Fw: Danish gales en route to Kiel and on to Helgoland at 54.10.50N 7.53.70E
Restless of Auckland
Roland and Consie Lennox-King
Sat 19 Sep 2009 15:23
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We sent the last log 21August from Kråkmarö,on
the east coast of southern Sweden. We have spent the last month sailing south
firstly through the southern part of the archipelago of 24,000 islands
which are beautiful and one could spend a summer there alone. Our last
anchorage in the archipelago was at Strupö. To get south one has to
pass Oland, a long skinny island stretching some 140 ks along the coast with a
boring difficult sail down either side. We chose the inside and and had head
winds to Kalmar, where there is another impressive castle and a
star-shaped medieval walled village. In Kalmar we met a lot of foreign
yachts, even a few from the UK, and had a social time there for 4
nights while Roland tried to coax our generator to work and we waited for strong
headwinds to diminish. A Swedish couple, Lennart and Ingvor, invited us to their
home for a Swedish meal and showed us his 10m sloop he had won a
design competition with and many were built as the perfect cruiser some 15 years
ago. Apart from his boat behind his house Lennart has a about 9 vintage
cars including a 1931 red Morgan 3-wheeler car, which he had
great pride in taking Roland for a ride around Kalmar's walled
village in. Lennart also helped Roland on the generator, and they
identified the parts needed to repair it.
From Kalmar we had a long motorsail to Aspö, around the S-W
corner of Sweden, followed by a nice reach to an anchorage at
Dragsö.
>From there it was a nasty beat to windward where we sailed 60 plus to make good
45nm and arrived just on dark at Simrishamn marina. This beautiful
fishing village has a huge cathedral dating from the 1300s, but
we had just missed the Herring Festival by a day !!! What a difference a
day makes as the village was all but dieting on this Monday.
A 5.30 start as
dawn broke saw us motoring the 10 miles to Sandhermn (the Cape
Horn of Sweden) before easing off to a reach for our best sail of the
summer, averaging 8kts for 93n. miles in strong winds to reach the Danish island
of Mon just before darkness fell. We anchored in thick weed in a very very
shallow bay and awoke to see thousands of ducks, geese and swans preparing
to fly south for the winter, and shooters hiding in the reeds catching them. We
had little over a meter under the boat , but with no tide and 30 meters of chain
out we were quite protected from the gale force winds that arrived as
forecast. The depression affected all Europe and the UK and gave many
anchorages upwards of 50 knts , but luckily we were behind a forest ashore and
only had about 28 knts maximum,althought Roland put out an extra
anchor so he could sleep well. We stayed 5 days waiting for
suitable weather to sail across the 80 miles to
Kiel.
7September The
wind improved to SW15-20kts, and we set off, sailing 50n.miles to Nakskov
Fjord at the western end of Lolland island. The next day we set off
early and reached the British Kiel Yacht Club in beautiful summer weather at
1600 hours, having passed a military exercise with bombs going off regularly
most of the day. We had a lovely sail, and tied up at the Yacht Club in time for
a BATH!! and dinner in the Mess for Euros2.50, bargain of the year;!!! For
dinner we joined Tim on 'Full Tilt' with his crew of 2 Mikes. After an
early dinner one of Tim's crew had one of those terrible accidents we all dread:
While climbing aboard over the bow, lost his balance and fell slowly into the
icy water. Roland hoisted him out of the water, but his shoulder was dislocated
and a piece of shoulder bone cracked. He spent the night in hospital
and returned to England the next day. Poor Tim had to wait until he could
find a new crew for his return to the UK. We may see him in Amsterdam.
After
provisioning and buying yet more charts, we set off on the 10
Sept in convoy with Marjorie and Nick on 'Constellation' to the Kiel
canal, locking in around 0900, paid the fee of Euros35, and motored through the
day until we locked into the River Eider at 1600. This was a good
choice and a different route than most take as we missed the notorious
Elbe River with its terrible tides and what would have been a very
uncomfortable beat out of the river . The Eider river wanders through
beautiful countryside, and we anchored by a small settlement for the night,
having eaten a shared meal with 'Constellation'.
11.9.09 That
terrible day, 9.11, we motored along the Eider, passing flat farmland to reach
the town of Friedrichstad, which was in fact originally a Dutch Hansiatic
trading town and most of the buildings looked Duuch . Next morning
we exited the Eider river
sometimes doing 11 knts down the river with the falling tide, to reach the sea
almost due west of Helgoland, two tiny islands, we sailed in strengthening
winds and darkening skies. Here we were also gale bound for 4 nights
due to gales and big seas. This time they were from the NE which gave us a
following sea, but unsuitable conditions to enter any of the Friesian ports
as they are very tidal and exposed to the North Sea. We walked all
round the island and went into every shop, German tourists go there to buy
liquor, duty free and nobody spoke English! We met up again with
British yacht 'Constellation' with Nick and Marjorie on board who were
suffering more than us from the decidedly uncomfortable marina berths
that seemed to attract a vicious cross swell.
We left
Helgoland on 16th September and had the most fantastic downwind run with
poled out headsail and main and mizzen, 12 hours of 15+ kts of wind
into German Friesland. We went into Borkum, reaching a very
delapidated marina for a night before heading back out to sea and sailed in
through the sandbars past Schiermonnikoog island into our first Dutch lock at
Lauwersmeer. Coming into Holland was very exciting, with racing tides, shifting
sandbanks, and the wind behind us as we surfed into the river. We were in
Holland at last!!
We motored south
through Friesland to a lovely town called Dokkum, with 2 huge working
windmills overlooking the canal and 1600 buildings. This is the most
beautiful countryside, with farms and cows, lovely old houses and Dutch boats
tied alongside the banks.
Last night we
slept in a bend of the river in Leeuwarden, capital of Friesland. We have
been through a few locks and several bridges, some of the bridge masters have
dropped a Dutch clog on a fishing line for us to pay the toll
fee. Today was market day and we saw an Organ grinder and stalls
selling herrings and wheels of Dutch cheese.
We will
now carry on south through the Standing Mast route to Amsterdam, where we
hope to meet up with many of Consie's (Blaauw) family, visit potential boat
yards and then make ready the boat for its winter holiday before we leave
for warmer climes in about a month's
time.
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