Stage 5: Denmark islands to the Store Baelt bridge

Sunday 3 June
Sailing again. This time, we left Germany to venture into Denmark. We crossed the Lille Baelt to the island of Aeroe, spelt with just 3 Danish letters. Marstal, on Aeroe, is about 20 miles east of the lighthouse we rounded to get into the Flensburg fiord, and since the wind was in the west, we had a dead run most of the way, so on went the gybe-preventer, and although the waves made it rolly at times, it was a lovely sail. The route into the main harbour is along a narrow dredged channel, confusingly buoyed in the wrong direction. The harbour includes quite a big ship builders yard, with a floating dry dock containing at least two commercial ships and a lovingly restored large wooden sailing ship, the Bellavista, which people seemed to be able to wander on board.

The town is more like a Dutch than a German one - the houses are small and a bit twee, and jumbled along narrow streets. We arrived to find that the Aeroe harmonica festival was on, but actually just about to finish, and there was a bit of a holiday atmosphere and flags on the streets (which were rapidly taken down as soon as the festival finished). Not being a great fan of the harmonica, I was not too disturbed to miss the festivities, but Gordon was disappointed to just miss getting a photo of the dancing (well, two middle aged couples dancing!)

Monday 4 June
We met a couple sailing a Westerly, but who had been considering buying a Sirius, and came to ogle Alshira. They were from Harlesiel, John, an Englishman engineer and Gabriella, a German GP. We discussed routes out of the Frisian islands, and they recommended exiting from behind Wangerooge into the Jade, and if we were to attempt coming between islands, then not in more than F4, and near HW. They also recommended the museum in Marstal. They are bound for Limfjord, so we are likely to see them again. So we decided to stay an extra day in Marstal. It was quite cold and windy, so we didn't regret the decision.

The museum, dedicated to ship building, was really excellent. There were lots of model boats, lots of explanation (in English) of the different types of boat, lots of old photos and paintings, some reconstructions of sections of boats, workshops, houses and so on and hundreds of ships in bottles (which we passed over rather quickly!). There was also an exhibition of paintings by a Russian artist, whose name I've forgotten, several of which we'd loved to have bought if they'd cost less than a few thousand pounds.

Tuesday 5 June
We left Marstal to sail the ten miles to Aeroskobing further up the island, but because of the off-lying islands and shallow bits, you have to go quite a long way out into the reasonably sheltered area enclosed by the islands. It was as well that it was sheltered because the wind was a good F5 with a few squalls. We decided to look at one of the other island, Stryno, so went out of the direct route for a few miles. Once we joined the narrow buoyed channel over the shallowest section, the wind was on the nose and we motored for three quarters of an hour, before Gordon got bored with motoring and decided to sail. That was when we were directly between two islands, and we had a few very short tacks, with me poring over the chart plotter, before we were able to bear away and sail the last bit rather more freely.

Aeroskobing harbour was surprisingly empty, and when we ventured into town, it too was almost deserted. Even the supermarket was closed, but there we found the explanation - it is Constitution Day - presumably a bank holiday in Denmark. The town is lovely.

Narrow winding cobbled streets are lined with tiny houses all jumbled together, all fronting directly onto the street and all painted different colours and with tiled roofs.

The church had four votive model ships and a lovely carved and painted wooden pulpit.

The town is definitely the most interesting that we have visited so far, in a slightly twee style.











Wednesday 6 June
It was warm and sunny with a clear blue sky and light south wind - far too nice a day to go to a town, so we decided to spend another day on Aeroe, rather than go to Svendborg.

We got the bikes out and cycled along the long sandy spit to the north of the village, which is lined with colourful beach huts. Then we made our way along tiny country lanes to Bregninge, which is a village half way along the island with a church that we'd read about in one of the leaflets in the museum at Marstal. The church has a fine tower, all encased in scaffolding, but inside it is quite remarkable.

The vaults of the ceiling are all painted with stars, flowers and patterns. There are several murals, all 15th century, showing scenes from John the Baptist and Christ's lives, some obvious, some rather odd - eg some disembodied feet, with stigmata, disappearing behind a frill, leaving footprints, with stigmata, behind.

One showed someone, possibly John, being tortured by having a tourniquet tightened around his head, but the others were not gory. The drawing was good - they looked like real people, mainly.

The altar triptych was carved and painted in a very busy scene of the crucifixion with all sorts of other action taking place in front - people fighting, knights on horseback talking, soldiers supervising, children being shown off, and of course the two thieves being crucified upside down and various cherubs around Jesus and demons around the thieves. All of this, and a rather fine wooden pulpit and a couple of votive ships are in a tiny parish church on a remote Danish island, not even mentioned in the guide books!

Thursday 7 June
We needed to get into a reasonable sized Danish town to buy a SIM card, and restore communication with the world, so we set off for Svendborg. We left just as the ferry was arriving and several dozen German yachts left the main harbour - some sort of flotilla or race set-up. We got the drifter and full main up as soon as we could, and sailed almost as fast as the German yachts could motor until they diverged from our course to go towards Marstal, still motoring. We managed to sail the whole way, through a narrow buoyed channel, around the island opposite Svendborg, down the Sound, lined with trees and some rather nice exclusive properties, and under the bridge to the next island. Another British boat, Solara from Christchurch was coming out of the town as we approached it, and they stopped for a quick chat - the first British boat they'd seen for 3 weeks. We came round into the main harbour in Svendborg - a bit industrial, but good for our purposes.

We had a look at the town, which is quite nice with winding streets, jumbles of old and new building and a couple of helpful boys in mobile telephone shops. One sold me a SIM card which I had to cut to size myself - a rather nerve-racking experience, but it worked, and I'm now back in Internet contact.

Friday 8 June
Our pontoon in Svendborg was the most international we've seen for some time - usually, there have just been German boats everywhere, but as well as a few of them, there were Dutch, Danish, us and a Japanese boat which had sailed the Pacific and Atlantic with a truck to cross the US! They said they didn't like oceans, they preferred islands.

We left quite early, down the east end of the Sound, which meanders between wooded banks and islands.












It soon came on to rain, which was a pity, because it was a glorious sail and the view in every direction would have been good, if it had been clear enough to see it. The current through the sound was quite fierce - probably 3 kts in places, luckily in our favour. We then emerged into the channel between Fyn and Langeland, hardly able to see either and sailed up to the buoys off Lohals. You have to sail through a reef, helpfully buoyed in the wrong direction, and it was a bit too close to the wind to manage on one tack. We studied the charts, and were making our way only slightly off the line of buoys when a Danish boat passed us, shouting and hooting their foghorn, and finally coming back to direct us. I think they thought we intended to pass the green buoy to starboard, which would have set us onto the reef it was supposed to be guarding us against. It was hard to convince them that we knew where we were going.

By this time the rain had finally cleared and we moored in Lohals, a tiny holiday village nearly at the north end of Langeland, in glorious warm sunshine.









Saturday 9 June
The wind was whistling in the rigging - we are getting a little tired of that sound - so we decided to stay a day to explore the island on bikes. When we were having breakfast a German couple on a Southerly arrived, and we helped them moor next to us - they were from Juist (the German Frisian island that we have not visited) and were not enjoying the winds either. We decided to visit Traeneker, which the Langeland guide waxed lyrical about as the only surviving castle town in Denmark, attractive houses, etc etc and a castle. Before we left, Gordon had to mend a puncture, and after we'd gone a few miles, it became clear he had another. We followed one of the waymarked bike routes with no clear idea where it was going, but since the island is so long and thin, it couldn't be far out, could it? Eventually, we found a signpost and discovered that we had nearly cycled past the village.

The whole way was on tiny lanes through rural farmland with small hills, views of the sea, small woods, and isolated cottages (like your granny should live in).









Traeneker was a bit of a disappointment - nice enough, but nothing special compared to the villages on Aeroe anyway.

The castle was large, painted dull red, and ugly.

We had our lunch in the churchyard and mended Gordon's puncture. The church had a whole aisle behind locked wrought iron gates in which there were tombs of the family who owned it, the castle and the village, and a reserved pew for them - all a bit feudal. We got back before the rain started, with the wind still whistling. The forecast for tomorrow doesn't look much better!



Sunday 10 June
It was raining hard when we woke up, and the wind was still whistling. The morning was a lazy one - we invited the German couple in the boat next door (the Southerly 110 called Milan) Reinaert and Dorothy, for a coffee, and they only turned up after 12 when we had already started cooking lunch. We had a nice chat - they recommended Usedom just beyond Rugen on the North East German coast. We will certainly try to get there. After lunch we cycled up to the north end of the island, at Hou. There is not much to see on land, just a few holiday cottages and lots of standard Baltic beach, but the view to the bridge over the Store Baelt and Fyn one side and Snaelland the other were well worth seeing. There were very few boats out - a Dutch two masted boat, sailing with one jib and mizzen and a yacht motorsailing both quite close in. There was a small lighthouse, and some nice beech and oak woods, and lots of farmland and cottages - all rural and very Danish.