26th to Karlesbjerg? Anchorage

I’d wanted to press on today so the plan had been to get up and go and have breakfast and so on on the way. I woke up just after 0630 and prepared the lines, there was a breeze from the  West so we rotated on the stern spring and let that go with just a burst of ahead to stop the quarter hitting then unrolled a bit of genoa and we were off. The long winding waterway back to the sea was interestingly different in the morning with lots of birds singing and no one else around. The horses were in amongst the reeds but fewer of them. The wind was due to be windy today and the forecast had rain ‘til coffee time however it was dry with high cloud and some scattered cumulus and, in fact, didn’t rain at all. The wind increased and I reduced sail to a small amount and once we’d left the  Mariager Fjord having followed, again, all the beautifully set leading lines ahead and astern along with all the buoys we were out into the sea again with a couple of miles to run down this dredged channel until open water. The dredged channel is maybe 4 metres deep with little tide I presume there must be some commercial traffic to make it worthwhile to do the dredging and spend all the money on the marking of the channel although we saw only a couple of yachts.

There was one other yacht, also with just his foresail up keeping us company although after a bit he peeled off to Starboard to, probably, go to Bonnerup. As we closed the headland I was hoping that it would become calm with the offshore wind and little fetch but as we got to the bit where I thought it would be calmer and Katharine nobly went to make a Spanish Omelette for Lunch the wind increased to about 30 knots gusting to 34 and came a little South of West meaning it was about 50 degrees apparant on the port side and  appeared far stronger than it had done when we had had it on the quarter in our run down to the corner. I reduced the sail some more and we carried on romping South at about 6 knots. A few boats passed us going North and after a bit the wind fell away a little to around 20 knots with the odd calm where it was only about 15. I could have hoisted the main to balance here better but didn’t. A big patch that Owen Sails had put on the genoa in the winter with sticky backed sail cloth and that they had not stitched  was starting to peel back a little which is annoying, I had the same problem last year and forgot to mention it to them. They removed my stitched repair to their repair and covered it with a bigger, tidier one. Or tidier when it was not peeling.

We arrived at Karlesbjurg bay anchorage at about 1600 and dropped the anchor for the first time since Katharine has been aboard. We have made an alteration to the shoot into the anchor locker and look forward to seeing how it performs when we up anchor later today.

  We then tidied up, had a cup of tea, started faffing about with our telephones to try to get a connection which, eventually, I managed after a lot of faffing and  wrote the blog, with Katharine chatting to Martin.

I made some delicious fish cakes for dinner,  adding, at Katharine’s suggestion, some bacon to them the fish was smoked bass and they came out very well if a little falling to pieces here and there.

Once I’d googled the weather and found it was to be quite strong again in the morning I searched through my pilot book to find somewhere less unpleasant to get to and we’re now intending to go to Ebeltoft which is just around the corner so we’ll set off at a leisurely time to allow people to leave but still arrive before most people are arriving. Katharine is due to travel to work on Sunday so we need to be somewhere with connections to the train system tomorrow, Ebeltoft is close to Arhus airport and there is a bus connection which we’ll have to check.

Whilst making afternoon tea the first, of 3, gas cylinders ran out, I think it’s been on the go from before Oban last year when Sue and I were up the West coast but was too full for me, as a Scot, to exchange in Inverness a couple of weeks ago. It means I’ll probably need to see if I can have it filled or find an alternative means of running the stove with local bottles to ensure we don’t run out before arrival back in Blighty.

Blog writing, small sail, newly galvanized chain and cooking, or possibly glugging!