Month: September 2022

Copenhagen, Paris, Copenhagen, London. The team splits up and conquers all.

September 22, 2022 / fiandadrian

Fi’s in Copenhagen

By Fi – Once we got to Copenhagen, Adrian and I were keen to go touring with Tara through some of our favourite cities. Adrian was first up to go and meet Tara in Paris. So after 2 nights of decent sleep, off he went leaving me with Bernie and the delights of Copenhagen. First stop for me, friends! We had some friends who arrived just after us and who were keen to catchup and see some of the sights. I met them in the street food market, Reffen for a spot of lunch. It was so great to catch up and hear about their cruising adventures since we left them on the Kiel.

So good to catch up with fantastic people!

That evening I also caught up with our friend Morten and went back to Reffen for dinner. I swear they know me there now!

2 days were spent washing, which sounds boring but it meant the boat was lovely and fresh and Bernie’s bedding was all clean and smelling great. Very cathartic.

Copenhagen for me and Bernie was social, with some boat work and walks thrown in, but Paris for Adrian was… well… Paris.

Adrian’s in Paris

By Adrian – Its always lovely to visit Paris. We started with a bit of orientation: Louvre, Seine, Arc de Triomphe, and a stroll down the Champs Elysees.

We climbed up the arch and enjoyed watching the traffic for a while.

Of course the Jardin de Luxemborg is mandatory when one is in Paris. Even better with fresh macarons.

A walk in the park. Just like an Australian park, except totally different.

We found this tower all lit up at night with about three million people walking around it taking pictures

We try to tick off all the Paris must do’s, but alas, as we are there on a Sunday and Monday, many things are closed – however, this is Paris – there is much to see!

Found some art. Were all the chairs art?

Ate the required amount of fancy French food

and enjoyed the warm summers evenings with a dose of french onion soup, escargot and a glass of red.

Adrian’s in Copenhagen

By Adrian – Fi and I had one evening to catch up on things, before she headed off to London and I found myself alone with a fur shedding slightly neurotic spaniel.

Bernie and I went on long walks, studied industrial architecture, tackled some boat jobs

Fi’s in London

By Fi- Donning my suitably colour coordinated outfit for the cabbie, I toddled off to Copenhagen airport to fly over to my second home, London. Getting in around dinner time, I thought the most English-y thing to do would be to take Tara to the pub for a pint and a feed of proper stodge. We are staying in Notting Hill.

So matchy matchy… Bernie clearly wants to come too.

For our first full day in London, we decided to get our walking shoes on and go exploring. We looked at Kensington Palace, Hyde Park, then Covent Garden and then on to Camden Markets, finishing with a lovely dinner at a local Notting Hill restaurant called Beach Blanket Babylon.

Beautiful tribute to Diana from her sons.

We weren’t sure which country we were in here…

Inside Camden Markets has been really cleaned up.

The next day was a breakfast wander down Portabello Road to look at the markets, followed by lunch with some friends at South Bank, and also chilling out for the afternoon so we had the energy to dance the night away in Soho! We had a great lunch, and spent the evening at the Scotch in Soho, and moved on to another club later, but by that point I didn’t take note of its name. It was somewhere near Leicester square…

Girls looking slightly less sharp in the early hours.

On my final full day in London with Tara, I managed to drag my exhausted self out of bed to accompany Ta to a cool immersive art piece called Dopamine land. That night we decided to stop in our accomodation for dinner and ordered takeaway.

The next day, Tara and I parted ways. Me to get on to a plane at Stanstead Airport back to Copenhagen, and Tara to begin her long journey back home.

Arriving home to Away, as I walked down the path towards the boat, a little spaniel head popped up, jumped off the boat and ran towards me like a scene out of chariots of fire. Needless to say he was happy to see me! As was Adrian – its great to be home, and I had a great time!

Back together in Copenhagen

Once the band was back together, we took the opportunity to have some time in the amazing restaurants in Copenhagen. Naturally we went to Reffern the street food markets, but we also visited 56 degrees, Oens Have and Empircal, all the while enjoying bread and breakfast at Lille Bakery.

Copenhagen is a little like a black hole for us. We love it here and get comfortable very quickly. We do however have to move on, but the weather has been conspiring against us and is on the nose (i.e coming from the north, which is the direction we want to go). We are watching closely for a weather window to head across the north sea to Scotland where Away will spend winter. It will happen, and we are currently working on a plan to ensure we are in the right place at the right time to tick off this bucket list passage across the north sea.

Stockholm to Copenhagen in a week

September 16, 2022 / fiandadrian

By Adrian

On a beautiful summers day we left Stockholm and retraced our steps south through the archipelago. A police launch accompanied us accosting jet skis and other over enthusiastic boats ignoring the speed limits.

Bernie guided us through the narrow bits.

With the sails hoisted we weaved our way through the islands and found an appropriate bay for the night. There was a sauna but only for club members, so we stayed aboard and kept moving the next morning. By afternoon we were tacking our way towards the edge of the archipelago. Fi spotted a sheltered anchorage with shallow access and a very narrow entrance channel which are often less crowded.

The channel was dredged to 2.2m, although we saw 1.4m on the way in. No Hallberg Rassy’s in here. In fact no boats at all.

Another overnight stay and we were headed down the coast to one of our favourite areas from the way north. We found an anchorage in a deep bay in the middle of an island. As we approached I noticed a high powered RIB with black suited people approaching. This time a couple of them came aboard, asked their questions and even checked our passports. Bernie was very excited. All the while we were sailing towards our destination.

The long bay led to a sheltered anchorage in the centre of the island. The same black rib came in the next day checking out the boats, but we are known to them now so no problems.

There was plenty of space with only five or six other boats. Beautiful walks on the island, and a small settlement as well. Tonnes of Nordic blueberries everywhere.

Bernie thought we should have bought him a cinnamon scroll

An English couple in motor boat who were also members of the Cruising Association blew their horn and held up a sign ‘Beer?’. We obliged and learned that they had had come from the Netherlands over a number of years, doing a section of the trip each year and storing the boat over winter. We enjoyed a chat with them, and had them over to Away as well the following evening.

After a couple of nights in this idyllic spot, we decided to leave again and get going on our first overnight passages on Away. Snacks prepared, dinner and breakfasts ready, we headed out of the anchorage at a reasonable time in the morning. We are aiming for south Sweden and the area near Karlskrona.

The winds were light but we made good progress with the big red sail.

The sun set as we passed the northern end of Oland Island (the long thin island on the east coast of Sweden). We stayed to the east of the island to avoid the narrow channel around Kalmar and hopefully get better winds overnight.

As the sun went down a small yacht cut across our bow and headed west. We took the opportunity to test the radar. It works very well for larger boats, those with radar reflectors and smaller boats that are a mile or two away. For small crunchy fiberglass boats within a mile we are not sure we would pick them out from the noise.

During the night we heard the Swedish navy requesting a boat doing 8 knots to the south east of us to contact them. We didn’t hear the boat reply so we are not sure of the outcome. So much intrigue during the night…

By morning we were turning West and heading for Karlskrona. We sailed most of the day and decided to find a stopover for the night rather than keep going for a second night.

Karlskrona is a Swedish navy centre. This boat passed us and then stopped . As we sailed along the coast it didn’t move, but never got any further away. At dusk we noticed it in the distance checking up on us in our anchorage. The next morning it was waiting for us as we headed out to sea again.

Fi found another nice little spot tucked out of most of the wind, and we decided to have a mini impromptu picnic on the rocks on shore to have sundowners and watch the sun set. Bernie took the opportunity to sniff everything, run away, and also get in the water.

Bernie was very happy to be off the boat and enjoyed a long swim.

The next morning we left in comfortable time as we didn’t need to get in Copenhagen too early the following day. Again we were prepped for another overnight sail. The wind was in the mid twenties and but forecast to die out overnight. There were two swells from half behind us which every now and then conspired to roll the stern and cause the autopilot to complain that it needed bigger rudders.

We heard ‘Warship A’ talking to ‘Warship B’ on channel 16 with broad American accents. These anonymous vessels later passed to our stern. Perhaps they were using the standard shipping radio channels to make sure everyone knew they were there…

By 9:30pm we were able to make a small heading change to get the swell behind us for a more comfortable evening. Container ships kept us company during the night in the nearby shipping channel and the ferry traffic from Ystad crossed our path from time to time. Otherwise the wind remained consistent, and we were happy with our sail plan. We take alternating watches, and each of us sleep when we can.

Bernie is never far from Fi when we are at sea.

Never ever far… Fi has some other kind of doggie level patience.

The wind and swell dropped in the early hours and the big red sail came out for the final leg north into Copenhagen. We almost made it under sail, but as the wind dropped to 4-5 knots the lure of hamburgers and beer was just too strong and we motored the last hour.

Ahhh, our favourite market Reffen, and some excellent food and drink.

Its great to be back in Copenhagen with its world class food and atmosphere.

Next time we hit the bright lights of Paris and London.

Stockholm again

September 13, 2022 / fiandadrian

We had a few days in Stockholm before Tara flew out on the next leg of her European jaunt. Fi was not going to miss the opportunity of an accomplice on the rollercoasters. Its not that I don’t like paying money to be sick and scared out of my brain, but I do prefer a quiet dog walk.

So the designer thought that this might be fun?

To torture people who don’t like heights?

Was this really the most glamorous dog water bowl we had seen…Bernie seemed to think so

The Vasa was perhaps the least successful warship ever made. It was made between 1626 and 1628 and sank roughly 1300m into its maiden voyage when a puff of wind blew it over. In software engineering circles its held up as an example of why you don’t blindly accept all the requirements from the customer or you can end up with a failure. Further reading suggests this was not the case with the Vasa, but the story persists. It was just poor design.

The Vasa sat at the bottom of Stockholm harbour until she was raised in the 1950s

Not like todays bland warships. These carvings would have sent chills down the spine of any would be attacker.

To my great amusement, models of arguably the worst designed boat in history are very popular.

Time in Stockholm was running short, so we soaked up some more culture and the young people to donned their glad rags and went clubbing.

Fi and Tara had a look at another local gallery in between dancing and rollercoasters.

The old town…why make a straight road when you can make a cute one?

We make so many new friends on this adventure!

Whoo! Dancing the night away with more fantastic new friends who we will catch up with next time in this fantastic city!

Next time, we pump out the black water and sail through the night.

Sailing the Åland Islands

September 6, 2022 / fiandadrian

By Adrian

We left Anemis in the anchorage a few hours after the crack of dawn and mostly motored out through the archipelago. The summer houses got smaller and the motor boats more utilitarian until finally we reached open sea.

We didn’t know where we were going. The autopilot was set to head comfortably high into the wind so we would reach one of the thousands of anchorages in Aland before dark. The wind gradually shifted north so it wasn’t until the last few miles that we were able to choose an anchorage for the night.

We had barely dropped the anchor before a group of intimidating men dressed in black in a high powered black rib approached us. We have never been sure why customs people don’t wear something a little more jolly. After an extensive grilling (How many people are you, and where are you from?) they left us as quickly as they had appeared and we were officially cleared in.

Aland is an autonomous region of Finland with its own courtesy flag.

Over the next few days Bernie, Tara and I explored the islands by dinghy and paddle board while Fi recovered from a bout of covid.

We found a very *shallow* narrow gap between two islands. We were considering whether we could fit through when a local rowed through from the other direction. We asked if the passage was navigable and it turned out it was, he was off to set his fish trap for dinner and his father had sailed grain from Australia on the square riggers.

No contest in the coolest sunnies competition…and I have a cool hat too!

We were only a few miles from Mariehamn, the main town in the Alands. In this marina you grab a buoy and quickly attach it the stern/bow as you crash into the dock. It was our first one of this type so we decided to make it more difficult by reversing in with a cross wind. No-one died.

This ship is parked at Mariehamn and used to go to Australia to pick up supplies. The museum plotted the history of the region from the earliest settlement to the conflicts of the last century.

After a few days looking round Mariehamn we set sail for Rodhamn, an island 10 miles away. Along the way we confirmed the depth between two rocky outcrops was less than 2.8m. Fi took the honours confirming the depth by leaving the marked channel and running over a rock which made quite a fun scraping and banging noise as the lifting centreboard bashed over it. Fi said Covid Brain did it…

Rodhamn had a small museum, a sauna with a view and they delivered fresh bread to the boat each morning. If it didn’t ice over in winter we might never have left.

Fi was clearly still suffering a fever as she braved the Baltic waters

Sauna with a view. Before plunging into the Baltic it is advisable to channel ones inner Viking, or sit in a sauna until the water looks inviting.

The harbour masters office and place of fresh cinnamon scrolls.

After a couple of nights we reluctantly headed east. The big red sail scared the light wind away and we motored most of the way. Finding an island to ourselves is not hard in this part of the world.

We tied up to the rocks and set about exploring

Fi climbed the mast for a better view, and to change the faulty wind instruments

And we contemplated our windless anchorage

The winds for the next few days only gave one opportunity for a trip back to Sweden. It seemed appropriate that our last trip in the Alands, like all the others, was upwind.

Our chosen anchorage was full of boats, but a quiet bay around the corner was empty.

There is always an empty bay not too far Away

There were blueberries and raspberries in the woods

The wind changed direction as we finished our walk around the island so we hurried back to the boat and left as we were now uncomfortably on a lee shore. We sailed through the archipelago towards a possible restaurant for lunch.

As lunch ended, the band started. Lunch quickly turned into dinner, and dinner into an overnight stay. Funny how that happens.

The next morning as we headed around the corner to find a spot for breakfast we discovered we were booked in a Stockholm marina that day. Our short breakfast trip turned into a full day sail back into Stockholm.