I'm sitting in bed drinking tea and eating cookies. We're off! It's friday today and we've been on our way since monday. Last week was a bitch, we finnished the mast, installed a new calorifier, a new VHF, packed, shopped, stepped the mast, bought a million little things that we needed for the boat and came out a lot poorer. I don't think I was in bed before 1 am any night last week. And we're just going for a two month trip, Imagine if we were going to be away for five years!





Anyway, we're on our way now. What a relief! We left Malmö five days ago in nice winds but with a grey sky and rain threatening to break out any minute. Lotta's family came along for the short trip to Falsterbokanalen, the place where I first started to sail dinghies. With just an hour to go the sky opened up and we moored alongside the pontoon looking like drowned cats. We stayed there the entire tuesday. We had to buy a new winch for the genoa halyard and mount it on the mast. That night we had dinner with my parents who live nearby. Falsterbokanalen is a man made channel and it saves you around 13M if you're going south, or north. At 1100 on wednsday, as the bridge opened, we passed through and we were on our way! The 33M sail to Klintholm on Mön in Denmark took 9 hours in very light winds but beautiful sunny weather with a sea that looked like mercury. We motored the last 15M. Klintholm was expensive, 34€ for one night and then we spent another 250€ on 200 liter diesel and the "hafenmeister" (harbourmaster) only spoke german!


The captain!




At thursday we were off again, this time through Smålandsfarvandet to the small island of Femö, also in Denmark. Again, hardly any wind and it took all day to sail the 30M. The small marina was full and we anchored just 100 metres off the beach, together with 13 other boats. The night was very calm and we took the dinghy ashore and went for a walk. Friday (today), we set sail for Spodsbjerg on Langeland (long land), another danish island. It probably got it's name from it's shape, the danes are predictable. A lot cheaper than Klintholm and plenty of room. The sail today was in force 4-5 winds and we made good speed under mizzen and genoa on a broad reach. We got a head current as we aproached Langeland and the seas we're quite choppy. I cut my hand, knocked my head on the main boom and we spilled sauce from the lunch stew all over the cockpit. On top of this, some (probably the previous owner) had removed the vent hose to one of the diesel tanks from the deck vent and we had filled the cabinet where we keep all our drinking glasses with diesel. We didn't notice this until I handed Lotta a glass mixed with lemonade and diesel. She had an extra mouth full before noticing that something was wrong. She still tastes like diesel when I kiss her... All the glasses are in a bucket of water in the cockpit and it seems like they'll be odor free. The locker is worse off though, but that's a project for tomorrow.


Oh yeah! Tjis is how the mast turned out, varnished and ready. More details later.