Last night we went to bed in flat calm conditions and fell asleep quite quickly given the settled nature of things. However sometime during the night the wind picked up and was blowing from the NNE – NE ie. not far off straight into the North harbour where we were moored at right angles to it. As a consequence the boat started rocking, which in itself can be an aid to slumber but when the rocking motion is instantly arrested by the restraining mooring lines, it is quite annoying. Even more annoying was a graunching sound that had me up and about to check that nothing was scratching our hull. Luckily there wasn’t and the noise was coming from where the bow lines were fastened. Now I did do all this investigating as quietly as possible but I did wake people up, at least briefly. From then on I couldn’t really sleep and by 05:30 I was ready to get up, much to Julie’s annoyance. Mind you I did actually think it was 06:30 (I sometimes confuse those two times on my watch, something to do with the fact that it is early and the light isn’t that good and I’m stupid, according to Julie!) but after an hour or so I was forgiven and Julie’s usual good humour had returned. .

Today, another gorgeous day, we were heading back to the mainland to the pretty harbour of Gudhjem, last visited for a couple of days commencing 14^th August 2011. It is a small harbour, blasted out of the local rock and as such, it reminds us of a Cornish harbour such as Moushole or somewhere. Today with the wind now blowing from the NE at around 10 knots, we could sail under the poled out genoa quite nicely and by 09:15 we were doing just that, arriving at Gudhjem just before 12.00.  Now as I said, it is a small harbour and we knew it would be crowded but we reckoned that the departing boats would have gone by now and we would be one of the early arrivers. The harbour, when we got in, was very full, pretty much to capacity but I thought that there might just be a space right at the far end, so we gingerly went to investigate. Indeed there was a space of sorts but there was no lazy line available (a line from the shore anchored deep in the harbour, you just  pick it up and fasten the boat to it) so now I had to extricate us, we literally had only a couple of feet all around us to play with. Just as we were beginning to reverse out, one of the tethered boats said that they were leaving so we temporarily laid against a piece of quayside reserved for one of the smaller Christiansø ferries and then, when he had gone, I was able to just nudge us in, with no harm done. Thank goodness for the bow thruster! Annoyingly, has we arrived later, there was quite a lot of room as some late-leavers extricated themselves (see photo)

Gudhjem is only a small village and its principal source of income is tourism, tourists arrive in their hundreds in order to catch the day ferries out to Christiansø. Whilst waiting, they of course spend money in the myriad shops, shops which by and large carry far more tasteful merchandise than their equivalent in the UK. There are also several restaurants and by far the largest is the one associated with a fish smokery and it was there that we decided to have lunch. Their most popular item on the menu was a smoked fish buffet at 135 krone (£15.00 or so) but we wanted something smaller, like the open sandwiches they were also selling. There was a queue to get these and by the time we got to the head of the queue we realized that people were only there to pick up their pre-ordered food, so we had to join another queue by the bar to place our order, when we were provided with a buzzer device that goes off when your food is ready. By now it was 13:15 and we were peckish but we figured we wouldn’t have to wait long as they were only already-made sandwiches that we wanted. Twenty five minutes later, I’d had enough so I went to enquire what the delay was. It transpired that the kitchen staff knew nothing of our order but as we had the receipt, they gave us our food there and then. Elaine and I had prawn sandwiches and Julie and John had smoked herring, filets and whole fish. All very enjoyable, especially given the lateness of the hour!

Later we went for a walk along the cliffs in a southerly direction, a route recommended by the tourist office lady. It really was reminiscent of Cornwall, with the single exception that Cornwall doesn’t have / suffer from blue green algal bloom, so much so that the sea in little bays where the water tended to accumulate was entirely brown (see photo).  It wasn’t a long walk, it terminated at a nicely positioned caravan and camp site and then we returned to town via the town windmill.

That evening Jon was to cook and together with Elaine acting as sous chef (as far as she is able without taking over as she is an extremely competent and experienced cook!) he produced an excellent meal consisting of garlic & breadcrumb covered chicken breast, fried in the pan and served with broccoli and new potatoes. Well done team Jon! I forgot to mention that earlier,  we watched the antics of a cormorant trying to swallow a hapless flounder.  After many attempts it finally gave up, too late for the poor fish, which I’m sure became crab food.