What we didn't say about y'day is that we are in expensive Scandinavian territory now. That meal last night was in a simple restaurant by the marina, two main dishes which were fine but not exceptional, only water to drink, DKK420 which is £70. Ouch! On the plus side what we've seen of the country so far is very pretty and extremely tidy and well-ordered.
Today started with a 3 hour motor into the wind. We got the mainsail up as we left the marina - our policy with headwinds is to have it up anyway because it stabilises the boat and can assist the engine if the wind is slightly off the nose. This part was not too bad because the Baltic does not seem to throw up the short steep waves that you get in the North Sea and Channel, so progress was not so slow and wet as we are used to.
Then as we left the island of Als behind and shaped a course for Assens on the island of Fyn (or Funen in German) the wind was on the beam and sensible F4 - we had a cracking sail 3 hours. The sun even came out and it felt slightly like August. Sailing 2 days in a row - gosh. Pic is a 3-master beating us into Assens.
We passed a large number of yachts going the other way, heading south for a big regatta in Sonderborg. They are welcome. Perhaps because of that the marina on Assens has many available places which is a relief. It's still tricky to find one that is the right size with a green panel meaning it's available - you can't tell until you get close and of course we're not good at backing out of a wrong choice.
It was so hot when we arrived we were down to t-shirts. After a drink and nibble it was up to the Haven Kontrol to pay for the night and in our exploration we found an icecream shop so had to have one. As we ate it the temp dropped and the heavens opened ... back to October.
One final contrast - the boat sailed beautifully today, doing what she's designed to do. The shaft seal seemed to behave so we left it alone. Our water system is still overflowing into the bilge. The bow thruster is only operating at 50% which makes tight manoeuvring tricky. The depth meter is randomly not working - pic shows us apparently aground and doing 20kn, neither being true. One of the ties came away from the increasingly decrepit sail cover. But I did manage last night to fix our broken flag halliard so we can once again fly the Danish courtesy flag.
Y'day we thought the cruise might be over, due to the shaft seal (a catastrophic failure, which is extremely unlikely, would flood and sink the boat). Today we are determined to hold things together through our planned time until we haul out at Fehmarn on 7 Sep.
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