Copenhagen

We intended to rise at 0700 and set off at 0800 for Copenhagen - a distance of about 35 miles.

However, having listened to the wind howling around the boat since about 0430, and rehearsed how we were going to get out of our long box mooring umpteen times, I 'accidently' woke Jo up at about 0545. As we were both awake anyway(!) I suggested we set off without further delay and we left Gilleleje harbour at about 0700.

It sounds easy when you put it like that - as if we just released the lines and gently moved off. Yeh, right! Box moorings (have I mentioned them?) have their plus points, but entering or leaving them with a strong crosswind is not something you look forward to. To leave, you have to let go of your bow line and reverse between two telegraph poles - deftly removing your lines from the poles as you go. The trouble is that as soon as you engage reverse on Cyclone she heads off to starboard - i.e. she doesn't go backwards in a straight line - until you've got a bit of speed up. Speed is something you really don't want when undertaking this manoeuvre. It just means you hit things harder! But that's the least of your problems. If you have a crosswind, as soon as you let go of the bowline the bow just blows sideways. So what you need is a rugby forward on the bow with a long line to slip who can hold the bow in line with the posts as the boat is slowly pulled backwards on it's stern lines. Now I appreciate that those who don't know Jo have yet to see her without her sailing coat on. Suffice to say that, by the time she's removed that coat and the 25 thermal layers that are usually in place beneath it, she bears little resemblance to the required forward! This time we were fortunate to have a line strung by the berth's resident between the windward post and the pontoon, so Jo's task was 'simply' to hold onto this having slipped the bowline and walk it through her hands as the boat went backwards - thereby keeping the bow in line. Well full marks to Jo "the gorilla" for effort! With a cloud of smoke, copious revs and some shouting, we made it through the posts successfully, if not exactly elegantly! Phew. .......and we left Gilleleje harbour at about 0700.

The sea was quite flat for our trip but with winds of over 30 knots at times, we were glad to see Copenhagen loom into view. We'd booked a berth in Christianshavn Canal which meant we had to pass under yet another lifting bridge. As usual, we arrived soon after the opening time and so spent 45 minutes motoring around in circles until it was next due to open. Ho hum.

Trekroner Fort off Copenhagen

Bridge opening to give us access to the canal

Christianhavn Canal - rather like Amsterdam

Our plan was to spend 4 nights here and have a good look around. We started with a walk around Christianshavn itself which includes an area known as Christiania or Freetown Christiania - a self proclaimed autonomous neighbourhood of some 850 residents covering 34 acres. It was started by a group of hippies and is, well, a bit different!

Christiania

Christiania art

... and more art.

We then waddled over to the other side of the river and followed a self guided walking tour which took in many of the sights - see pictures for a flavour of the place:

Bishop Absalon who founded Copenhagen in 1167. You don't mess with the clergy in these parts!

Nyhavn - the old port

Amalienborg Palace - home of the Royal Family

The Marble Church....

... and its impressive dome

The golden onion domes on the Russian Orthodox Church

Some bird with a tail on a rock

Rosenborg Palace - the Crown Jewels are in there

The Copenhagen Synagogue - sadly now under armed guard since a man was killed by a terrorist in February 2015 whilst protecting others

One of the Tivoli amusements

The picture below shows Our Saviour's Church, Christianshavn. You'll notice it has a sort of spiral tower and, if you look closely, that there is a railing running around it. You can climb the tower and go outside to climb that spiral staircase too - with the handrail to save you from certain death!

Our Saviour's Church. Note spiral staircase outside the tower.

Now I've mentioned before that I'm not a great fan of heights, but this was something else. It was blowing a hoolie up there! What if the handrail gave way? What if there were too many people on the stairs and they gave way? What if the wind blew the tower over? Oh pull yourself together man!

Well I did, and I took the pictures below too (except the one looking down - Jo took that!), trembling knees and white knuckles or not!

View of the canal. Cyclone's down there!

Another view

And another

Ooo errrr! Look at the size of those people! And where the safety net?

Just so you don't think this sailing lark is all glamour (is there any?) here's the inside of a launderette. It seems like Jo's led a charmed life - even before she met me - as she'd never been in one before this trip!

That it should come to this, eh Jo?

Tomorrow we head for Ystad in southern Sweden. 

Bank holidays, Vikings and Jim - Hundested, Roskilde and Gilleleje

Sunday 24th May saw us up at about 0500 ready for a 70 mile sail to Hundested. What we didn't know (we mostly don't know what day it is!) was that Monday 25th May is a holiday here; clearly this weekend was a good one to dust off the boat and head for, er, Hundested.

I suppose we'll have to get used to it when the dreaded July arrives, but we were surprised to find no available box moorings as we wove our way through the narrow channels that remained between the rafted boats. Fortunately we managed to find a suitable space to raft up as, after a 12 hour sail, we really didn't fancy setting off for somewhere else.

Hundested has a beach, galleries and places to eat (if you can afford them!). It also has the house of a Danish polar explorer that you can visit but, to be honest, the place didn't really do much for us. We decided to leave after a couple of nights and take what looked like an "interesting" trip south to Roskilde, a former capital of Denmark.

Cyclone's in there if you look carefully - Hundested after everyone had left!

The trip to Roskilde was interesting for 3 reasons: Scenery, an opening bridge and depth - or rather, a lack of depth!

Cyclone disrupting the traffic again....

Some of the scenery en route

It doesn't seem possible to get photographs of scenery that do it justice, but the fjord was very attractive with fields or trees adorning the banks and, for the most part, blue skies too. The fjord was also very shallow, such that the only way to make progress for much of the way was to follow narrow buoyed channels - so mucho concentration for the 6 or so hours it took us to get there! It was rather alarming when, at one point, the "shallow" alarm on the depth sounder went off and the sounder itself announced that the water was only 1.4m deep - particularly as Cyclone has a 1.7m draft! Then we saw the nearby swans pulling up long strings of weed and so concluded that - as we were still afloat - we must be passing through some of that.

Roskilde is famous for its cathedral and, more recently, its Viking museum. The cathedral has served for many years as the final resting place for Denmark's royalty. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and contains no less than 39 royal graves. Needless to say, these are not hidden away underground (for the most part). Instead, the tombs - some of which are very elaborate - are in public view.

One of the many tombs in the cathedral

It's not just tombs though. The cathedral is a very beautiful place with lots to look at and admire.

Cathedral organ, dating from 1425 with 1654 facade

Huh? Never mind if pigs could fly.....

The cathedral from a distance 

One of the reasons that Roskilde is where it is is that there are many natural springs supplying fresh drinking water. In fact, legend has it that King Roar founded the city and named the city "Roars Kilde" - which means the spring of Roar - after himself.

One of the many springs

As mentioned above, Roskilde fjord is very shallow. Historically, there were just 3 navigable channels to the city, making it relatively easy to defend from a seabourne attack. To make an attack even more difficult, the resident Vikings blocked 2 of the channels; one by scuttling 5 of their ships filled with rocks. That left just the one channel which, because of its winding nature, needed local knowledge to safely navigate.

1962 excavations revealed these 5 ships, which were then painstakingly removed and reassembled for display in the museum. There's more left of some than others, but there was sufficient for lots to be learned about the ships themselves and how they were made. This knowledge was then used to create authentic replicas that are on display at the museum and which can be taken out for a row / sail by visitors. More significantly, the replicas enabled much to be learned about the speed and seaworthiness of the craft. They even sailed the one in the photo below to Ireland and back!

Sea Stallion: 30m long and sailed with a crew of 60!

The originals in the museum

Some more complete than others!

All cultured out, on the 29th May we retraced our steps past Hundested and out into the Kattegat en route for Gilleleje. This is a really nice lttle town at the most northern point of Sjaelland - see pics below for a flavour:

Gilleleje harbour

One of many beautifully kept old cottages

Our berth in the harbour. Lucky we stopped in time!

Weather permitting, we intend to go to Copenhagen tomorrow. We've reserved a berth in Christianshavns canal  - right in the city centre.

Now it's time for some wine and a special toast to our very good friend Jim who is currently recovering from heart surgery. To you Jim. Here's to a full and speedy recovery. And of course to Del too. All the best to you both.

The perfect sail? Rudkobing (Langeland) and Kerteminde (Hindsholm or Fyn?)

After writing the last blog we stayed a further day in Marstal before setting off for Rudkobing on the island of Langeland - a distance of about 10 miles. We spent that day getting better acquainted with Marstal itself; including the museum and the beach.

Probably the poshest beach hut in the world - with its own gnome (where's the fishing rod?)

Huts aside, the beach wasn't anything special but the maritime museum was remarkable. Housed inside a couple of 'ordinary' old town buildings was a warren that contained a vast amount of information, memorabilia and artifacts. There were a huge number of incredibly detailed model ships that had been painstakingly created by hand - far too many to be given the attention they deserved. Perhaps most remarkable of all though were the interiors of boats that had been recreated inside the old town buildings - see pictures below:

The bridge...

... and down a ships corridor and some stairs was a cabin.....

..... and lounge area.

And so to Rudkobing.

Rudkobing's claim to fame is a bloke called Orsted who, amongst other things, gets the credit for the discovery of electromagnetism. That's him in the picture below.

Hans Christian Orsted

Before we could explore the town though, we had to negotiate our first 'Harbourmoney' machine. We knew we had to do this because a very stern message on the electricity supply board informed us that we must pay up immediately - and before connecting up to electricity - or face being charged double!

The Harbourmoney automat. Fortunately instructions were available in English

Having discharged our duty we went for a walk about town. The pictures below give a good idea of what it was like. More of the same really; pretty, in good repair, litter free and with an immaculate church!

A Rudkobing street...

... town centre.....

.... and windmill

Langeland is connected to the island of Tasinge by a bridge and Tasinge, in turn, is connected to the island of Fyn by another. To avoid cutting off the harbours, some of these bridges are build pretty high. The one from Langelande to Fyn has a clearance of 26m over the water - so no problem for us getting under there then!

Langeland bridge, taken from the marina

Being so high, they also provide spectacular views over the area. It's hard to give an appreciation of the beauty of a place when taking pictures from a moving boat, but I think the one below - taken from the bridge - illustrates it well.

Tasinge with Fyn in the distance

The 21st May saw us making a bit of effort to cover some ground and we set off for Kerteminde, some 40 miles away.

Explorer pose!

That meant either taking a short cut under part of a bridge linking Fyn with Sjaelland that is 18m high or opting to take the longer route (that the ships take) under a section that is 65m high.

Now the original brochure for Cyclone says that the top of her mast is 13.9m above the waterline. We have a VHF aerial, windex and anemometer mounted on the mast, so that adds maybe another 0.5m. So we should have at least 3m clearance under the bridge. No problem then.

But what if it was a misprint in the brochure? And what if the water level is higher than normal? Strong southerly winds can do that and we'd had some of them.

So I measured a photograph of Cyclone (yes, really!) - length and then mast height. I knew the length, so could work out the mast height. It came out at 13.7m, so pretty close to the brochure really. And I googled it, but could only find the brochure quoted as a source.

Oh it'll be alright!

And then the bridge approaches. We furled the headsail to get a better view but were still making 6 knots towards it under main alone... It went very quiet. Very, very quiet......

/

What do you reckon

Will it?

Too late to change our minds now!

And....... phew!!

And so to Kerteminde.

Kerteminde, like those on Aero and Langeland, is another pretty town. That's the free museum in the picture below, but there are plenty more attractive buildings in the town,

Kerteminde museum

What makes the place special though is the Viking museum at nearby Ladby. This is based around a Viking ship grave where, in the early 900s, a king was sent off on his last journey in a "Death Ship".

He was buried in his ship, which is 21.5m long and 3m wide, with all his fine possessions, 11 horses and 3 or 4 dogs. Whilst all the wood has gone the bones can still be seen, along with the rivets, shroud rings, anchor and chain. Having been carefully excavated, it's all preserved in a concrete bunker in its original location.

Entrance to Viking Ship Grave

The ship

Some of the bones

The original anchor and chain

They are building a replica of the ship, using original methods where possible, which is due to be launched next year. It might then be sailed to England for a little rape and pillaging - according to the guy selling the tickets in any case!

An authentic replica under construction

Cycling the 5km back to Kerteminde we came across the Jampot rally - so called, I'm told, because of the look of the rear shock absorbers fitted to certain Matchless and AJS motorbikes. I didn't know there were so many still around - many of which had made the long trip from England.

Jampot rallyists

If you look carefully under the bikes you'll see a little square of cardboard that was issued to each attendee to keep the oil from staining the cobbles!

Not the world's fastest Indian, but was it the model that Munro's bike was based on?

So why is this entry caption the perfect sail? Because it very nearly was! Pleasant winds, sunshine, beautiful scenery, the mast didn't get knocked down(!) and the ride was Rolls Royce smooth in the flat water. To cap it all, we were joined by 2 porpoises on one occasion and a single one a little later on.

If we could just get those damned box moorings right!