The last post was (necessarily) rather serious and not really representative of the drivel you've come to expect from this blog. So let's lower the tone at the outset by saying that we stayed in a place called Middelfart en route to Sonderborg. Yes, really. A place with "fart" in its name. Oh how we sniggered! Is there a lower or an upper fart? Or a quiet or a loud one? Or even a young or an old one? Suggestions (suitable for publication!) from equally juvenile readers in the comments box please.
Before Middelfart, we visited Anholt, Ebeltoft and Tuno.
Anholt is a Danish island in the Kattegat, midway between Jutland and Sweden. It's 7 miles long and 4 miles wide at its widest point. It has less than 200 permanent residents. Only the western fifth of it - hilly, moraine country - is inhabited, with the remainder being a treeless desert. The island is popular with visitors because of its beaches and its ideal location for yachts in transit. To our surprise - this was now August and no longer the main holiday season - the harbour was pretty much full when we arrived, mostly with German flagged yachts.
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| Near Goteborg - note rainbow, a sign of a downpour to come! |
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| A fellow yacht spotted en route |
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| One of Anholt's beaches |
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| Anholt's busy road |
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| The desert |
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| The moraine |
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| One of Anholt's many holiday homes |
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| Note to self - hold in that stomach! Fugle? Oh very funny... |
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| The entrance to Anholt's village |
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| Looking over the village to the desert beyond |
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| An Anholt street - unpaved |
We spent 3 nights in Anholt relaxing after our 69 mile voyage (we hadn't been at sea for a while remember!) before moving on to Ebeltoft, Jutland. This was another 60 miles through the water, although not so far over the ground. There are not supposed to be tides to speak of in the Baltic, but there are currents in this area that run from the south to the north most of the time, so it's like fighting a tide as you make your way south.
Leaving Anholt the waves were short and steep, as expected, until we cleared the shallow water. Unfortunately Jo's Stugeron (other brands of travel sickness pills are available) had not had time to work and consequently Jo did not feel well at all.
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| Reconstruction - Jo feeling seasick! |
Fortunately this passed before too long as seasickness is never pleasant and particularly not when you have 9 hours still to go.
We passed a massive wind farm as we headed for the mainland and I was interested to see what effect all those wind turbines would have on the wind as we passed. Unsurprisingly I suppose, each time we got level with a line of turbines the wind dropped and Cyclone slowed. Then as we passed into cleaner air we sped up again. Nothing dramatic, but noticeable all the same.
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| Wind farm near Anholt |
Ebeltoft is another impossibly clean, tidy, well maintained and pretty Danish town. It is popular with tourists because of the natural beauty of the area and its close proximity to many beaches. Ebeltoft is also home to the Frigate Jylland, the longest wooden warship in the world, and Poxy (I wonder if that means the same in Danish?).
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| Jylland |
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| Poxy - how unkind! |
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| Ebeltoft gets its name from the Danish word for apple and there are lots of these in the town |
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| Ebeltoft town centre |
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| Ebeltoft's former town hall |
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| An Ebeltoft house |
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| ... and another |
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| One of Ebeltoft's cobbled streets |
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| A private garden alongside the street. |
Keen to make progress towards home, we headed for the island of Tuno after a couple of nights. This was only 17.5 miles away, but ended up being 22 through the water because of those pesky currents. Like Anholt, Tuno has few permanent residents (110 apparently) but a busy harbour in the tourist season. The church tower is unusual because it is the only combined church tower and lighthouse in Denmark.
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| Those pesky currents! |
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| Tuno from the air |
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| The approach to Tuno |
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| Tuno church with integral lighthouse |
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| There are no cars on Tuno, but quite a few of these... |
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| Ugly, huh? |
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| A bit of modern art I actually like! Clever use of an old tree trunk |
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| Shopping Tuno style... |
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| .... and again.... |
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| ... and again |
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| We went crazy - spend, spend, spend... |
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| Our first double box mooring. Weird. |
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| Tuno's beach |
From Tuno it was 45 miles to Middelfart, through the Little belt strait which runs between the island of Funen and Jutland. The narrowest part of this strait is just 1 km wide and the current flows very quickly through it. Fortunately by now we'd discovered the excellent dmi.dk website which not only gives very detailed weather forecasts, but also provides details of currents. Naturally to benefit from the current through the Little Belt we had to leave Tuno at 0530 (is there any other time to start a voyage?) but we're glad we did as this ultimately saved a lot of time.
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| Bridge over the Little belt |
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| Even the Danish swans are neat and tidy |
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| The old railway bridge over the Little belt |
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| Strait-side scenery |
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| Now I've heard of boats being referred to as floating caravans, but this is ridiculous! |
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| Fancy a swim? |
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| Middelfart's old part |
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| One of Middelfart's small harbours |
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| Artistic shot! |
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| A scenic walk near Middelfart |
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| Hindsgavl park resident |
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| View across the Little belt near our marina |
We came across this when returning to Cyclone. I was amazed to see what appeared to be a yacht being lifted by a strop attached to its coachroof or saloon table.
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| Really? |
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| Surely not? |
I had to ask and it transpires that all X yachts have a frame attached to their keels with a lifting point that enables the boat to be lifted in perfect balance. That was news to me, but what a good idea!
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| Cyclone on her berth. Not a bad view from the orangery, eh? |
After a couple of nights at Middelfart it was time to move on. The weather forecast wasn't great, with winds of up to 34 knots forecast, but the wind direction appeared favourable and the sailing would be in very sheltered waters with little space for waves of any size to build. What sealed it for us was that the forecast for the following few days saw the wind direction turning against us.
The forecast was regrettably pretty accurate, although they didn't mention the thunderstorms or cloudbursts!
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| Waiting for King Christian X's bridge to open at Sonderborg |
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| Sonderborg's coastal walkway |
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| Sonderborg castle |
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| Sonderborg's town quay |
We're now sitting in Sonderborg Lystbadehavn listening to the wind whistling around the boats and watching the desperate manoeuvres of some of the arriving boats - not unlike my own when we arrived! Tomorrow the wind is forecast to shift towards the west and decrease a little, so we're hoping to sail to Holtenau for the Kiel Canal.
