Despite my misgivings during the night about the difficulties we might encounter whilst  extricating ourselves from the confines of the too-narrow box as the boat rocked and jerked against her ties in the seas kicked up by the fresh breeze,  we managed it without mishap and were on our way at 10:15, largely because the wind and sea had subsided. It was a sunny day with lots of clouds and the air was quite chill still – it was only 11°C in our main saloon this morning! That meant that when the sun shone, it was comfortably warm but on the all too frequent occasions that a large cloud mass obscured it, it was the opposite. At least there wasn’t much wind chill as there was precious little of it, so we motored the 9 miles across Flensburger förde to the Danish town of Sønderborg. We decided to try the town quay rather than the marina outside the town, the quay has the advantage of being nearer everything but the disadvantage of not having smooth sides, rather there are large wooden supportive poles at 10’ intervals, interspersed with wooden beams. Fortunately, we have 4 large spherical fenders that are fat enough, when placed against the wooden dividing beams, to stick out further than the poles, so we were able to safely rest alongside.

Sønderborg is situated on the southern entrance to Als Sund, the sound that separates the island of Als from the mainland. Translated, it means ‘south or southern castle’ and it has its twin on the northern tip of the island called Nordborg, or Northern Castle. There has been a castle here since the twelfth century, owned either by the crown or the powerful dynasties of dukes, some of whom became kings. It is a complex history hearabouts, as we are right on the border between Germany and Denmark, a border which has moved with time, only being ratified in 1920 after the plebiscite I referred to previously. Prior to that and WW1, all of this area belonged to Prussia after a disastrous Danish defeat in a battle nearby in 1864.  Prussia, incidentally, unified with the other German states to create the German Empire in 1871 – the monarchies were abolished in the revolution of 1918-1919 to become the State of Germany.

That evening Julie created something out of pesto, mushrooms, onion, garlic, courgette & green pepper, served with spaghetti and parmesan and despite my lack of enthusiasm (where’s the meat?) it was delicious!