To Aalborg 24th

We had a leisurely breakfast and went to see if we could pay for our berth at what we thought was the harbour office however it turned out to be an IT company. As there was nowhere else obvious we decided that honour had been satisfied and went to the Supermarket and bought some bits and pieces stopping only at the recycling bin to pick up an empty 5 ltr container of carlsberg made of  some good plastic which I am hoping will make a bit of a repair to my chain shoot which currently needs someone to pull the chain into the locker every few metres because of a broken bit of plastic at the bottom of the shoot down which the chain slides to stow under the for’d berth.

Back on the boat with our goodies we prepared to leave, the wind was light so it wasn’t difficult and we  left at about 1000. Once clear of the harbour I put up the main with two reefs and we headed towards Aalborg. The wind was mainly Westerly 4-5 initially and mostly astern. We  sailed along an open bit of water under a grey sky towards the first bottle neck where the depth below the keel was around 1 metre which was somewhat worrying as we were belting along at about 7 knots with main and 2 reefed genoa but in line with the chart and channel. Gybing along the channel past what looked a bit like the Colintraive ferry we came out into another expanse of open water and the wind picked up to near gale force. The sail plan, having been conservative was now ‘about right’ and we topped 8 knots a few times in the gusts whilst gybing occasionally as the wind shifted - a cold front came through with some rain so Katharine made a huge pot of tomato soup whilst I put on some oilskins. Once past, the wind veered so we gybed again and headed for the narrow channel at the end of the open bit of water which might or might not have been called Logstor Grunde. As we approached the outlet to this expanse the channel was thin windy and long, windy as in long and windy road but also windy as in miller. Looking along at the other end of it where there is a bridge it opens out to about 60m wide. With the gusts I was slightly worried about arriving and having an issue with getting the sails off so reduced the genoa to about 3 reefs at the beginning of the channel and then, when Katharine had put up the N flag, to indicate that we wished to go beneath the bridge, I rolled it up completely so we were just under two reefed main. The channel is well marked with red and green buoys and we wended our way along it drinking tomato soup from the enormous ‘Salmo’ mugs I have which Blondie had bought Peter as presents for his cruise in the 50s. As they were nearly full we must have had about a quart of fine tomato soup each which was ideal. Now that the cold front had passed we had some sun which was good as we’d had no shore power the previous night and little sun or motoring on either day so a few joules into the batteries cheered them up.

About a quarter of a mile from the bridge I thought it was about time to douse the sail so  made preparations by flaking down the halyard then having crossed to the South Side of the channel, turned smartly into the wind, dropped the main and resumed course again, a manoeuvre which worked well. Even Katharine didn’t seem too alarmed. It was blowing a full gale by now. Annoyingly, another boat was waiting to go through the bridge and he snuck through at 1330 with us about 8 minutes away but the bridge closed again and when we got close, expecting it to open at 1400 because our pilot book said it opened every half hour were mildly disappointed to see it  come up with 1415 as it’s next opening time. It was fairly understandable as the road was busy and there appeared to be road works too so only one lane was open at a time and it took nearly half an hour before the bridge was clear of traffic, in the meantime we pottered  about under motor, I went a bit too close to one bank at one point and the depth guage momentarily, (not in the american sense) went to -0.5m but don’t believe that we actually touched.

At around 1414 the lights on the bridge started to flash, having been out, three reds and some time later the bridge started to open. Once fully open we paused for a bit to see if the lights would go green but they didn’t and just stayed steady red, so we decided that this must be the signal for ‘go’ however counter intuitive it seemed. On the other side with the wind now still a full gale and with the channel, again, quite windy and windy I unrolled the genoa to just 2 reefs and left the main stowed. We now were in a fairly narrow channel with, definitely shallow bits either side but sailing down it on autopilot with me on the remote worked well, we could pick up the buoys with binoculars and, combined with the Navionics and Garmin it all worked well, gybing the genoa was easier and quieter than the main and we were still pushing above 8 knots at times. There was quite a lot of open water again but still with just the narrow, dredged, channel to stick to. A  Norwegian Bavaria  joined us a couple of miles ahead from another channel, he was motoring and we were catching him up slowly. Incidentally the buoy topmarks are all, what look like, coloured loo brushes, presumably to discourage shitehawks from landing on them. Going around the penultimate bend prior to arriving in the city centre we would have been overtaking the German but decided to stow the Genoa to prevent crowding the final bit of the passage, we did this and were still doing  5 knots without any sail up at all. Having explained my plan for berthing to Katharine we got our the fenders and mooring lines. I’d decided I would try for the first of two available marinas and on the far wall which was West facing so we could berth into wind and hopefully just lie alongside whilst putting up the lines. As we came past the entrance it looked like the far wall was full so we pottered on to the next marina, next door, but this looked even worse with only the North South wall available which would have meant trying to berth with 30 knots trying to push us off so we went back to the first one again. I now decided I needed a pee so Katharine took her for a couple of minutes whilst I reduced the chances of  dancing around whilst trying to berth under stress. As we entered the harbour it opened up and looked like there were actually spaces ahead of where we had thought was full. Also a tight berth between a couple of expensive yachts. The one we’d decided on looked perfect until we got closer and realised it was the fuel berth but it was possible that there was room ahead of it however there was also room further back but it meant going into a subsection of the harbour with little room to turn. We were set up for berthing port side to. I thought that there should be room to turn in the little subsection of the harbour and went as close to the other side as possible before starting to turn. The wind and Yemaya had different opinions however and about 3/4 of the way through the turn with the wind on the Starboard side I had to go full astern to save alarming the people on the motor boat at which I was pointing. Yemaya has a right handed propeller so, normally, going astern whilst turning to Starboard will accentuate the turn as the prop walk helps the turn. Not always however and the wind now decided just to blow the bow back to port and, it might be said, that a situation was developing. Pursuing our previous aim from a less good starting point was obviously not going to work so I had  now to commit to extracting myself from the little bit of harbour I had hoped to get into. The bow blew around and as some stern way built up I started to get some steerage so put the helm to port to try to keep the turn going and extract ourselves astern from where we’d found  ourselves. We made it, just, and whilst wondering where to try next we  drifted across the harbour a little until one of the marina berths was almost lined up astern. On the chart these berths had looked too shallow for us but the sounder was saying, ‘it’s ok’ so letting serendipity be the better part of valour we continued astern and as we approached the berth stern first some locals appeared to help with the lines which was brilliant as we hadn’t prepared for going into a marina berth with all our lines and most of our fenders on one side and mounted for a harbour wall ie. at the top of the side rather than the bottom. We had to make a couple of adjustments to enter the box but did so  quite nicely (boats tend to want to point stern to wind when going astern which helped) and shortly we were securely moored in the berth and able to tidy up and put things away. Our neighbour told us about the club  house with it’s showers and kitchen and pointed out the qr code for paying and I even managed to do that and get the electricity working, which was an unusual turn of events given my IT skills.

Once we’d had some refreshing 6 O’clock crisps which needed some wine and beer to wash them down with we went for a wander around the area. At the end of the pontoon we found the clubhouse with loos, showers, kitchen and barbecue and the code actually worked for this. As we arrived at the road, heading towards a big shed marked ‘Street Food’ crowds of people were walking the other way and we wondered where to or from. As we turned along the quay to the Street Food shed it appeared that everyone was coming from there and there had been music playing which had now stopped so we surmised that the shed would now be empty. However it wasn’t, there must have been a venue close to it that we couldn’t see. The street food shed was full of little businesses selling pizzas, fish and chips, sushi, wine, beer, pies and so on and so on, probably 30 different businesses and loads of nice seating areas with a great mixture of ages, all having fun together. We carried on along the harbour front and found a chandlery so I’ll see if I can get a new Solar Panel there in the morning.

Deciding it was time to put something on for dinner we went back to the boat and Katharine made a very nice chicken and broccoli bake with roast potatoes for dinner which rounded off our day nicely and we managed to stay up until 10 O’clock before going to bed.

The forecast is for more gales tomorrow so we’ll plan to spend at least another night here.

Waiting for the bridge at Aggersund