It is quite incredible how badly out the forecasts are. Again, the winds were supposed to be from the North and again, they were from the west, albeit with a touch of north. Moreover, it was grey and dull but at least the wind had eased somewhat and the seas were down to about a metre wave height, so it was doable, and we were off at 06:00 and sailing on a beat at 06:15.

By 10:00 the wind had died sufficiently to warrant a boost from the engine then at 10:15 it was back and stayed until 12:30, when it moved more to the west and we had to use the engine to allow us to keep to our course . We could have borne away ie turned left a bit and continued to sail, making for the bottom end of Rügen and the port of Sassnitz and then either sail back on ourselves the next day if the wind ever moved or continue round the bottom end of the island and round the other side, passing Stralsund en route. However, neither of these options were that attractive as we didn't like Sassnitz, having been there last year and psychologically, I don’t like going back on my route as it seems a waste of effort and miles, so we decided to plough on.

The destination we had in mind was not Rügen at all, in fact, rather it was the island of Hiddensee, to the west and separated from Rügen by an expanse of very shallow water. Here there are a couple of harbours and one, Vitte, we’d been to the year before last and we really liked it and indeed, the whole, peaceful island. And this was the other reason why we didn’t opt to sail to Sassnitz, it was that we wanted to enjoy the peace of Hiddensee for a day and we figured that it was worth the angst and the diesel . Rügen has on its’ north eastern side a very large bay with two headlands with white cliffs and we saw these blessed headlands for hours as we slowly approached and finally clawed our way past. Having left them astern, we soon turned left into the shallow, buoyed sound between the two islands and we could have sailed but by now all we wanted was to get to Vitte, so we plodded on, finally tying up in the harbour, between poles, by 20:15, relieved that the interminable journey of 73 miles was finally over.

One last point – when we were back in German telecommunications coverage, I texted our buyer to ascertain whether the completion of our house sale had occurred, as we had been assured the previous Friday that it would take a maximum of 5 working days for Barclays to release the purchase money. When told that it hadn’t arrived but it would within a 'couple of days’ I confess we were less than happy but we have waited for so long, a couple of days, if that is all it is, is nothing in the scheme of things so we decided to try to forget about it until next week sometime.