I had taken the early train from Berlin and done some last grocery shopping in Greifswald to keep me from starving for at least five days.
Below decks it was still chaos and I put all the things wherever I could find some room (I’ll probably never find them again).
I was in a bit of a hurry because I wanted to catch the last bridge opening in Wieck at 2000 because the wind was looking good for the next few days and I needed to be safely in a harbour (preferably in Lemvig) before a nasty low pressure system would come through towards the end of the week.
The first 12 hours were a blast. We had a perfect wind from the port quarter and the self steering vane (never heretofore tested) worked perfectly right from the start (well after finding, I had installed the blocks in the wrong positions but that was easily fixed). Then came about four hours of total calm (near Rügen’s white cliffs) and extreme heat and I was happy to have the fan.
I needed to go right through the Offshore Windpark at Kriegers Flak. I remembered it would be marked somehow. It either wasn’t anymore or I missed the marks or I took the wrong channel. Either one of those things. But I made it through without being stopped.
The wind picked up considerably a few hours before Copenhagen and just with nightfall and the waves built up to be very impressive. Still the windvane (will still have to find a name for her or him) steered without getting tired. John Maynard (my autopilot) would never have been able to cope with those waves (no offense John, you have other qualities).
We made it through the busy shipping channel and into the sound where fortunately the waves died down. We were making very good speed.
Near Helsingør at the end of the sound the first thunderstorm awaited. It lasted for ten hours and it wasn’t all that scary but I had never seen so much rain at one time in my life (probably did but it felt like I hadn’t). We were now running dead downwind and if I didn’t want everything flooded below decks I had to close the hatches and make a decision…. stay inside nice and dry but not being able to see anything, or stay in the cockpit…
The rain stopped after ten hours and the wind, too. Only for a little while. It then picked up again and blew right on our nose. What would have been another 6 hours to the anchorage turned into twelve of tacking into a very uncomfortable wave.
But we made it to the anchorage. Arrived there Thursday morning, all in all in very good time and with hardly any motoring. I went to sleep immediately for four hours. Then cleaned up the boat, made some dinner and went back to sleep for the night.
