We were ready to leave at 08:00 as planned and Jakob was ready to go as well. His two friends had taken their yacht to the yard, bright and early, which meant that Calypso’s crew were also up and about, having been disturbed by the goings on of the raftees. That was all to the good as we wanted  to say our farewells and I needed to return the fender board to Richard. They’d been great company and we look forward to seeing them again in November.  One last thing I did, was to try to hose the sand off the boat. Where we were tied up was a horrible spot in that there was fine grit everywhere and it was impossible not to walk some into the boat, no matter how careful you were. Note to self, find somewhere else in Marstal next time!

The weather was cool but to compensate, the wind direction had changed, as predicted and we were able to sail pretty soon after leaving the harbour. The wind was due to veer more towards the west over the morning so the fact that in the beginning we couldn’t quite make Kiel didn’t worry me, with luck as the wind veered we would end up heading more and more towards Kiel, which in fact happened. It was a good sailing breeze, hitting18 knots at times and we, in turn, were tonking along at 7.5 knots, much to Jakob’s pleasure. He was delighted to be given the helm – he has sailed with his father on holidays and so on, so he was not a novice, indeed he was very good and intuitive, altering the boat’s heading with the wind shifts like he did it every day. He was an eloquent, charming young scientist, doing his MSc in theoretical chemistry, whatever that entails and he spoke English extremely well. He was also an appreciative guest, enjoying our biscuits and bacon butties with gusto! Jakob and I took spells in steering and Julie enjoyed a few hours reading  in the cabin and so the passage passed, as it were.

Now the reason for our going to Kiel was that our old Baltic friends, Janet & Horst Safarovic, were in that neck of the woods on their Moody 38 ‘Tutunui’. They’ve just brought her back from 3 years in the Mediterranean and it has been pretty much that long since we last met. The plan was to leave the boats close to or in the famous Kiel Yacht Club, where Janet & Horst wanted to go for a celebratory ‘back in the Baltic’ meal. The trouble was, there was no room down there at the end of the Fjord, so they were near the entrance in a huge marina called Laboe and that is where we headed for. We logged 31 miles from Marstal to Laboe and we covered the distance at an average of 6 knots, pretty good going. Janet and Horst had found us a berth, sadly only free for one night so we have the same problem tomorrow and she helped us in, all done by 13:15.

We now had to find a way of getting Jakob to Kiel, where he was planning to catch a train. Fortunately, there is a ferry service and for an outlay of just over €4 I was able to fulfil my promise of getting him to Kiel. Nice lad, we wish him well. Then it was time to have an initial catch up chat with the Safaovic’s over a cup of tea and a butty made from Horst’s excellent home made bread, then back to CW to prepare for the evening, when they will be joining us for Moussaka, we have several bottles of retsina to use and it was made for Moussaka!

As anticipated, it was a very successful evening, it was nice to catch up and hear of their Mediterranean adventures. Polly, their lovely Spanish greyhound or Galgo Español got bored with all our chat and retired to sleep in the corner of the cockpit and so the evening passed, ending at  around 23:00, I’m a little vague about the time…