Stage 12: The southern Danish islands

Wednesday 18 July
The wind stopped whistling during the night, but it was still quite strong when we started out at 7 am. We could just make a close-hauled course to Klintholm on Moens, the largest Danish island that we have never visited. It is about 40 miles away, so having to heal over at 20 or 30 degrees for 8 hours was not a very attractive prospect. Added to that, the waves were big - at least 1.5 m. We made good progress, though, while the wind was strong, but as we found yesterday, when it fell, Alshira was knocked back by the waves, and we had to motor sail. Despite that we sailed properly about three quarters of the distance. At one point a large cargo ship appeared to be on a collision course, and I radioed him to ask his intentions (the polite way of pointing out that he should be keeping a proper lookout, and it is his responsibility to avoid us, in this case a) because we were sailing and b) because we were on his starboard). He changed course for us! Moens has some impressive chalk cliffs at its eastern end, which we could see from 30 miles away.

When we got close, we had to tack close to them to get on the right course, and boy, if we thought the waves before were big, you should have seen them close in! I guess that they were not much higher, maybe 2 m, but much shorter wavelength, so very steep indeed. Alshira coped beautifully, Gordon helmed and I hung on and worked out when we should tack. Shortly afterwards we arrived at Klintholm, which is a harbour built around holiday flats, but quite nice for all that. The island is supposed to be interesting, so we'll stay a few days to explore. Now we need a day to recover from that exhausting trip!

The Swedish courtesy flag curled up in terror!

Thursday 19 July
It rained on and off all morning, so we had a large breakfast, read and rested. However, in the afternoon, it cleared, so out came the bikes. We wanted to see the cliffs at Moens Klint, which are about 6 km away. Predictably, the bike ride was up hill, but not too exhausting, and we arrived at a big car park and a visitor centre, with lots of families. The cliffs from the sea looked as if they were covered with trees, and sure enough the whole area is a vast beech wood, with ravines and gullies and plenty of places where the cliffs have eroded taking trees down with them - 128 m down! There were paths along the top, steps and fences, but a lot more freedom to leave the paths or climb over fences and cliffs than there would have been in England.

The cliffs are spectacular from above, and the views of white chalk cliffs, blue sea and green beech trees were superb. There were a few ways down to the beach and people were walking along it at the base of the cliffs, looking tiny from the top. We could certainly see Sweden, and we imagined that we could see as far as Bornholm. The next band of rain squalls was due in the late afternoon, so we cycled back quickly as it began to threaten, pausing briefly to find some standing stones - Moen, apparently, has loads of them. Away from the beech woods and chalk cliffs, normal Danish countryside resumed with isolated farms, huge fields of cereal or beet, gently sloping contours and the blue sea - calm and benign today.

Friday 20 July
It was dry, but with a strong west wind. We decided to cycle to the major town on Moen, Stege, stopping on the way to see two churches which have interesting frescoes. The bike ride, into the wind, was ok while we could keep to the lanes, but a bit unpleasant on the main road, although there wasn't that much traffic. The churches were stunning. The same artist in the 15th century painted frescoes in both, and you could easily recognise his style. There were lively scenes from the bible - creation, birth of Jesus and judgement were most obvious. The vaulted ceilings were completely covered and some of the walls, with a few flowers, birds and beasts to fill in the blank bits.

Stege is a lovely old Danish town with a super gatehouse,

remains of a moat,













an open busy main street and square and a bridge over a fjord, so that most of the town is on a peninsula between the sea and the fjord. It was made prosperous by the herring fishing. It has a good marina with a long buoyed channel into it from the channel which passes around the north side of the island. It looks a possible place to stay on another trip.

Saturday 21 July
Still the strong west wind, so plans to cycle 25 km to the west end on Moen to see some chambered cairns and the like were shelved in favour of a much shorter bike ride to one on the east side of the island. It was pretty impressive - about 5000 years old, two large stones on smaller ones leaving a decent sized space underneath, maybe 3m long and 1 m high. The whole construction was on a hilltop with a view all over the island.

From there we headed up to Moens Klint again, following the road and then a bike path through the woods. Predictably we took the wrong path and joined a mountain bike trail. Doing a mountain bike trail on slick tyres and a racing bike was an interesting and pretty exhilarating experience - the downhill and windy bits were fine and fun, but the tyres couldn't quite cope with the steep uphills! Once we got to the visitor centre, we locked the bikes and took the staircase down the cliff, all 481 steps of it.

You can walk along the narrow beach on fallen chalk and rounded sea-washed flints. Having seen the cliffs from the sea, and from the top, this gave us yet another perspective on this amazing scenery. There were lots of house martins nesting under overhangs in the cliff - well, they must have had somewhere to build their nests before there were houses - but I'd not seen house-free house martin nests before!

We then cycled down to the lighthouse, from where we could get down to the beach under the cliff further along and walked along another section.

Sunday 22 July
It was a lovely morning, with a moderate westerly wind, so we were off again, early. We sailed on a lovely blue calm sea the 10 or so miles down to the channel between Moen and Falster, but here we had to turn directly into the wind to sail between the islands, and the dredged channel is very narrow, so, reluctantly, we started the engine. As the channel widened, we decided to sail again, especially since there seemed to be a current in our favour and it was a bit choppy - wind against current, presumably. We tacked the last 4 miles to Stubbekobing where the boxes are rather narrow, as warned in the German chart book, but the second one we tried was OK. There is a horrible gravel silo dominating the coastline, but it otherwise seems to be a nice quiet standard Danish town with a wide main street, and the usual crop of brightly painted houses.

However, the harbour and the coast all feel as if they are in a large lake rather than the open sea feel of the harbours we've been in recently - we have moved back into very sheltered waters!

The only problem we had, apart from the narrow box, was that when we were motoring, I had heard a loud click and water flowing. Now, it isn't unusual to hear water when you are sailing, but I had investigated it properly and found our saucepan drawer full of water - a hose had come off the tap, and water was being pumped into the drawer below the sink! We turned off the water pump and when we got to the harbour sorted out the problem. All our towels were soaking, and there was a bit of water in the bilges, but a marina tumble dryer and lots of sponging sorted that out. The hose was reconnected, and no harm was done.

Monday 23 July
Another beautiful day. We wanted to look at some of the sights at the east end of Moen, so we took the ferry to Boego - a charming old wooden ferry called Ida, had a quick look round Boego and then cycled across the causeway to Moen.

Boego is a quiet, normal Danish island, with a nice normal church mostly notable by a resident cat who we couldn't persuade to leave us alone.

On Moen, we went to the third of the churches which the Elmelumde master painted, at Fanefjord. The frescoes were quite similar to the other churches, with many of the same scenes, but the restoration was better, so they were even more striking. The church also provided visitors with a leaflet telling us what scene from the bible was illustrated in each panel, in German, Danish and English, which helped a lot.

Just down the road from the church is a huge burial mound at Gronsalen. It is about 100 m long, 10 m wide and 2 or 3 m high - a grassy ridge surrounded by large stones, with a couple of pits in it, presumably where the burials have been excavated. It was impressive because of its age and a super view of the island and the sea from the top.

We came back on the ferry and did some shopping, preparing for the next three or four days when we hope to be able to anchor off various islands around Falster.

Tuesday 24 July
It was another gorgeous day, blue cloudless sky, and rather weak south wind. We left Stubbekobing and sailed under two huge bridges, heading west. One links Boego (and hence Moen) with Falster, the other links Falster with Zealand. We had the drifter up, and at times could manage 5 kts, that is, until the wind died away. We had to motor a bit, otherwise we'd have been out all day and night, but after we'd cleared one of the narrow channels between sandbanks that this area has in abundance, we could sail the last bit, towards the island of Femoe. We anchored just off the eastern shore, and almost immediately I had a swim to cool off. It is probably the first full days sailing we have managed dressed in tee shirts and shorts, and probably the hottest day of the Danish summer so far. This side of the island is just farmland, so one way we can see trees, cornfields and a farm, and the other, just miles of blue sea and distant islands completely surrounding us.

In the evening two disturbing things happened - the wind rose and it became slightly choppy, and there was a long fetch and little shelter in the anchorage, and I looked at my phone for the German 3 day forecast and found that it predicted gales for Friday, when we intended to cross to Germany. We set various alarms in case the anchor dragged (we discover that the depth alarm worked but the handheld GPS anchor alarm didn't) and revised our plans to cross to Germany a day earlier. All was well with the anchor and the wind and waves died away during the night.

Wednesday 25 July
I discovered where that poor weather forecast had come from - it was actually last week's, from the cache, since reception was bad - whew! We sailed off the anchor and tacked towards the narrow channel which divides Falster from Lolland. It was another lovely hot ( but windless) day, and soon we had to motor towards the bridge at the north end of it. We had read the notes in German and Danish, which appeared to say that we prepared to go through the lifting bridge when two red lights flashed and actually went through when they were steady - going forward against 2 red lights feels wrong!

In fact, we couldn't see the lights when it was obvious that we should go through, but we got a cheery wave from the bridge keeper, so presumably we got it right. We anchored just off the channel on a big lagoon bisected by the buoyed channel. It is rather like the Schlei, a winding reed and wooded banked river/fjord ,a rural idyll!

Thursday 26 July
It was a lovely morning again, this time with a light north wind, a blue sky and no clouds. We were able to sail off the anchor, waiting for a few minutes to allow a small dredger to pass - the channel out of the main town, Nykobing, is used by some small ships. We sailed, very slowly, over the road tunnel between the islands, and down the winding fjord. It is a bit like the Broads, but with very few houses on the banks.

As we approached Nykobing, where there is a lifting bridge, which is supposed (according to the chart) to be closed over lunchtime, but otherwise open on demand, I radioed the bridge keeper to ask when he was next going to open the bridge. 20 minutes, he said (which didn't sound much like on demand to me!) and then we saw a big neon sign on the bridge giving the next opening time.

It didn't close for lunch either - we are learning to treat the charts with some skepticism. We started sailing again as soon as we had cleared the bridge and drifted lazily round some islands into a huge lagoon, about 3 miles across and 2 miles long, with woods and fields on three sides and a small village on the north side. We anchored about half a mile off the north edge, sheltered from the very slack wind by a low marshy island. It was pretty hot, and I swam again, as I have done for the last few days. The sea is warming up perceptibly.

Stage 11: Sweden again

Saturday 14 July
All week, the forecast for today had showed heavy rain and squalls starting in the afternoon, but fine weather before that. By Friday those squalls were predicted to start in the evening, but we didn't want to take an chances, so we planned to complete our passage back to Ystad by early afternoon. So we started before 7am, and were able to sail at first with the drifter and full main sail. There was a substantial swell, which we thought would decrease, but it persisted all the way, even after the wind had died down and we had to motor. The ferries passed, as before, and the traffic separation scheme was fine, though there were a few ships to monitor. We got back to Ystad at about 2pm, as planned, found an empty box, and relaxed with some beers. The rain squalls did not materialise. The boat next door went out and reappeared a couple of hours later with a bucket full of fish that they had caught, one of which they gave us - a small cod, I think - we had it for dinner and very nice it was too.

Sunday 15 July
One of the most interesting prehistoric sites in southern Sweden, Kaseberga, is near Ystad. We both measured it as just 9 km away on the bike route map, so were slightly surprised to find a signpost saying 11 km when we were already halfway there. The route was rather dull, along the main road without a separate cycle track for much of the way.

The site itself was very crowded with families. It is a boat-shaped ring of standing stones, right on the top of a steep hill overlooking the sea. The stones (79 of them) are each 1.5-3 m high, and the ship-shape is oriented to the summer solstice, with various other astronomical significances in the spacing of the other stones. It is pretty impressive, but what was more striking in comparison to, say, Stonehenge, was the way the children were climbing all over the stones. We went down the step slope to the tiny harbour below, and bought some smoked fish at the smokery there - judging by the queue, it is well known as a very good source of smoked fish, which is eaten a lot here.

We cycled off to the only round church in southern Sweden, and when we went in, we found a service had just finished, and a social gathering with coffee and cakes was just starting. One of the parishoners showed us round.

It has been altered several times since the 11th century when it was built, so the round bit is only a small, but impressive, part of the church. There were some murals in the round part and a big 1900 extension - almost a separate church which had inherited the 12th century font.

This was superb, carved intricately with a story from Acts, by the same mason who carved pieces in Lund cathedral, and in excellent condition.










One of the things we have been observing is the nationalities of the boats in various harbours and the languages in which instructions are given. In most of Denmark, there were more German boats than any other and everything was in Danish and German. As we have moved east, Swedish boats have become more common, so that in Bornholm, Danes and swedes outnumbered Germans. There are always a few Dutch, norwegians, and Finns, but Brits are very rare. In Sweden, English is the second language, but in Bornholm, Polish was added to the list, and a few Polish boats and one Lithuanian, appeared.

Monday 16 July
It was another day of whistling winds and heavy, but short, showers. We stayed put in Ystad and really did very little. The chandlers close to the harbour is all that a chandlers should be. It smelt right. There was a jumble of second hand and new stuff and some knowledgable staff who knew exactly where to look for any item. We bought a pilot guide to the Swedish coast, in English - the same one that Terry and Gavin had showed us in Ebeltoft, because we expect to be back to explore the Swedish coast in later years. Gordon also bought a thick jumper - this was a bit of a shock, because he hates spending money, particularly on clothes, but he really fell for this jumper! Apart from a wander around Ystad, and some domestic stuff, that was about all for today.

The museum in Ystad

Tuesday 17 July
We moved another step west today. The wind was in the west, so we had to tack a few times, and there was a heavy swell left over from the high winds. When the wind was above about 12 kts, we made good progress, but when it dropped below that, the waves slowed us down to almost nothing, so for some of the way, we motor-sailed. The route to Gisslovs Lage is completely straightforward, and apart from being overtaken by lots of motoring yachts, and a few tacks off shore to avoid the reef off the southern-most point in Sweden, it was uneventful. When we arrived, I ascertained that, as I had remembered it, the use of the washing machine was free, so we now have washed everything. Any cruising family will tell you that making sure one can get washing done at reasonable cost can be a problem, so finding somewhere where they do not charge is a real bonus! Tomorrow, back to Denmark, we hope.

Stage 10: Bornholm

Monday 9 July
At last, there was a bit of wind from a good direction, south west, and fine weather. We left Ystad very early, and were able to sail immediately we got out of the harbour.

We were worried about the high speed ferries which shuttle between Ystad and Bornholm, and about a traffic separation zone where much of the shipping heading into the eastern Baltic passes between Bornholm and Sweden. In the event, the sea was so rough that a few extra waves from the ferry wash made no difference, and the traffic was sparse enough for us to pass between the ships with no difficulty.


The waves were quite big, though, and it was an exhilarating but quite tiring 36 miles. Jakob (our trusty autohelm) did almost all the work, while we spotted boats and features on the land we were passing and approaching. We arrived in the early afternoon, and watched boat after boat arrive and search for places after us. The marina had filled up by about 5pm, although a few more managed to raft up or squeeze into a place. There were a few heavy rain squalls, but we had time to have a look around the town (Roenne), which is an honest Danish small town, with some lovely old streets but also the usual shops and chain stores. We intend to stay here for a few days to explore Bornholm by bike.

The beach next to Roenne harbour

Tuesday 10 July
We woke to the familiar sound of heavy rain and the wind whistling in the rigging! The rain soon stopped although the wind stayed almost all day. It didn't matter, though, we had bike rides in mind. The island is really bike-friendly, with paths everywhere, lots of marked routes and traffic which respects stupid tourists on bikes doing silly things in the middle of the road. We headed towards the north of the island along a bike trail which circles the island (104 km).

We stopped at each of the harbours we passed - they were tiny stone walls with an outer harbour and a tiny well sheltered inner harbour about big enough for half a dozen Alshira-sized yachts.

The route was superb, at first through forest trails, then up and down into bays and over steep hills rather like the Pembrokeshire or Cornwall coast paths. We ended up at a castle, Hammerhus, close to the northern tip of Bornholm. It is the best castle ruin I've been to for years, and I do like castle ruins.

It is in a super position overlooking the north west approach, and has a massive keep, lots of buildings and an outer wall all in a state to be able to appreciate the structure. It is mainly stone, but with a lot of brick in the keep.

The villages in Bornholm are very Danish, with the same jumble of small single storied half timbered houses with many windows, painted bright colours, all opening directly onto the cobbled street, that you see in the Danish islands like Aeroe.

Wednesday 11 July
It was a fine day, little wind and no rain, and warm. We decided to cycle down to the south of the island, using the round Bornholm cycle path. It was a lot duller than the route north, following the road for most of the distance, but there were only slight hills, so we got along quickly. We stopped to look at a water mill, which looked exactly like a story book - thatched mill, mill pond fringed by reeds, woods in the background...

We arrived at Bornholm's most southerly point with hoards of Danish families. The beach there is gorgeous, with lots of white sand and a shallow sea for a long way out. The sea was cold, but lots of people were swimming.

At that point there are sand dunes backed by forest, with well separated holiday homes. The rest of the route was through farmland - mainly cereal crops, but the fields were dusted with blue from cornflowers or red with poppies.

We continued along the coast to Nexoe, which has a decent fishing fleet and the first harbour of any size since Roenne.

Then we headed inland into the woods which fill a lot of the middle of the island. They are interspersed with gravel or Tarmac cycle paths which are quite steep in places, but the woods are lovely. There are some conifer plantations, but a lot of mixed woodland. We got back, pretty exhausted - we measured it out at 80 km! We have now cycled around more than half the coast path.

Thursday 12 July
We were still tired from the 80 km of yesterday, so took it easy today. Shopping, a visit to St. Nicholas church in Roenne (most of the churches seem to be dedicated to St Nicholas) which was quite nice, but apart from some lovely stained glass and a huge votive ship, was undistinguished, filled the morning.
Then we cycled off to find one of the 4 remaining fortified round churches. It was stupendous! It looked like a whitewashed round castle keep with an oak shingle conical roof.

Inside the walls were very thick and there was a central stone column decorated with murals from Genesis. The roof was quite low and roughly domed - there are two higher floors that we were not allowed into.

It was quite unlike any church I have ever seen - they were built in the 12th century to protect the congregation from pirates. There were also two rune stones dating from about 1150 in the porch.

A white square tower next to the church used to be a barbican, but is now used as a bell tower. If ever you find yourself in Bornholm, do not miss visiting one of the round churches!

The other event of the day was haircuts - we have both become rather shaggy, so we bought a pair of proper hairdressing scissors and cut each others hair. They are hardly up to West End standards, or even St Albans barbers standards, but they are fine for now!

Friday 13 July
This was expected to be our last day in Bornholm, so another exploration of the island was planned. It was windy, but dry and reasonably mild. We cycled up to the north of the island on the same track that we'd used on Tuesday, but after the rain, it was quite wet and we got splashed with mud. Instead of going back to the castle, we went on to Allinge, a small town on the eastern side of the northern tip. It is in completely different landscape to that we'd seen on Bornholm before, very reminiscent of Pembrokeshire or Scotland, with rocky coves and little beaches.

There is a good sized harbour at Allinge which was very full, probably because there was a jazz festival going on. We stayed to listen to one group, but had to move on. There was quite a crowd there as well as the boaters in the harbour.

The next place, Tejn, also had a decent harbour which was much emptier. We stopped to look at some standing stones and a burial site on a rocky bit of the coast - there is a lot of prehistoric stuff on Bornholm, which we have not really got the hang of.

The route back was mainly along a disused railway track - it seems Bornholm had a Dr Beeching too. It ran through a rocky ravine, and alongside a long linear lake and marsh, which must indicate a major geological fault across the island.

The road took us past another of the fortified round churches, but we arrived a few minutes past 4 pm, which is when Danish churches close to visitors. It was super from outside, very similar to the one we saw yesterday.

We have decided to go back to Ystad and then Denmark rather than crossing to Rugen in Germany. This is largely because the winds are mainly in the south, and it's a long crossing to Rugen to do against the wind (we feel we have done enough bashing into contrary winds this year!) We'll be back to explore Rugen another year.