10th July to Flakfortet

And points for elegence go to…….

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Simon went for a shower and a visit to the bakery for something fresh for breakfast whilst I pottered on the boat. Some coffee was had and at about 0940 we started to leave to catch the 1000 bridge opening out of the marina. There was a boar moored, again, on the quay behind us making the turn quite tight and I had a line rigged from amidships on the port side to use to turn us before running into him meanwhile Simon controlled the bow with a rope around the conveniently placed rope running from the pontoon to the port post. Apart from my midships line getting tangled up with fender, which had got tangled up with the post this all went to plan and soon we were in clear water having slid out astern, turned 90 degrees to starboard and then out from the line of boats to clear water.

We had to wait for about 10 minutes now for the bridge and went to a standby pontoon for this. The bridge opened, we, along with about 4 other boats went through, we were now out into the area between the offshore wind turbines and the dredging works going on around the periphery of the NE entrance to Copenhagen. It was a lovely sunny day with wind from the North and we hoisted the   full main sail whilst motoring up the channel then turned to starboard once clear of the windmills, unrolled the genoa and the children and autopilot took it in turns to steer as we sailed out into the shipping lane and out North of the Island of  Flakfortet towards Sweden, (it was too nice a sailing day to just sail straight there which was only about 6 miles). Having sailed past for a bit we turned around, gybed and sailed back in towards the Island from the SE and then rolled up the genoa and dropped the main before starting the engine and motored slowly into the lagoon which surrounds the island where all was incredibly peaceful and sunny. We moored up pretty close to where I had been on Monday and I got out the stand up paddleboard for the children to inflate whilst Simon and I went off to pay the harbour dues. The harbour master remembered me from Monday so it was just a question of paying, our details being in the system (a clipboard) and we were soon back at the boat pumping up the paddle board, putting covers on the sails and so on. I got out the dinghy and blew that up too and soon Esme was on the paddleboard shortly to be joined by Alice too and then Henry in the dinghy joined them on the water. They were all pretty hopeless to begin with but by the time we grown ups had ignored them for a bit after telling them what to do they were all confidently paddling around the harbour. I rigged one side of the tent for shade in the cockpit, Simon made sandwiches  from the bread bought at the bakery in the morning for us and from sliced loaf for the children, and soon we were having lunch.  The birds I’d thought were swallows turned out to be swifts, with Henry being better at birdspotting than I and we had ducks and swans on the water to keep us company too. After lunch we had a treasure hunt with the treasure to be bottles and cans of garbage left by previous, inconsiderate visitors to the island and having mustered torches we all set off into the internal tunnel system of the island. Spookily dark in much of it, some singing was indulged in at times, various signs found in old dark corners of the complex (I think put there for differently organised ‘ghost hunts’ by tour companies). Also we found lots of baby swifts sitting in their nests waiting for their mummys and daddys to come and feed them, very sweet. We found half a bagful of treasure which we squashed down as much as possible and then having been through the entire complex from East to West came out into the bright sunshine did some cartwheels on a handily erected stage as well as back and front flips and handstands, well Alice did the main bits  and the walked back along the ridge to the East again. Alice is full of life and was singing a bungalow song where she went through the chorus and then nominated us each in turn, two or three times to see ‘our bungalow’ at which point we would have to sing, my hands are high, my hands are low; this is how I bungalow’ and then demonstrate a short dance - the bungalow. This saw us all the way along the ridge with a couple of pauses for photographs.

I had said that 5 bottles or cans of treasures would be enough for an ice cream and with sufficient collected to cover and ice cream each we then repaired to the kiosk and chose one each before retiring to the restaurant - a new feature for me as it had been closed on Monday, and had some cold drinks. Sitting having drinks is boring if one is 12 or less so, shortly the younger contingent went off to get back onto the paddleboard and into the dinghy again. Simon and I followed shortly after  having worked our way through a beer.

The girls on the paddle board had raced across the harbour and back in 2 minutes 6 seconds on the paddleboard, I had managed it in 2 minutes 3 seconds and now we decided to have a race with the girls on the paddleboard, Henry in the dinghy and me swimming. I dived off the boat and made it first across to the other side but being pretty unfit at the moment couldn’t stop the girls overtaking me on the way back. After this all the kids were on the paddleboard taking it in turns to slip or jump in for half a second or so before climbing back onto the board. The water was quite warm but after some time I had had enough and we went back to the harbour wall and climbed out, Alice, who can’t swim got a bit of a fright when the  board tipped up at one point and she ended up in the water unintentionally but I had stayed by her and fished her out quickly. There was a lot of weed at the boat and we all came out looking like bedraggled mermaids. After some more exploring and some chats it was time to light the barbecue and Simon and I did this whilst Lauren made a salad and then we had burgers and sausages with salad and rolls for dinner before  finishing the evening with a game of Perudo which Alice and Henry were surprisingly good at, particularly as they spent most of the running around, jumping  and doing various gymnastics when not actually being called on to lie about their dice.

It was now time for bed.