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After an express sailing in Danish
and Swedish waters last year, we get back to the Kattegat to explore it
in further details. We also add a new capital city to Saltimbanque's
name: Copenhaguen!
More Danish and Swedish pictures in our page "Pictures".
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450 miles sailed
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9 July : Lysekil Bastevik – Grundsund (8M) |
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The
boat is now a 2h30 drive from home, and right after our day of work on
that Friday we are already in holidays on Saltimbanque! We quickly
prepare the boat before going to bed. Indeed first day of holidays also
means first gale this year ! 35 knots of wind forecasted on Saturday
afternoon, we plan for an early start and a short navigation.
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| We
start beating against the wind as we normally do, using our jib, more
practical for tight tacks in between the rocks. 2 hours later in a wind
which already picks up, we enter the fishing harbour of Grundsund that
we picked for our first stop. There are still many available spots at
lunch time, and we moor bow to the quay and stern on a laid rope. As
there is no tide here the mooring techniques are the same as in the
Mediterranean Sea ! | 
Grundsund, a good shelter ! |
Wild roses, typical from the Baltic shores | The
wind starts picking up, but we are admirably sheltered, right on the lee
of a high island. We have no issue leaving Saltimbanque while we go and
visiting the surroundings. 1 year already that we are based in Sweden,
but the landscapes still appeal a lot to us. In between the round and
pink rocks we find sometimes a bay with crystal clear waters, sometimes
a channel where a few sailboats are rushing to a shelter before the
gale, sometimes a string of rocks where the sea bursts into a cloud of
foam. We walk to the lighthouse of Islandsberg that we reach by a full
gale: we can hardly stand up ! We get sheltered behind the tower to get
a glimpse of the natural show...
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| Back to the
silence of the boat, still ideally sheltered. A big snake enjoys the
sun on the quay, right above the water, quite unusual... |
We checked, it's just a grass snake |
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10 July : Grundsund – Öckerö (46M)
Sailing along the rocks | The
wind has dropped as quickly as it had picked up and we soon hoist all
the sails in the Sunday morning. The swell though is still here, making
our progression painful. We decide to cut short through the rocks to
start with, motoring during 1 hour against the wind, but the shortcut
is worth it.
When out of the Gullholmen channel we switch Junior
off and start tacking against a 10 knot wind and under a grey sky. We
hit the swell from the day before and hardly reach 4 knots. When we
tack, it becomes evident that we have a good knot of current in the
face. Our speed falls down to 3 knots and we do not make progress. It's
no tide stream, no hope that its direction would change in 6 hours. And
guess what ? Now it rains...
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We
are hardly a few miles offshore, but we are alone, not a single
sailboat close to us. Yet all the marinas are full. When looking
closely,
we spot the sail boats along the coast, very close to the rocks. The
shore of the Bohuslän - this area of Sweden - is bordered by rocks and
small islands, creating very narrow but navigable channels. We call
this the « Skjærgård » (litterally "field of rocks"), and the
boats here have no intention to get out of them to sail offshore !
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Comorants and geese |
Landscape in the Skjærgård | Given
the swell and current conditions, we decide to do like the locals and
find calmer waters in the rocky maze. The wind helps us by a few
degrees and we can sail in between Ramholmen and Bussholmen. And so
changes the world: the sea is flat, the landscape of raw granite is
fantastic, here a colony of seals, here a jumping porpoise, we can't
number the cormorants and the oyster catchers... Our heading is much
better in calm waters and even the current looks weaker except for the
narrowest passages. Saltimbanque's hull is very clean (it must be the
water temperature...) and we glide at over 6 knots in the Skjærgård…
We stop for a few hours in Öckerö to let some lightening storms getting away with the night.
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11 July : Öckerö – Lerkil (21M) |
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The
wind is supposed to pick up quite a lot in the afternoon and we would
be glad to progress a bit. Let's wake up at 3am then and leave with the
day light a bit before 4. We realise that we are already much further
South than home, it is actually dark at night here !
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We
beat against the wind to get out of the Skjærgård as the wind is still
desperately blowing from the South, still facing the current, then tack
and tack in the great channel of Göteborg. We still manage to sail in
between 2 islands just to stay tuned.
The wind is handable,
sailing with mainsail and jib, and Laure goes in to have a few minutes
of rest. She has hardly closed her eyes that the wind picks up. We take
the first reef, then the second reef, and we prepare the 3rd one as we
now reach a good 25 knots of real wind. The sea is covered with white
puffs.
We get the latest weather forecasts: none plans for so
much wind so early in the morning, but all the models see it getting
stronger in the afternoon. It seems like the gale is a bit ahead of
schedule... What is the closest harbour ? Lerkil, 4NM on portside ? We
keep our 2 reefs and pull the tiller by 10 degrees.
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The end of the Skjærgård |
The
follows half an hour at 6-7 knots constantly and we arrive in the small
harbour of Lerkil. The swedish neighbour asks us for the wind force
outside. We do not have any anemometer, but we explain that we were on
the verge to take the 3rd reef, so probably 25. He turns away without a
word and with a weird face, leaving us a bit perplex. We will
understand later that if we from southern Europe naturally use knots to
talk about the wind force, Scandinavians only use meters per seconds !
Our 25 - knots - have been understood as 25 m/s, which is 50 knots !
Not surprising that the neighbour thought we were totally mythomaniac !
We also meet a Belgian fellow based in Zeeland, who took the summer off
to discover Scandinavia. The vast majority of the boats we meet are
from Scandinavia, to which you add about 10% of Germans. We find a few
lost Dutchs but that's it. We are out of the Brits' territory.
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The landscape has already changed, flatter, greener
| In
Lerkil, there is... nothing ! We then decide to walk for a few
kilometers to check that nature reserve further North. Nice landscapes
which are already different from the ones of our port where granite
rules without sharing. There are still a few rocks of course, but we
start seeing meadows, shallow bays, swamps. The reserve hosts various
animals, birds, cows, but also snakes and adorable ticks: we will spend
the entire evening to remove them from our clothes... Finally there is
no more drama and the topic is closed the next morning.
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| 12 July : Lerkil – Varberg (32M) |
The
wind struggles to drop this morning and we decide to stay longer in bed
! We leave at 13h30 with a manageable 5b which makes us powerful
enough to pass through the swell. There is no more rock here, we have
to face the sea... The wind has veered a bit to the South-West and we
can sail on a direct course ! Great News !
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Second
great news, all the more that it was totally inexpected: we have the
current with us. We sail over 6 knots and the sun almost shines. We
left the port thinking we would have a shaky and rainy evening, and we
hardly had time to enjoy the conditions that we already arrive in
Varberg, only 5 big hours after we left !
Then we can even visit the citadelle and the small town of Varberg. We enjoy the
idea of having an ice cream, but it's still quite chilly...
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Arrival in Varberg |
| | | 13 July : Varberg – Rungsted (78M) |
No
gale forecasted for several days, we can finally sail without stopping
! Let's head to the Sound, the channel in between Denmark and Sweden in
the middle of which we find Copenhaguen, the Danish capital city, most
southern objective of our summer cruise.
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Entering the Sound, view of the Swedish side
| We beat
to get out of the channel, then bear away slightly towards the South,
direct course to the entrance of the Sound. Bob steers, the sun shines
and Saltimbanque sails fast at close to 6 knots. The current is still
with us in a manner that we do not explain but that we do enjoy !
The
shore line of Sweden gets lower, further, and comes back as a high
rocky head: this is already the entrance of the Sound ! For sure when
you sail at 6,5 knots over the ground everything goes faster... but the
distances are also shorter than we thought.
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The
wind drops slowly at the end of this day, the sun sinks very slowly
over the horizon, the sea gets flat. We pull the tiller to the entrance
of the Sound. A bit of cosy music (Pink Martini) as we sail along the
Helsingør fortress which inspired Shakespeare for Hamlet. Evening of an
intense poetry... We also change the courtesy flag: we are in Denmark !
The wind turns in our favour slowly and we reach Rungsted at 2am on a perfectly calm water. We can sleep for a few hours.
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Maritime poetry... |
| 14 July : Rungsted – Ven (5M) |
Ven, Swedish but flat like Denmark right on the other side
| In
the middle of the Sound we find the small island of Ven, Swedish, which
looks particularly interesting. But the guides are very clear: the
harbour is totally packed in the high season. We decide to use the
strategy that had already worked in Grundsund: arriving around 10-11 am
when all the boats who have spent the night there will leave for their
day at sea.
We leave at 8am in a wind which has dropped a lot.
Where are our usual 20 knots ? It's an easy 3b from the West that let
us jumping up the large spinneaker to sail the 5NM that lead to the
cute little island.
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Correction,
the VERY cute little island ! The streets are full of flowers, the
yellow fields reflect the grey sky and the red houses. It's very
bucolic. We visit the ruins of Tycho Brahe's observatory. This great
astronomer from the 16th century falls in between Copernic and Kepler
in the history of astral science. Scandinavian - thus accomodating - he
can concede to the first one that the other planets turn around the Sun
- but not the Earth! It stays in the center of the universe, the Sun
turns around it, and the other planets around the Sun. Thanks to the
support of the Danish king (who liked horoscopes...), Tycho Brahe
maintains during about 30 years a small society very advanced in science
of the time in his castle on Ven. Then the King dies, and his heir is
not found of the influence of such communities. So he seizes the
castle. Tycho Brahe leaves in exile in Praha, and dies there from
a bursted bladder the legend has, in the antechamber of a king who liked to have his visitors waiting a bit too much...
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Cute... |
The view from the terrasse :o)
| Back to
the boat, but not before walking all around the island. Laure takes the
time to jump in the water, first swimm of the holidays ! She is blue
when she gets out, it is so nice over the yellow fields...
Back to the harbour in the evening, we gaze at the sunset lights on a magnificent stormy sky. |
| 15 July: Ven – Copenhague (14M) |
It's
hardly 15 NM to the Danish capital city, we can already see the
chimneys of the factories on the horizon. The wind blows from the
North-West at about 15 knots and the trip is just a matter of a few
eventless hours. In the middle of the morning we turn around the small
fortress at the entrance of the canal and head to a small marina in the
city center. More precisely right by the little mermaid ! The statue
(ordered by the owner of the Carlsberg brewery as a tribute to
Andersen's tale) is a bit disappointing: very small, close to shore,
and mostly lost in a continuous flow of tourists. But we like the
symbol: after London, Amsterdam, Lisbon, here is one more European
capital for Saltimbanque :o)
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The famous little mermaid and... the famous little Saltimbanque ! |
The old town Copenhaguen
| We had
hoped that in this large city of the South (everything is relative...),
the blue gaz bottle CampingGaz (butane) would be easy to swap. Further
up North, we only find propane. We load the empty bottles we want to
get rid of in the backpack, cross the canal to the largest shipchandler
of the town. It's hopeless, they would not buy our empty bottles back.
Well let's keep them... we will go back to Brittany one day or
another...
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But for now: let's visit the new city !
The
local city bikes are electric ! With a touch screen and a GPS of
course... What a luxury ! We can bike the beautiul city without getting
tired.
Controlling the maritime traffic gave much wealth to the
Danes from the 15th to the 18th century. Beautiful palaces, many
barracks and nice towers remains from this golden age. Today,
Copenhaguen is rather a young and dynamic city, full of art, music,
restaurants, bars... and bikes !
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| 16 July: Copenhague – Helsingør (22M) |
The famous squat of Christiana
| Our -
electric - wheels carries us onto Christiania this morning. This
district of Copenhaguen, on the other side of the canal, is a
"micro-state" self-declared independant since 1971. Previously a
military barrack now abandoned, it has been colonized by a band of
hippies, peace and love smoker types. The authorities tolerate it as
long as it stays in this area (the sellers on the streets wear masks
not to be identified on toursists' pictures). Outside of the main street a
bit artificial, the atmosphere seems more authentic, the colorful sheds
surprise us in the woods along the canal.
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But
it is already time to leave again (the fully-booked marina doesn't joke
with departure time !) We get out of the canal, turn again around the
fortress... and we sail to the North !
We wanted to see Copenhaguen, we have seen Copenhaguen :o)
And now... let's get back home!
Enjoyable
short navigation, on a direct course on calm waters for once, beam
reaching in 25 knots of wind decreasing... Everything goes well until
we reach the Helsingør castle, and want to switch the engine on.... but
nothing! A small boat sailing by helps us getting in the closest berth.
After a few attempts, Junior wakes up... but we are now keeping a
serious eye on him!
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The
walls of Hamlet's castle shine under the sunset. This fortress was
built around 1420, to collect the tax imposed by the Danish king on the
maritime traffic through this very narrow passage linking the North Sea
and the Baltic Sea. This tax was only suppressed in 1857, after a few
dozen years of insisting diplomacy from the British. We can still see
one of Nelson's canon ball in the roof apparently...
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To be or not to be... in Hamlet's castle !
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| 17 July: Helsingør – Torekov (30M) |
Navigation
in these nordic waters is full of surprises. In particular, an ever
revewed surprise is the direction of the current. As there is no tide
as such, the current follows its own weird laws under dark influences,
function of the atmospheric pressures in the North Sea and in the
Baltic Sea, of the salinity, of the wind of course... and finally only
the Murphy law wins: it's always facing us whatever our direction :o)
(Actually the Danish website http://www.dmi.dk/en/hav/# has perfect current charts, but we didn't know about them yet at that point)
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At sea...
| Anyway,
in this nice morning so much water wanted to enter the Sound while we
were trying to get out of it, that we need 45 minutes to make the 400
meters between the marina and the first buoy. No choice, we call Junior
for help, and it starts perfectly well this morning.
We stay
very close to the shore to avoid the strongest stream of current, and
after one hour under engine power we can sail again, against the wind
of course as it is turning to the North-West. Looks like the wind
follows the same rule as the current...
The
rest of the trip is done quietly, all sails up sometimes sailing close
to 7 knots, and we make it to Torekov at the end of the afternoon. Nice
seaside town whose roses are blown away by the insisting wind.
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| 18 July: Torekov – Læsø (86M) |
And here we go for the longuest navigation of the holidays ! Almost 24h, what a performance !
We
leave beating against the wind of course, as this is our destiny... The
sea is still painful when beating as, in this closed sea basin the
swell created by the wind is short and choppy. The swell period hardly
reaches 5 seconds and regularly a serie of 3 waves higher than the
others litterally stops the boat. But after more than a week at sea, we
are used to it and laure is not even sick ! Well, Camille still has to
be in charge of preparing the mackerel we just fished...
The wind
was forecasted right in our face, but to our outmost surprise we can
almost sail on a direct course. Bob steers, we just need to focus on
the various manoeuvres: take one reef, release one reef, take one reef
etc.
The night slowly falls - not totally yet though - and the
wind drops almost totally in a big and very (very !) wet squall right
in the middle of the cargo rail. A few desperate manoeuvres of swaping
the jib to the genoa, tacking etc. free us from the danger. The last
drops of wind bring us closer the port of Østerby on the island of
Læsø, then die. Junior has to escort us to the quay side. The harbour
is full and it is 6am: we stop alongside the first sailboat we can find
and sleep for a few hours.
8am: toc toc
toc. It's the harbour master, in his morning check, making sure
everyone is ready to play the "musical berths" game. It's a game with
compulsory participation in July in the fully packed harbours from
Norway to Denmark: the boats are piled alongside one to another on up
to 8 rows sometimes, for the night. At 8am sharp, everyone turns the
engine on, those who want to leave do so, the others just go for a
short trip on the outer harbour and come back to the quay side. We can
fit many large boats in a small place - it's only a matter of
organisation :o)
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8h15:
we are in the end of the harbour, alongside only one boat, a beautiful
Danish X-boat 36. We are probably the 2 smallest boats of the port... a
quick shower and hop, let's get back to bed !
11h:
The strong Danish sun is already high in the sky when we get out of the
cabin. The camping near by rents out bike. Our program for the day is
easy to draft: let's bike all around the island !
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Early morning... errr afternoon ride !
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House with roof made out of algaes
| Læsø is
a large pancake of about 20 km long, covered with forests of pine and
grass fields ("atchoum!" confirms Camille). The South of the island
dissolves itself in the sea over dozen of km2, it's a huge swamp
covered with pasturelands and the largest salt marsh of Scandinavia.
The
salt museum tells the story of this ancestral wealth. The water from
the ground comes up, filtered by the unique rocks of the island, and
reaches the surface with a concentration of up to 15%. Then, well we
just need to evaporate the water of course ! As the sun is not always
sufficient, the Danes built large tanks of water heated with wood oven.
The water boiled slowly and the salt crust formed, was harvested, and
new crust formed etc. All the water disappears in about 7 days.
During
the Middle-Age, over a thousand of these little ovens for water were in
service, leading to the total deforestation of the island, and the king
had to put this to an end in the 16th century.
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Back
to the boat, we realise that the new boats piled so well that there is
a triple wall of boats between us and the open sea... Well, we just
have to trust the harbour master's efficiency tomorrow morning !
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Game: find Saltimbanque's mast
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| 20 July: Læsø – Skagen (30M) |
Yes !! We finally fly the spi !!!
| 8am sharp: broum broum... all hands on deck, ready to manoeuvre.
8:20: we are out, without even a scratch :o)
And
here we go towards to North-West, no much wind this morning... Junior
does the job, thanks. We meet a cute seal in the shallows in the North
of the Island. It's at least very sunny and warm ! Slowly a breeze
blows up. Oh not very strong but... from the South ! And hop here is
our large spinneaker blue and yellow proudly pulling Saltimbanque
towards the end of the end of the Danish peninsula. 20 NM with the spi,
it's been a while... We approach the European continent slaloming in
between the many cargo ships and tankers anchored there.
See,
Skagen has been praised to us by all Scandinavians like the must-see of
any cruise in the area. Cute yellow houses and sandy beaches, people
mention these charms with bright eyes. We are then much looking foward
to discovering this paradise. From distance, we mostly see shapes of
factories and cargo ships. But may be once in the harbour ?...
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…
and in there boom, an assault of decibels right in our face and
gigantic fishing vessels generating big waves on the crowded quays.
Alongside the harbour, many wine and beer shops clearly show what the
dozens of big norwegian power boats are here for. (the difference in
price must even pay back for the petrol...)
Music everywhere and
many party-animals already not sober any longer. The main streets are
indeed full of yellow houses, but also tourist shops and their
associated tourists. In a word, a bit too much of a seaside resort for
us!
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Mmmmm, beautiful norwegian power boats...
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After the lighthouse, this is the end of Denmark!
| Once
away from the very center, walking bare feet on the long beach, between
dune and sea, we start enjoying the place. The water is warm enough not
to resist a little plunge, the first one for Camille ! (and we don't
even fear the -numerous- jelly fishes with our swimming glasses)
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| 21 July: Skagen – Søholmen (37M) |
The
nicest sailing day of the holidays ! A perfect 10 kts wind from abeam,
bright sun, flat water and many sails all around us. The crossing to
Sweden is only 35 NM, but we could sail days and days under these
conditions... We even hoist the asymetrical spinneaker in the
afternoon... pure happines of being on the water!
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Easy sailing!!
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Who said it was cold in Scandinavia ?
| Back
on the Swedish side with almost no wind, let's spend the night on our
anchor like in the good old times in the Antilles... a small bay well
sheltered, a good distance with the other boats, the anchor falls down,
the chain follows, we jump in the water for a natural shower and admire
the boat from the outside. We are just mising the lobsters...
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| 22 July: Søholmen – Danholmen (18M) |
This year the summer falls on a Friday, precisely this Friday. Great sun, more than 25°C, we plan to make the very most of it !
Our
program is simple: sailing close to the rocks and try out baltic anchorages (one
anchor in the stern and the bow on the rock). We start under power in
the narrow channels as the wind has also left for holidays. A fishing
line towed behind garantees a good-sized mackerel in less than 10
minutes, that's a done thing. The thermal breeze picks up slowly, hop
just enough time to jump the spinneaker up ! Well, there are only 2 NM,
but it's definitively more elegant !
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The morning geese
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Barbecue for lunch
| Once in
a large area of rocks, we sneak in with the help of our... mobile phone
! The scandinavian have free nautical charts on internet, we can't stop
progress... Baltic-style anchorage then, not very comfortable as the
keel almost touches the ground and the stern anchor doesn't hold. But
we still have time to cook our mackerel on the barbecue and hunt some
snails for the apetizers!
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We
are relieved to leave, ride a few extra miles with the engine, and drop
the anchor in a beautiful and large open bay for the night.
What a great day of holidays !
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Anchorage for the night
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| 23 July: Danholmen - Lysekil Bastevik (17M) |
The sailing highway...
| In the
skjærgård (=field of rocks if you remember well), there are rocks, many,
and channels in between them. And in the channels, all the boats. As
all the Swedes, Danes and Noggies have a boat and spend their holidays
on the coast, the channels sometimes look like highways on busy days.
The landscape is yet always beautiful, and we are happy to sail again
in front of the small villlage of Gullholmen, that we had visited a
couple of weeks before.
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But
right after, we take the first turn on the left and we get a bit more
space outside of the channel. In the rocky crumbs outside of the
archipelago, generous people have installed small pitons a bit
everywhere. The objective is to bring the nose of the boat litteraly on
the rock to attach a mooring line to the little pitons. This time our
stern anchor holds well and we spend a few hours exploring the rocks.
The
thermal breeze picks up in spite of the grey sky (yes after the summer,
here comes the automn!), and we can actually sail out of the
archipelago, along colonies of seals. The wind drops again at the end
of the afternoon, and we get back to our home port ater 2 weeks and 445
NM of sailing,
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Anchored with the nose on the rock... litterally !!
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| 24 July: sailing around Lysekil (3M) |
Lilla Kornö, pocket port just facing our home port
| Last
day of the holidays, let's not get sad ! The sun shines despite the
lack of wind and we head to the rocks in front of our home port to
train for baltic anchorages. A manoeuvre almost perfect, but the stern
anchor still doesn't hold... We wonder how the locals can be so
confident with this manoeuvre... Most of the boats just land on any
rock and hammer their own pitons in the cracks of the rocks. Some even
land alongside the rock !
We leave again and stop for a few hours at Lilla Kornö, a very cute pocket port. A last swim, and we head back home.
Finally
it's been holidays in 2 parts: 10 days of fresh wind with none the less
fresh temperatures to sail long distances, then 5 days of calm and warm
weather to enjoy the anchorages ! When do we leave again ?....
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