breeze' it was choppy again shortly after leaving Femø. And as expected, when we emerged into the Langelands Sund, between Lolland and Langeland, and passed the windmill park there, the sea conditions improved enough to make coffee. Perfect!
As we crossed the Langelands Sund, the wind picked up (it was a nice East North Easterly, right behind us) and we felt the current which was going in the opposite direction, in the end at about 2.5 knots. This 'current against wind' condition made the waves steeper and although still from behind it got a bit uncomfortable for the last 10 miles or so. Closer to the harbour, the current dropped and there was no problem once we had located the harbour entrance. We tied up without a problem, which is more than can be said about some of the yachts that came in after us....

Sorry, no pictures today. I have a short video that I took before the waves got steep, but as we only have a slow Internet connection, that is not going to work. I'll try to post it at some future time.

The wind is supposed to drop significantly tomorrow and we plan to go to Bagenkop, the last Danish stop of this year's trip.

Location:Denmark

Another Femø Day

As mentioned yesterday, we stayed on this island for another day. The weather continues to be really nice, we can't even remember when last we had a cloudy day! It was still windy, but many people left as they have to go to work tomorrow.......
Our neighbours, with the friendly dog, stayed as well:






We took a nice 2 hour walk on the island before lunch.

Tomorrow, the plan is to go to Spodsbjerg, on Langeland. Should be a 4 hour trip.

Location:Femø Havn,Lolland,Denmark