7th July Arrest?

It was a miserable wet morning. Not windy but a bit Argyll in terms of rain. I wanted to re fuel and be under way by a reasonable time as I had about 20 miles to run to Dragor which I wanted to investigate and then on to Kastrup where I was intending to berth for a night or two. I slipped from my berth  and headed slowly around to the fuel berth whilst preparing a breast / spring line to put ashore arrival. Once secured at the fuel berth I looked at the machinery and started to pay, one had to choose how much one wanted to spend. I wasn’t sure but there was an option for 1000 Kroner which seemed about right, I didn’t want to end up paying for fuel that I couldn’t use. I put in my pin number and nothing much happened but it did say ‘accepted’ so I ran the hose to the filling cap and then the pump started. I started to put fuel in but it came very quickly and sounded like it was going to  over flow so I stopped and tried to re start a bit slower - it being a normal car like fuelling pistol thing. However the computer didn’t like me having stopped and nothing happened. I went to look a the computer and pump and the computer / card payment station thing - the figures on the pump were flashing and the computer was showing a sort of clock guage with it at about 1 O’clock and options for choosing petrol or diesel again. I, obviously, didn’t want to only get 12.5 litres for my 1000 kroner but there didn’t seem to be many options. It was 0800 by now so I went to the office and they were very helpful, they came out and re set the machine, it took a couple of them as the first one couldn’t open the back of the pump to get it to re set, they explained that the computer only took the value of the fuel used and that choosing 1000 kroner only reserved the 1000 kroner initially, taking whatever was needed once the fuelling was done.  Next time I chose 2000 kroner and fuelled more slowly and it all went far better. I ended up taking about 140 litres which was about right as I thought I was about half full.

I thanked the ladies profusely and having returned my marina card (one gets one on arrival for showers, electricity etc) set back off again. Yemaya was slightly awkward about turning around but eventually condescended to turn as requested.

Once away from the marina I set full sail in 12 knots of wind and had a nice sail up to Drager, where I stowed the sails and went in to have a look as it was somewhere I may go to to pick up Simon and family on Wednesday. It was quite crowded but with berths on the quay available with one having to put one’s bow on the quay and then pick up a line from the quay which goes to  a mooring astern, which one walks to the stern and ties up. It should be easy enough with adequate crew and should work fine anyway as long as nothing went wrong but looked slightly nerve wracking, mainly because the harbour was all quite crowded with little manoeuvring space.

There are three harbours at the Drager with the Southern one being too small for me the centre one being described as the commercial harbour and the one I’d just looked at.  The commercial harbour now seemed to have yacht berths too so I had a look at that and there was indeed one berth with a green tag, indicating that it was available.

From here I went to Kastrup, as there is a supermarket and big chandlery there  and  I wanted to enquire about a new solar panel and buy  food for guests.

Arriving at Kastrup the two obvious, nice alongside berths were full, I tried a couple of box berths but was too wide for them so came out again and wondered what to do, deciding to go and investigate Flakfort a gun emplacement on an Island off Copenhagen so made my way there under power as it was directly to windward.

The day had by now become fine, it was hot and sunny with mostly, cumulus clouds in between the blue bits. Flakfort is a sandy hill completely surrounded by a breakwater making a well protected moat all around the island. Once inside it was very calm and I made my way alongside, there was a 50 ft boat with a family having lunch and they all jumped up to catch my lines which was nice.

I paid at the shop / warden’s office. It’s a lovely tranquil island full of insects and nesting swallows and with tunnels and gun emplacements to explore. The acoustics in some of the internal concrete rooms are amazing, I found myself singing in a couple of them because it sounded so good.

Back outside a police RIB was tying up and by the time I was back at the boat there were half a dozen of them waiting for me to examine my papers. They wanted to see my passport and other ship’s papers. The passport was fine but they managed to find a clause in my insurance saying that there should be 2 aboard any time we were under way. They also saw that I had been commercial and got a bit excited because, if I was trying to operate commercially it wouldn’t have been good. I managed to find an e mail to show them to say that my commercial coding had expired and I could no longer operate commercially and they left telling me to sort out my insurance and e mail them once I had it sorted out.

I’ve contacted  the insurance but have not heard back yet but it may be that I’ll need to find a crew for the week from Sunday 13th to Sunday 20th July going from Copenhagen to Stockholm.

Once they’d left I went for a Sunset, well a bit before sunset but 1900 beer up on the hill followed by left over paprika chicken for dinner.