We definitely now feel that summer is drawing to a close. The air is that much cooler and looking at the forecast overview for the next 10 days, there are precious few sun symbols around, it’s all cloud and cloud and rain and with air temperatures struggling to get into the 20’s. This morning it was around 17°C when we got up and the air felt a little chilly all day, even when the sun was out. There is a period of strong winds forecast during the weekend so we wanted to get somewhere that we would be happy to stay for a few nights and the harbour of Ballen on the east coast of the island of Samsø seemed like a good bet. The wind was coming from a westerly quadrant all day but was forecast to virtually disappear before strengthening again and as we would have it on the nose, it made sense to delay our departure somewhat to avoid the stronger wind, so it was 08:30 before Calypso and Celtic Warrior were heading out to sea, past the marvellous octopus sculpture made out of waste plastic on the breakwater (see pictures).

Our route took us to the north west and through the channel that bisects a long spit that forms the NE corner of Zealand or Sjælland and is named Sjællands Rev on the charts, or Zealand Reef. There are a couple of buoys that denote the bisection and offer a route through but it is not necessary to go as far as them to get through as the water depth within a few hundred metres of them is constant. Once through and heading in a south westerly direction we hoisted the sails and attempted to sail but the heading relative to the wind was just too tight but with the engine, at least for a while, we could keep both sails pulling and we were dong around 6.5 knots with the engine running at 1500rpm. We eventually had to furl the genoa and increase the revs as the wind died and backed a little but in the flat water we maintained the same speeds.

In order to get to Samsø you cross a body of water known as the Samsø Belt. Equidistant between Samsø and its neighbouring island, Sejerø, there is a traffic separation zone and also a Deep Water channel marked as ‘DW’ on the charts. The route we took meant that we crossed the separation zone at the top, ie we weren’t in it at all but we would have to cross the Deep Water channel and the normal way to do this is at right angles, so that you cross in the shortest possible time and of course, you avoid inconveniencing passing vessels. Now we were proceeding down the eastern side of the DW channel but outside it when we were called by ‘Traffic’ that we were in the DW and that there was a ship coming and we had to avoid her. Well we weren’t in it as I said and we could see the ship very clearly but in order to appease ‘Traffic’ we did as they suggested and headed to port and passed her astern before crossing. Of course everyone en route to Ballen  had heard the exchanges and of course, they all assumed that we were in the wrong and ‘your honour, we was innocent’!!

After 30 miles, we were entering the harbour at Ballen and were pleased to find that whilst they had boxes here, at least the poles were wide apart and as there was no wind, entering was no issue and 20 minutes later, Calypso was berthed close to us. We decided over the course of the day to stay here until Monday when the strong wind should have passed us and I think everyone enjoyed the thought of a lazy day or two without having to get up and press on. All we did for the rest of the day of note was to have a barbecue on shore, a barbecue that was foreshortened as we all got too cold in the fresh breeze that was now back. We had nightcaps on board CW under the cover of the cockpit canopy and for once, had a lateish night as it was 11:00 before the lights were out.