It was a quiet day with little wind and quite a lot of cloud around. We only had just under 5 miles to go to our next harbour, the enormous 1000 berth one at Helsingør, nevertheless we were up bright and early (Julie and I were and our guests, to be fair, were too, but would have preferred not to be!)Before setting off, we decided to fill the water tank but as the nearest tap was some distance away, we had to borrow the longest hose from the yard (there were several available) and extend it with our own hose. I reflected that the odds were, sod’s law and all that, that there would be a water hose right next to our boat in our next berth and sure enough, there was! Still, better safe than sorry and all was done by 09:00 and we were on our way.

Rules of the road when afloat are quite simple, especially when it comes to boats on opposing courses and one is a sailing boat under sail and the other is using the engine – the motor assisted one gives way to the sailing boat. I know that and always do, or at least now I should say ‘did’. As we were approaching the impressive castle at Helsingør, I decided to take a photo and temporarily let go of the wheel and concentrated on my shot. I didn’t notice that the boat veered off to the left a little and when I did, I was horrified to see an old gaff rigged yacht having to alter course rather quickly as we bore down on him! There were still about 75 yards between us so no harm done and he did accept my profuse apologies with a cheery wave and a grin. Phew!

We found an alongside berth in the crowded harbour, we were pleased to have done so. The area where we had moored up was specifically signed that it was for boats of 12m upwards, we just fit into that category, but people with much smaller vessels, vessels that could easily fit between the poles in the available berths, rather selfishly were taking up space in the reserved areas. I remember some years ago in Kastrup having a slanging match with a Dane who had done this and I needed the space, but that’s another story…

Our berth in Helsingør was at the entrance to the harbour and the main facilities from here are a good 6 or 7 minutes walk. However, there is a satellite building only 4oo yards away so that is fine. Kronborg castle is just across the harbour (see photo) and Owen & Geraldine of course wanted to see it. Now Julie and I were here last on 11^th July 2010 and normally we would have accompanied them. However, it was now beautifully sunny and I rather fancied not doing anything very much and Julie wasn’t that bothered about seeing the castle again either, so we stayed put as our friends went off sightseeing. I refer you to the 2010 blog if you want to read and see more but here are a couple of paragraphs taken from it:-

 Again it was a cracking day but today there was no rush as Kronborg castle, the Elsinore of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, was not open until 10:30. A quick aside about Elsinore and Shakespeare. Apparently, Hamlet is based upon a popular story of the time that was something of a best seller. Shakespeare was working on a play that loosely followed the plot but he was looking for a castle. Enter William Kemp, a friend of his who had spent some time in Kronborg as he was an actor and had been working there, entertaining the king. WK was able to provide WS with all the details he required to flesh out the plot and many of the scenes can be tied to the castle directly.

Anyway, back to modern times and our visit. We started with the Royal Chambers, where we had the benefit of a 45 minute guided tour and where the WK/WS story came from. The castle itself was built upon the frame of an older castle called Krogen which dated back to 1425 when the king Eric of Pomerania hit on the bright idea of taxing all vessels that wanted to pass through into the Baltic proper. Frederik 11 commenced the construction of Kronborg in 1574, completing it in 1585 and in order to pay for it, changed the tax regime from a per-boat basis to one based on the value of the goods, thereby vastly increasing his take (Gordon Brown would have been proud to know him!). Sadly the castle was largely destroyed by fire in 1629 with only the chapel surviving. It was rebuilt by Christian 1V, Frederik’s son, in the same style. It was bombarded by the Swedes, used as a barracks for 150 years and finally refurbished again and open to the public in 1938. It is now a World Heritage Site.

Owen & Geraldine had enjoyed their afternoon, as indeed had we and no sooner that they were back it was time to light the barbecue. As the pontoon was made of non-flammable material and as there was already a small barbecue sited on the pontoon, I figured that it would be OK for us to use the Cobb, especially as it doesn’t have any hot external surfaces. I opted to try using the briquettes again, knowing that thanks to Richard Baker’s generosity I had a fallback of a Cobb style briquette if all else failed. I lit the 6 coals (that’s all it takes) in plenty of time and I was pleased that when the time came to actually cook, the barbecue was ready and we successfully cooked the sausages and pork steaks and enjoyed them with salad, in a glorious, still, warm evening.