12th Dragor.

We havered a little in the morning, there was a contingent that wanted to go to Stacy’s for breakfast but, luckily, upon investigation, it didn’t open until 1000 so a compromise was reached I prepared pancakes and everyone else went for a shower. - The weather wasn’t great, overcast with showers forecast with the Wind Nly going NE.  We had thought about heading off before breakfast and trying to get to Dragor before everyone’s tummies had realised what was going on but the weather looked drier later and the wind strength was much the same and we didn’t have confidence in the naivety of people’s tummies.

Once showers had been had, I started producing pancakes, I’d done the first one whilst they were away hoping that after that one they wouldn’t stick but it took a bit before the non stickiness appeared on the pan. Anyway, some were better than others, I thought that they were fine but suspect they weren’t up to the standard of Esmes, as she is, apparantly, a bit of an expert on pancakes knowing different recipes for different outcomes whereas I just mix up eggs flour and milk ‘til it looks about right. All were enjoyed however with Henry and Esmee managing at least 3 each and the syrup I’d got in Puerto Rico last year met with approval as well.

As Lauren tidied up Simon, Esme and I prepared to depart and, indeed, departed remembering this time to take our card back and have the deposit and remainder of the credit put back onto Simon’s credit card - I’d forgotten all about it at Copenhagen.

  Once we were clear of the harbour we put up two reefed main and genoa and sailed close hauled for a couple of hours in not too bad a sea. Some queeziness was experienced but games of I spy,  and cards, a kind of snap with octagonal cards with about 8 symbols on each with one match per card with other cards, at which, it has to be said, I wasn’t much good kept our minds off it. Once we’d reached the time to tack I warned Alice to sit forward in case the genoa sheet flapped, slapping her and  we tacked, Simon was pulling in the sheet and, unfortunately Henry, who I’d neglected to warn, got a bit of a slap in the face from the, now leeward, sheet. It must have been sore but he bore it manfully.

Next time it was time to tack we were so close to the entrance to Dragor that we dropped the sails and started the engine to motor the rest of the way. I’d scouted out this harbour a day or two before the  Maddoxes had arrived and there were a couple of berths in the commercial harbour which I hoped might still be available. There were likely to be some in the North Harbour but they would be bow to, with the stern held by a mooring behind the boats which was attached to the quay by a chain. I wasn’t sure if it would be the pulpit, anchor or stem resting on the quay if we tried this and Simon was struggling to understand the concept whilst the wind was still about 15 knots on the beam in a harbour tight on manoeuvring space. As we came into the commercial harbour, (from which ferries no longer run, a product of the ‘new’ bridge??) it seemed that there was, indeed, the space I had hoped for on a marina pontoon berth. We came alongside and took some time putting all of the fenders out as the wind was blowing through the harbour entrance and pushing us beam onto the pontoon.

Lauren made sandwiches for lunch whilst Simon, Esmee and I went to pay for the parking. Whilst paying our fees and going to the loo it looked like something was happening on the quay as there were lines of tents and lots of people wandering around. We  munched through some excellent sandwiches and  went off, with jackets, (no one trusted Simon’s predictions any more) and found an old wood working shed, possibly a boat builders, being used as an exhibition for a local, and well known, artists work and, more particularly, a chance for any children to do some painting on small canvases. All 3 children picked a canvas, pre painted with background and splashes and could either try to interpret the dots or improvise with them as back ground and they all had fun with oils, marker pens and brushes, producing creditable paintings, which it appears, I neglected to photograph (and can no longer beg photo’s from Lauren as she’s left).

From here we found that all of the tents were an art exhibition and we had a fun half hour looking around the exhibits but weren’t tempted to buy anything. One artist engaged us in conversation and was expressing the virtues of both the famous artist, whose name I’ve been unable to find but may find today, and the village as a beautifully preserved ancient maritime village. Simon and I visited a pilotage museum whilst the children were painting and after this we were supposed to be going for an ice cream but it turned into teas coffees and hot chocolates. As these didn’t satisfy everyone’s ice cream requirements ice creams  were then had for pudding before we went for a walk around the village, a beautiful one with thatched cottages with sort of fence posts sticking on the ridges, viking style (I know this from the viking village at Fredrikssund). Hollyhocks and wild flowers abounded adding to the colour.

We were now at about 1700 and it was to be lasagne for dinner and this was Bungalow Alice’s favourite so she was now keen to return to the boat for dinner. On the way back to the boat we came across a playground which was fun for the us all. I found that I can no longer pull / rotate myself up onto the top of a horizontal bar from which I am hanging, it may be something to do with changing centres of gravity along with general deterioration. For Alice it was not a problem and could be thrown in after 37 cartwheels.

Back on the boat I fished out a couple of plastic bags with mince and bechemal sauce in them, and organised  the lasagne whilst Simon, supposedly arranging the transport to the airport in the morning was snoring in the corner. The boys had pickled herring for starters  and then we sat down to a splendid lasagne, everyone agreed it was better than Simon’s although this may only have been because I had magnums in the freezer and wasn’t going to let anyone have one unless they said so. There was the remains of the cheese still to consume which, after the magnums, was achieved and then most of us went to the bus stop, because it looked on google like there was a bus at 0430 in the morning but we wanted some more confidence. Lauren cleaned up after dinner, thanks Lauren, at the bus stop it still looked like there was a bus at 0445 so we returned aboard and went to bed with alarms set for 0400.