Our position is 55:08.175N 15:08.683E

Distance covered 252.6 Nm

After a busy day sightseeing it was a bit of a struggle to ready ourselves to set off on our 2 day passage to Bornholm but the wind was going round towards the North and we were hopeful it would stay there for the duration. We had to wait while the Stena ferry entered the harbour before getting clearance from the port control to leave but we were soon waving goodbye to the cows and heading south.

this hill was a significant sight along the very flat Latvian coast

The passage went pretty much as anticipated. The wind was favourable for the majority of the passage in terms of direction and was up and down in strength. At one time we were surfing down the waves at 8.5 knots at others the sails were only just filling. We saw some other shipping but nothing that caused any problems.

Lovely sunrises (and sunsets) during the passage

 Untroubled by other shipping

We had a hitchhiker who seemed to want to help with sailing the boat – perhaps he thought we were going in the wrong direction!

We arrived at Svaneke mid-afternoon on the Tuesday, slightly earlier than anticipated when we set off and we also gained an hour when we arrived due to the time zone change. The harbour was smaller and fuller than expected but we found a spot alongside a Polish boat. The sun was shining and the harbourmaster told us that Svaneke was regarded as the sunniest and most beautiful place in Denmark. It was certainly very sunny while we were there and also very attractive. We had an excellent celebratory meal in the evening at the seafront restaurant.

Approaching Svaneke

harbour entrance

tied up alongside the Polish boat

Svaneke inner harbour for local boats

The following day the Polish boat was leaving and some of the other boats also left, so we moved alongside the inner wall. This also made it easier to fill with diesel from cans provided by the harbourmaster. It seemed their fuel pontoon was inoperative. The harbourmaster informed us that he had a big boat coming in later so we would have to stay where we were and not go back to the outer wall but we didn’t mind that apart from the fact that the downside of the beautiful town was that it was slightly overrun with school parties during the day and they tended to sit along the wall making it difficult to get on and off the boat, but we managed to restrain ourselves from pushing them in the water as we went by.

Arranging the diesel delivery

Alongside the inner wall

After this we went for a walk round the town, which was indeed very picturesque and interesting.

The town church

small harbour on other side of town

The fish smokery

and the smoked fish

This is a slightly stalled community project to rebuild a traditional wooden boat

The expected boat was certainly big and there were times I wondered if it would get in and be able to tie up and still leave room for everyone else to come and go, but full marks to the skipper and his thrusters. He only had one crew member as well. The owner wasn’t aboard. Although it was British flagged it was actually Swedish owned and crewed.