Our position is 55:54.561N 12:40.390E

Distance !2.8Nm

A lazy start to Tuesday, but no hurry to leave as there was no wind in the morning, which was not a problem as we had only a dozen or so miles to cover that day. We left the marina just after midday and motored out of Copenhagen harbour past the Cruise Ship berths. There were seven huge cruise ships in harbour that morning. We had been hearing, but not seeing, a sea plane operating while we had been in the marina, so we were pleased to watch it landing and taxiing into the harbour. With the ferries and sightseeing boats it’s a bustling place. Once clear we set main and genoa and managed to keep going at 3 or 4 knots on a close reach. Some traffic around but none that worried us, so a very relaxing sail in the sunshine, arriving at Kyrkbacken harbour on the island of Ven at 16:40.

Leaving Copenhagen

Change of courtesy flag needed. Ven is Swedish.

Tranquil Kyrkbacken.  That’s the Kyrk on the hill  and this is the view looking down  from St Ibbs that evening. (St Ibbs seems to be either St James or St Jacobs depending on source)

The tranquillity did not last. During the night the wind got up from a rather unexpected Southerly direction giving us a quite uncomfortable night. It is always a pain to have to get out of a warm bed to check warps and fenders, but better to do it than spend the rest of the night fretting about how secure you are. The night’s grey, wet weather hung around the following morning so our preparations for cycling to the Tycho Brahe Museum were somewhat tardy.

It was still grey and windy when we pedalled off, but as the day progressed the sun came out, the wind dropped, it warmed up and we were overdressed.

Inside the Tycho Brahe Museum. The building is an old church close to the site of his original observatory. Lots of good displays and replica instruments.

He made quite accurate celestial measurements in the 1500s before Galileo invented his telescope, and while his model of the solar system was wrong, his data enabled Kepler, his student, to make his correct and ground breaking

work, leading to Newton’s work on gravity.

This is the observatory. Obviously everything above ground is a reconstruction done in the 1950’s, but it is on top of the excavated remains of Tycho’s five underground observatories.

After all this intellectual stuff we needed lunch, and after that some exercise so we rode our bikes round the island, sometimes on the tracks we intended to be on.

The island is a nature reserve so wildlife abounds, especially hares and pheasants.

Backvicken is where the ferry comes in bringing the summer visitors who, it seems, all hire bikes. 1,300 to be rented out here.

Norreborg is a tiny but charming harbour on the north shore  and this view of Kyrkbacken from the West, completes our circular ride