It’s great when the weather forecast proves accurate. Last night we went to bed with the sound of the wind moaning in the rigging and this morning, as predicted, the wind had gone and the sun was out. We’d had some communications with our nephew Michael (Julie’s sister Cherry’s middle son) as he had been flown out to Copenhagen to carry out some maintenance on a British warship in dock there. As the work had been completed early, he was hoping that he could hire a car and drive down to see us, spend the night and return on Saturday, which would have been lovely.  Now our initial plan was to stay on Ærø and visit a new harbour to us, called Søby, as mentioned yesterday. Getting from Copenhagen to Ærø is a step too far so we decided to make for Bagenkop, where we stayed on our first night out on this voyage. Bagenkop is less than 3 hours from the capital, so it was doable and we let Michael know our plans.

As predicted, there was little wind today so we more or less motored all the way, apart from brief interludes when there was sufficient breeze from the right direction to enable us to sail. We’d decided on the inland route, one that takes you through miles of shallow waters, lovely as there are islands dotted about and literally hundreds of swans everywhere and on a day like today, it was  gorgeous. The route to the east of Ærø is well marked with dozens of channel markers and eventually, having passed the harbour town of Marstal on the SE tip of the island, we found ourselves back in open water (still relatively shallow, 15m max. but oodles deeper than the 2 or 3 metres previously) and with 7 miles to go to Bagenkop.

When we arrived at Bagenkop at 15:00 and 32 miles clocked, quite good average (6 knots) , considering we sailed for an hour or so,  we were pleased to discover that the harbour was half empty so we had the luxury of being able to berth CW alongside the harbour wall, no hassling with boxes! We tucked her in as near as possible to the first of the boxes and pointing out to the SE, the direction of Fehmarn, our next and our home island. All was well then, apart from the news from Michael that his boss wouldn’t let him go, wanting him around until seven o’clock that night in case he was needed and of course it transpired that he wasn’t. That put paid to that – shame, it would have been nice to see him.

It had been a beautifully clear day today, a touch on the cold side when out of the sun but in the sun, it was lovely. Julie and I spent some considerable time sitting in the lee of the cockpit windshield enjoying a drink and watching the continual flow of yachts coming in, filling up the harbour. Note to self, always get to Bagenkop early to ensure a space. One final point, there was a British owned boat here, a Jeanneau 42 but she was Norwegian flagged. Her owner, Nigel, lives near Oslo and (guessing) is married to a Norwegian lady and they spend their summers afloat here in this part of the world.