Stage 8: Denmark's Store Baelt to Sweden

Sunday 1 July

The day started with a thunderstorm with heavy rain, so heavy that we couldn't see the island just a few hundred metres away. But when it cleared, the morning was beautiful and windless! We motored down the Store Baelt, and managed to sail a bit just before the bridge, but then the wind died again and the engine resumed. We then turned into a channel between some islands and Zealand, and eventually the wind came back. We sailed, then had to take the drifter in, then take it down as the wind rose further and finally reef the main and furl the jib. We crossed the large bight between Zealand and the cluster of islands to the south, and finally moored at a small campsite/marina at Kragenaes. It is one of the first we have visited this time with a full-time harbour master (actually a harbour mistress) and it was rather nice to be greeted by a smiling face rather than the now ubiquitous slot machine! Kragenaes is on Lolland, but doesn't seem to have much of a village - just a campsite, a few holiday cottages, a small shop and ferry to some other islands (Fejoe, whose main villages are called Vesterby and Osterby, and Femoe which has Nordby and Sonderby - not much imagination there!)  It is a lovely region, with lots of tiny islands which we'll come back and explore some time, but this year we are hurrying through to Sweden.

Monday 2 July
We decided to head between the islands at the south of Denmark to make our way towards Sweden. The main island that Copenhagen is on, Zealand, has a cluster of islands to the south of it - Lolland, Falster and Mons are the biggest, but there are dozens or probably hundreds of smaller ones forming a sheltered area.

A church on one of the smaller islands (possibly Femoe)

It also has lots of reefs, sandbanks and very shallow areas. So the navigation was very tricky. We were really pleased to manage the full 28 miles by sail, mostly at more than 5 kts, and all on the same tack. We zigzagged from buoy to buoy, round islands and sandbanks, mostly with me calling out the course from the chart and chart plotter, and Gordon helming. I also had the binoculars to spot the rather small and widely spaced buoys.

We also had to negotiate two huge bridges - both way large enough to pass under, and a region labelled as "stark verkrautet" which we referred to as the cabbage field although it did not seem to be remarkable for vegetation when we got there. It was a glorious day's sail with decent but not excessive winds and reasonably warm. We ended up picking up a buoy (under sail, of course) just north of the island of Taeroe.

Tuesday 3 July
It was cloudy and slightly drizzly, but we left early - under sail, of course, to leave the mooring buoy, only seen by a fisherman collecting eels from his nets. Very soon, though it became obvious that there was a weak adverse current, a weak adverse wind, and a very complicated winding channel to emerge from the islands into the arm of the sea that separates Denmark from Sweden. So we had to motor. It was another day of me calling out the course and trying to point out the next buoy but one, and Gordon helming and trying to interpret my directions. Since I have difficulty with right and left, and even more with port and starboard, sometimes a bit of discussion was necessary. It was very shallow in places, frequently only a half metre under our keel in the channel, and a lot less outside it, so we had to, and we did, get it right! Eventually we emerged into open sea and the weather cleared and we sailed the rest of the way into Roedvig, with a couple of tacks. It is a tiny fishing town, still with the fishing fleet or at least with a lot of nets strung from buoys across the bay, but I imagine its main industry is tourists from Copenhagen and boats coming from or going to Sweden. The latter is the plan for tomorrow.

The sleepy town of Roedvig