Sailing in the Baltic, 3rd - 17th August 2018

Karlskrona (Sweden) to Orth on Fehmarn (Germany)


    Note: Nm = Nautical Mile = 1.85 km
                                          Sail Power Total Start  End Duration
                                          (Nm)  (Nm)  (Nm)
    Karlskrona    Ekenäs, Ronneby           27     4    31 12:45 20:45  8:00
    Ekenäs        Christiansø               48     4    52 07:00 16:45  9:45
    Christiansø   Rønne on Bornholm          9    24    33 07:10 15:30  8:20
    Rønne         Sassnitz on Rügen         40    12    52 07:15 18:30 11:15
    Sassnitz      Wieck, Greifswald          0    30    30 10:00 15:30  5:30
    Wieck         Neuhof, nr. Stralsund     12     9    21 14:00 20:00  6:00
    Neuhof        Stralsund                  0     7     7 10:15 13:00  2:45
    Stralsund     Borre, Klintholm on Møn   30    16    46 05:50 17:00 11:10
    Borre         Gedser on Falster         27     3    30 09:10 16:00  6:50
    Gedser        Külungsborn               32     5    37 09:00 18:00  9:00
    Külungsborn   Burgtiefe                 22     3    25 06:10 11:30  5:20  
    Burgtiefe     Orth on Fehmarn            3     7    10 13:00 16:40  3:40

    Total Distance:  374 Nm = 693 km
    Total Time:      87 hrs 35 mins

Friday 3rd August:     Riniken - Karlskrona

This should have been a simple day - 09:20 train to Zurich Airport, 12:20 flight to Copenhagen (CPH),15:02 train to Karlskrona with no changes, 18:20 arrive in Karlskrona. It didn't turn out that way.

First of all, there was some problem getting through Zurich causing the train to be some 30 minutes late getting to the airport. However, this didn't really matter because I had plenty of time to catch the flight. The weather was also seemingly perfect for travelling, hot and dry, as it has been since we got back from Spain at the end of June. Unfortunately it was the start of the weekend in the summer holidays. The plane was just under an hour late setting off as a result of the extra traffic.

CPH was chaotic and boiling hot. It was impossible to stay cool. I had missed the train that I had hoped for, so, after fighting the queues at the train ticket machines (there was no ticket office) to get a ticket, I ended up on the packed 16:02 train. After reaching Malmö there was an announcement that only the front few coaches went as far as Karlskrona. I was at the back of the train. Fortunately the train had emptied at Malmö, so I could move to a comfortable seat further forward.

The train batted along through endless parched countryside until there was another announcement that there was a problem with the rails just past Mörrum near Karlshamn caused by the hot weather. We all had to get off and wait for a bus. We waited and waited and waited, trying to stay in the shade from the blazing afternoon sun. People gradually ordered taxis, the crowd diminished, time was getting on, and I could see myself eventually standing alone looking for a room. When an 8 person taxi rolled up asking SEK 250 per person to get to Karlskrona, I took it. I was finally in Karlskrona at 20:25.

Finding Hansueli, Frieder and the boat, Amity, was easy. We were soon sitting in a restaurant at the marina enjoying a beer and waiting for some food.

Saturday 4th August:     Karlskrona - Ronneby-Ekenäs

After deciding on a menu plan and shopping accordingly, it was late morning before we had to decide whether to sail or not. The wind forecast was for a strong, unfavourable wind. HU decided to sail. We set off shortly before 12:00.

We wandered around a bit as HU was getting the sail up, getting in the way of a ferry or two in the process before things settled down. It got rougher and rougher as we tacked back and forth against the wind, generally making 4 to 5 knots. It was impossible to sit comfortably with the rough going. At least it was warm.

At some point I had to have a leak, involving a trip below. That caused my pending seasickness to almost get out of control. Fortunately it didn't. There was no question of getting any lunch, and it was about 20:00 before we reached Ronneby. We did it all on an apple and a "Saure Zunge".

By the time the boat had been tied up and wrapped up for the night, we settled for a cold supper with some wine and biscuits first. Definitely a hard introduction to this means of travel.

Sunday 5th August:     Ronneby

The forecast was for even stronger winds than yesterday, especially in the afternoon. Since the wind in the sheltered harbour was quite strong enough in the morning when we got up, it was decided to wait a day before venturing out to sea again.

Really this was a lazy day. The hardest part was preparing the vegetables for HU to make a bami goreng for lunch, accompanied with red wine and followed by a rather sad salad. It had been made too early and had unfortunately got a bit tired.

The afternoon was taken up with digesting lunch, snoozing, going for a stroll, having a dip in the 27 degree sea and having a knot and navigation training session with HU. Supper is going to be bread and put-upons. Tomorrow we're planning to be up at 06:00 to get away as early as possible. It's expected to be a long day crossing to the small island of Christiansø near Bornholm.

Monday 6th August:     Ronneby - Christiansø

We were up at 005:30 for an early start due south to Christiansø. We were off by about 07:00 after a simple breakfast of muesli and powdered coffee. There was a strong west wind, and we motored out of the harbour and into open water before putting up the sails. I was allowed to steer for a while.

Once we got out into open, deep water the idea was for Frieder and myself to take turn and turn about at the helm for an hour each. By the end of my first shift, F needed a toilet break, which was accompanied by getting out the seasickness bucket too. He had to use it, but came back looking OK and able to take over from me. By this time it was time for my leak.

I went below with the bucket and didn't get much further. I threw up and it was ages before I could recover enough to get to the toilet. I went to bed when I'd done and more or less stayed there for 6 hours until the boat chugged into Christiansø. From down below it sounded and felt like an even rougher trip than Saturday, but not needing any tacking. At one point they took down the main sail a notch, and at another they hit a wave that felt as though they had hit a rock, and at another water poured over the cockpit to the extent that water dribbled down into the cabin. We apparently covered about 50 Nm today.

We were in Christiansø for about 17:00. It's a tiny Danish island with nominally 150 inhabitants, though most of it looks like renovated peasants cottages to me. There were some seals out on the rocks when we went for a walk around the island later on. HU cooked Swedish dumplings for supper. They were very stodgy. Hopefully they don't come on the menu again.

Tuesday 7th August:     Christiansø to Rønne on Bornholm

We were all up bright and early as usual, this time at about 05:45, for breakfast and an early start. To some extent this was dictated by our neighbouring boat. The harbour was so small that, despite the few boats there, we had to double park at the quayside, and the other boat wanted to make an early getaway. As it happened, when we left at 07:00 there wasn't much life to be seen on their boat.

The goal for the day was to get across and around Bornholm to its main town, Rønne, on its west coast. The wind was from the south and quite light, so we chugged all the way over using the motor. The motor gave us about 4.2 knots. Having got around its northerly point where a more favourable wind was expected, HU put up the sails. We went faster with the wind, but we had to tack against it so that our net forward speed was very slow. After a few tacks we gave up and used the motor for the rest of the way.

As we were about to enter Rønne harbour, we were met with a Bornholm ferry bearing down on us from the SW. It looked really quite threatening, especially with its size and its speed of 15 knots compared with our 4. We turned off the motor and hung around to let him go in first. We were there for about 15:30 having covered 37 Nm in 8.5 hours. The weather was beautiful all the way and there was no threat of seasickness. Quite a treat.

We were not in a marina but rather the ferry terminal. There were signs up on the quay saying not to moor because a ship was expected, so we weren't quite sure where we should tie up. We picked a spot in the end and it turned out to be all right.

I did a lot of steering today, mainly with motor and some with sail. With motor and the video display navigational aids it is easy. It just gets a bit tense when crossing other boats. Under sail it is much more difficult, especially when tacking. There's no clear course to follow on the screen, and if you steer too much into the wind the sails start flapping and the boat comes to a stop so you can't steer any more. I think that I got the hang of it in the end. Maybe there'll be more practice soon.

After a drink we went to do a small shop and then did our own thing until time to cook at about 19:30. I managed to find a free WiFi in the market square to catch up on duolingo and emails. Evening meal was a delicious tomato and mozzarella salad from Frieder and an oriental cod dish from HU, which was also excellent. After that it was time for a shower and bed. Tomorrow we're off to Rügen.

Wednesday 8th August:     Rønne on Bornholm to Sassnitz on Rügen

We were again up shortly before 6 to get off by about 7 for a long crossing to Sassnitz on Rügen. The weather was very pleasant with a fairly strong quite favourable wind expected. With an 11 or 12 hour trip in front of me and Monday's miserable experience, I was somewhat on tenterhooks regarding what the day had in store.

We chugged out of the not-very-pleasant Rønne harbour, slipping out in front of a cruise liner waiting to get in, and put up the sails quite soon. Our planned course was SE, but the wind caused us to head a few degrees to the right of this in order to keep up speed. After a couple of hours a wind farm, that was on neither our nautical map nor our digital display, came into sight across our path. We were of the opinion that the farm was in 2 groups with a channel between, which we headed for. It turned out to be a wind farm under construction.

But a few miles before we got there we got a radio message telling us that our planned course was "risky" and insisting that we go around the farm. It was better for us to head east, since we would have had to do this tack later to compensate for the wind having driven us more to the west than we had wanted. We turned on the motor to do this, and things went very slowly. Two hours later we finally got past the last wind turbine and the foundations for many more to come.

We turned back onto course again, turned off the motors, and went a bit faster, 5-6 knots. The sea had got quite rough in the meantime, and it looked like rain ahead. Sure enough, it did rain and we had to don warmer clothes and waterproofs. The rain turned out to be of short duration, the weather turned nice again, the sea calmed down, yet we managed to keep up speed on a direct line to Sassnitz.

As we approached the island, the visibility got quite diffuse, but we still got a good view of Rügen's famous white cliffs. But it also looked like a thunder storm was developing. The storm broke as we were already stressed out trying to dock the boat. We were drenched very quickly and made something of a pig's ear of the docking. Fortunately only our pride suffered. We had covered some 55 Nm in 11 hours.

We went to a fish restaurant for evening meal, but my choice of cod with a ratatouille dressing turned out to be a poor choice. A shower before bed was very welcome, though it was quite a long walk from the boat to the washrooms.

Thursday 9th August:     Sassnitz on Rügen to Greifswald (Wieck)

We had a leisurely morning since we estimated that it would only take about 5 hours to get around Rügen in a clockwise direction and over to Greifswald on the mainland. We wandered into the town to do a small shop first, before setting off at about 10:00.

We chugged out of the harbour, and basically continued to chug all the way over a quiet sea in beautiful sunshine to Greifswald. There was a lot of ship activity along the way with quite a few dredgers keeping open a deep channel through relatively shallow water. For quite a way it was like driving along a street keeping right between the green buoys on our right and the red ones on our left.

At one point HU tried putting out the fore-sail (the wind was right behind us, which apparently makes it not good to put out the main sail - we would have had to veer off our course to keep the sail safe) but it cost us speed, and there was a storm warning for late afternoon. HU didn't want to take the risk of a repeat of last night's docking. So we did some more motoring.

As it turned out, we were in Wieck, the harbour of Greifswald, for about 15:30. We had everything prepared for docking this time before getting into the harbour, so things went relatively smoothly. There was no sign of a storm.

We're in a docking place of the Wieck Yacht Club, with WiFi and shower included in the 15 Eur overnight fee. We did 32 Nm today in 5.5 hours. It was nearly all done on auto-pilot.

Friday 10th August:     Greifswald (Wieck) to Neuhof

The storm came in the night, and the temperature dropped a lot. There was, as usual, a lot of discussion between HU and F about weather, wind, and what goal we should have. The problem is the bridge at Stralsund that has very restricted opening hours. In the end it was decided to stop before the bridge at Neuhof, a relatively short stretch, allowing us to start in the afternoon.

We pottered around in the morning. I did some hand washing, F and I went for a short walk to do a little shopping, we all had a snooze, F had a snack at the local inn, and I had an ice cream. We set off at about 14:00. As usual, we went out of the harbour using the motor, but obviously tried to put up the sail too soon before the water was deep enough. Whilst motoring slowly into the wind to put up the sail, we ran aground.

We seemed to be stuck quite hard. Forwards and backwards with the motor didn't help much, neither did taking the sail down again. I came up with the idea of pulling out the jib sail (Fock Segel), which should swing us round to point in the direction of deeper water and help the motor. With much relief for all of us it worked, and we got free.

When we put up the sail a bit later, it was fantastic. We scooted along at 6+ knots in quite choppy water. After a while we started to sail into the Stralsund straits and had to start tacking. As the afternoon wore on, the straits got narrower and the wind dropped, making it harder to hold course under sail. Eventually we switched to motor for the last hour or so and chugged into the Neuhof marina at about 20:00. There was a very nice sunset. We had tomato/basil/mozzarella salad followed by pasta with bolognese-type sauce for supper.

By the time that we turned in after a cold shower it was about midnight.

We covered about 21 Nm in 6 hours today.

Saturday 11th August:     Neuhof to Stralsund

The time to leave was determined by the opening time of the Stralsund bridge, some 5 Nm away. We left earlier than planned on account of the freshening wind. It was a straightforward motorboat ride to the bridge, where we circled for about 45 minutes with about 10 other boats until the bridge opened at 11:20.

We all surged through, and we branched off to the Stralsund marina, where we found a rather tight space to get into. We strolled around Stralsund in the afternoon, but when it started to look like rain, HU went back to the boat to put up the "tent" over the cockpit. That left F and myself to shelter from the rain by having a coffee and slice of Sanddorn cake.

We all had showers before 18:30 so that HU could return the harbour ticket and get his deposit back. We're planning an early start tomorrow to cross over to Denmark again. Evening meal was a restaurant where I had a whole plaice and fried potatoes. It was very good, but would have been better still with some tartar sauce.

With all the circling around in front of the bridge, we covered about 7 Nm in just less than 3 hours today, all on motor.

Sunday 12th August:     Stralsund to Klintholm on Møn, DK

It poured down in the night. We were up at 05:00 for a rushed breakfast in order to get off for 6, if possible. HU had been worrying himself silly as to how we were going to get out of the tight berth. We were schooled several times with various scenarios of wind direction. As it turned out, it was wind-still in the harbour when we left and it was trivial.

As soon as we got into more open water, we put up the sails to follow what became a narrow channel with a width of about 100 m. It cut its way through mud banks and bird reserves between the mainland and Rügen. We then went around the west of the island of Hiddensee to reach open water. It took about 2 hours to get through.

It has now turned really quite cool compared to what we have become used, so that it was time for long trousers, t-shirt, long sleeved thermal vest, fleece and nylon jacket and over-trousers. Once open sea had been reached, it got rough, reaching Beaufort 6 at times. There were rain showers all around, including the sight of a waterspout off the coast of Rügen. We were spared any serious rain, but had a lot of spray over the bow instead.

At about 12:00, F misread the navigation display and announced that we still needed 9 hours to reach our goal, even though the island of Møn with its white cliffs was already clearly visible. I decided to go for a snooze to kill some time. Unfortunately the getting up and dressed below deck about 90 minutes afterwards brought on feelings of seasickness. I managed to surmount them. I was also comforted to hear that the 9 hour estimate was wrong, and that we only had about another 2 hours to go.

We did a lot of sailing today, only using the motor to start and trim the main sail, and for some of the tight navigation in the narrow channel. We finished off on motor and sail to make faster progress. At one point the wind had got to be over 20 knots, so HU had reduced the amount of sail to reduce wear and tear on the equipment. It also reduces the speed, of course.

We sailed into Klintholm marina at about 17:00 and found a pleasant berth. It started raining soon after, and forgot to stop before bedtime. Supper was spaghetti and pesto sauce.

We covered about 50 Nm in about 11 hours today.

Monday 13th August:     Klintholm on Møn to Gedser on Falster, DK

As noted, it was pouring down when we went to bed, so I had my shower in the morning, for a change. It was still grey when we got up, but at least dry for the quite long walk to the shower.

Plan A had been to leave after lunch and head west between the islands of Møn and Falster at Stubbekobing. That was changed to Plan B because of forecast west winds blocking further progress with Plan A. Plan B involved leaving at about 10:00 and heading SW along the eastern Danish coast to its southerly tip at Gedser.

We had a leisurely breakfast and left soon after 10:00. The wind was favourable. We started with 1 "riff" in the main sail, i.e. shortened by one notch out of a possible three, but had to sail fairly tight to the wind to stay on course. That reduces one's speed and requires some concentration from the helmsman. Later the wind turned more to the east, we could extend the main sail to its full extent, and could switch on the auto-pilot. It was very relaxing. The weather slowly improved, the waves calmed down, all in all a pleasant day.

When we finally reached the southern tip of Denmark, I was at the helm and had to turn the corner to get round to Gedser harbour. All went well in principle, except that after the turn I mistook the line of a submarine cable on the satnav display for the line of our route, which earned me a black mark and the turning on of the motor a little earlier than planned to get us back on route and to chug the last little bit into harbour, By this time it was going on for 17:00.

We soon had the boat tidied up and the cockpit "tent" mounted so that we could enjoy our afternoon apero, followed by curried pork later on. There were jellyfish around in the harbour, some of them of a stinging variety according to our boating neighbour, so any thoughts of a dip in the sea were soon quenched.

We covered about 30 Nm in about 7 hours today.

Tuesday 14th August:     Gedser, DK to Kühlungsborn, DE

F and I were in the doghouse a bit this morning. We were the first up and were internetting when HU appeared with no breakfast in sight. The real problem, though, was that rain was imminent and we had to choose between taking down the tent immediately or having breakfast first. We chose the latter and it started raining before we got the tent down. It's back up again this evening, though, so I don't see that any damage was done packing it up damp for a day.

We had a long stretch today SSW to Külungsborn, west of Rostock, and the wind was in the SW - very unfavourable. We were off for 09:00 and had the sails up as soon as we got past the dredged channel out of the harbour. The wind was stiff and the waves already much larger than expected.

We couldn't keep on course, but were maybe 10 degrees east, heading almost towards Rostock. The weather got unpleasant with storms around, and the sea got much rougher too, with occasional waves over 2 m high. But we were doing a good speed, maybe over 6 kn at times. We had to cross the main east-west shipping lane, and there seemed to be huge ships everywhere, one a container ship about 400 m long piled high with containers. We kept to our course and were never really troubled by them.

After many hours we decided that it was time to do a tack to the right, otherwise we would be in Warnemunde, a long coastal chug from where we wanted to be. A tack involves a direction change of about 120 degrees, from 60 degrees to the wind in one direction, to 60 degrees in the other. The main sail looks after itself whilst this is going on, but the foresail has to be switched to the other side. The foresail is controlled by 3 ropes, all running to the cockpit. One rope pulls it tight to starboard when the wind comes from port, another rope does the opposite, and a third rolls it up when it isn't needed. HU let one rope out, I pulled in another, and F turned the wheel. It went very smoothly.

After the turn, we were heading directly towards a rain storm, which had been threatening us for a while. It started to rain and the wind became variable. Suddenly the sails went flop, the speed went down to zero so there was no steerage, and it was panic stations. I think that we had encountered some wind irregularity caused by the storm, like a mini whirlwind. Whilst correcting for it and getting on course again, F did a 360 degree turn to the right by mistake. All was well, but we realised how tired F had become holding us on course. So we turned on the auto-pilot once we had things sorted out, and I took up position behind the wheel, not having much to do but watch out for tankers and for changes in the wind. The auto-pilot was set to hold us at 60 degrees to the wind, rather than keeping to specific course. 60 degrees to the wind is a compromise when heading against the wind between the closest possible, which is about 30 degrees but with hardly any speed, and a bigger angle where one goes faster, but isn't really getting to where one wants to. There's also the need to reduce the number of tacks to a minimum since one loses some distance during the turn.

After about 1.5 hours on this new tack, we were nearly back to the straight line route, which would have taken us to Külungsborn directly if we had had a favourable wind. We tacked back to the left, letting the auto-pilot do the turn whilst HU and F tended to the fore-sail. In the meantime, the wind had become more westerly enabling us to keep pretty much on course at a good speed.

F took over the watch behind the wheel just in time to get drenched by another shower. When we were nearly there, the sail was taken down, the motor turned on, and we floated slowly into Külungsborn harbour at about 18:00. Tying up was, as usual, managed quite well, but with an awful lot of shouting back and forth. It's a huge marina with very good facilities. We ate in a restaurant next to the harbour where I had a very satisfactory hamburger. It was quite late before we turned in, but the next day was going to be a rest day.

Wednesday 15th August:     Kühlungsborn, DE

F was up first to shower, wash some clothes, and buy fresh bread rolls for breakfast. Afterwards, F and I went shopping whilst HU fixed a broken light. I made omelettes for lunch. The weather in the morning was very pleasant and quite warm again.

What a lazy day. After lunch there was a short snooze, a bit of reading, a walk along the beach and short dip in the sea. The thought of possible jellyfish, despite there being a few other bathers around, soon got me out again. A beer on the boat and then evening meal of bread ant put-upons rounded it off. We went to bed early to be up at 05:00. We wanted to be on our way as early as possible for an expected long day to Fehmarn.

Thursday 16th August:     Kühlungsborn to Orth on Fehmarn

Today's conditions were those that we should have had on Day 1 to get me introduced to sailing. We were up and off for soon after 06:00 as planned. The sky was blue, the sun had just risen, the sea was flat, and there was just about enough wind in a reasonable direction to sail. For starters we were heading SW to Burg on the east coast of the island of Fehmarn, some 25 Nm away.

We soon had the sails up and the auto-pilot turned on and sat back to let the time pass. The wind got up a bit after a while to ruffle the sea a bit and raise our speed to 5+ knots. At one point we were on collision course with a tanker. We stood our ground and he adjusted his course marginally to avoid us. Otherwise there were very few boats about, not even yachts.

In Burg we were intending to fill up with diesel before sailing on to Orth, about another 8 Nm west under the main rail/road bridge from Hamburg to Puttgarden and the ferry to Denmark. Orth is the place where HU winters his boat. And once there we were to take the sails off the boat before the rain forecast for Friday, so that they could be packed away nice and dry for the winter.

If the wind had turned out to be bad for us, it could have been 16:00 before we reached Burg, and getting really late before we got to Orth. As it turned out, we were in Burg for 12:00, had filled up with diesel, had had a snack at the harbour café, had sailed on under the bridge, and got to Orth for 15:00 in lovely warm sunshine. That was the end of the sailing. Now we have a few days to help HU prepare his boat for the winter.

The harbour here isn't that big, but has more character than many of the others places where we have spent the night. It's also rather full so that there's a lot of double parking and there's no spare power point for us to plug into.

After a rest for beer and nuts, we took down the 2 sails and wrapped them up with a lot of huffing and puffing. We ate in a homely fish restaurant at the harbour, had showers, and tended our emails.

Friday 17th August:     Orth on Fehmarn

Today was supposed to have been heavy rain all day, thus stopping clearing-up activities on the boat. As it happened, the morning was fine and sunny, so we took down the main-sail boom, scrubbed the cockpit and deck, and even unwound 50 m of anchor chain to give that a wash too. According to HU that's all that he wants us to do before we leave on Monday.

The rain finally came at 15:00 after we had had a nice spaghetti lunch with bottled sauces, a nice salad, and a cake/ice-cream from the baker's across the road. After the rain had passed, I went for a short walk to the next village and back.

Saturday 18th August:     Orth on Fehmarn

F had suggested to visit an art gallery in Burg today. On checking on the Internet, it turned out to be closed. So we all drove (HU had his car parked in Orth during his sailing trip) to a supermarket in Burg after breakfast where HU and F did a bit of shopping whilst I set off to walk back to Orth via Burg centre and the south coast. So far I've got to a café in Burgstaaken, one of Burg's harbours.

And now here I am in Lemkenhafen 4.5 hours later having a beer and waiting for a portion of fried potatoes. It's been a nice, undemanding walk, but Tevas were not ideal, but it was Hobson's Choice. I have big blisters on the soles of my feet. I got to Orth at 16:00 after being dropped off in Burg North at about 09:30.

I got back in time for afternoon coffee and ice cream. Afterwards, we moved the boat manually along the quay a few metres. Evening meal was a very nice prawn curry with accompanying salad.

Sunday 19th August:     Orth on Fehmarn

We spent some time in the morning giving the kitchen a thorough clean. We also had to push the boat along a few metres more. Lunch was bread and put-upons and our last evening meal is to be in the fish restaurant in Lemkenhafen where I had fried potatoes yesterday.

The restaurant meal was excellent!

Monday 20th August:     Orth on Fehmarn to Riniken

HU gave Frieder and myself a lift to Burg station. The journey home with changes in Lübeck, Hamburg and Basel was straightforward. Switzerland was still in the throes of its hot summer when I got there.