Blog 14 to 29 July 2015

Ebeltoft, Tunø, Juelsminde

The moment I stepped across the threshold, my breath paused for a second and I felt that eerie presence of people who existed in a previous age, just as I did once in Cyprus, walking across a magnificent mosaic floor, like a Persian carpet, where two thousand years before Roman feet had trod.

I was in a cobbled courtyard of low simple buildings which formed the home and works of a dyer of fabrics, Johan Petersen, who had taken over the works in 1905 and saw the hand finishing business fall to the progress of industrialisation. Dying work had been carried on there since 1770 but when around 1920 it became un-viable, he did the most remarkable thing - he preserved it in the way of a time capsule, everything as it was - the furnaces, vats, pressing rooms, donkey wheel, stables, workers living quarters and even his own home and garden. A truly fascinating imaginative gift which shows better than any museum what simple and sometimes primitive conditions people existed in not so long ago, yet also the wonderfully rich natural colours they produced for everyday fabrics. If you can find Adelgade in Ebeltoft you will be entranced.

Constant high winds causing continuous banshee wailing and screaming through yacht rigging is very wearing - people used to talk about the Chinese Dripping Water torture and I know just what they mean. Unable to leave Ebeltoft for another port after four days almost made an inland B & B a realistic choice but just in time - this morning, at 6 am the wind was down and predicted to stay sailable for four hours before getting silly again, just the time we needed to get to Tunø. Two reefs in the genoa and one in the main, yet Talisman was flying at times and as so often in the Baltic, the water was relatively flat being protected by the islands.

Tunø is not much more than 1 Sq mile and has that peaceful Danish quality of sandy beaches, waving grass and a wholesome life. It consists of a tiny village of simple painted houses, wooden, stone and a few brick, which gather near the tiny, neat white church whose bell tower also serves as a lighthouse - ever economic. Hanging from the whitewashed vaulted roof within the church is a beautiful model ship to remind the faithful of the association early Christianity had with fishermen, and to others, how much is owed to the sea. And along the single harbour road - for which there are no cars on the island - vegetables are set out for sale by householders with an honesty box. I cannot think there is much crime here, nor is it so easy to steal this landscape beauty.

At Juelsminde, a rest day and sunshine at last. Things got pretty wet yesterday though it was a very pleasant four hour trip until we were about half a mile off our destination when a rain cloud saw us coming and poured down as we entered the harbour, tied up, cleared the decks and all the stuff you have to do, then got out of our dripping foul weather gear, hung it up to drain whereon it stopped raining and the sun came out. Rotten trick. This morning was lovely and no nasty high wind - we walked along the beach, typical long fine white Danish sand arching into the distance, lined with little shells and gem stones and waving coloured grass behind. Just one family playing on the beach and a couple walking the path by the tree line. Wild flowers everywhere, it made my heart feel good. At the harbour, children fished for crabs from a pontoon especially reserved for just that purpose - how Danish - which included a three track slide for the crabs to be raced to freedom, or caught again for the next race.

Yesterday ended with a crash of thunder and powerful clouds piling up one on the other until there was no room left for any more, then you get that wonderful shaft of light coming through a break in the grey and lighting up the sea. I made a hasty rush to put assorted electronic kit like my laptop etc into the oven which would protect it from any nearby lightning strike but that was the only crash and the need to play wifi and computers was greater than the risk so out they all came again.

In these Baltic waters, you would think that the lack of any tidal rise and fall would relieve the need to think about what happens if the water level changes, but it was a surprise to find the distance to step off the bow down onto the pontoon was much less today then yesterday. It does go up and down but almost randomly according to which way the wind blows and for how long - more often than not there is little difference and rare that it is enough to cause a problem.

Science has taken a giant step - I have seen it for myself. Firstly, and I quote Jane Austen here, it is a truth universally acknowledged that the three most useless things on a boat are 1) an umbrella 2) a wheelbarrow and 3) a Naval Officer. Now our very good French friends Valérie and François introduced their charming and very competent guest crew-member Laurent who clearly knew what he was doing on a boat yetat times carried a telescopic umbrella strapped to his back - very intelligent and practical. Further it turned out that he was indeed an Admiral of the French Navy which again proved Jane Austen to be incorrect. Now, that leaves the wheelbarrow but here is the miracle, at the local chandlery they have collapsible wheelbarrows which fold to the size of a sleeping cat which anyone could find room for. There you have it, Vorsprung der Technik as somebody else said.

Each Baltic country has a speciality which they seem pretty good at. Without question, you cannot get better Danish pastries anywhere else than in Denmark. Is it that like some wine, they do not "travel" or what, but as with smoked fish in Holland, saunas in Sweden or regimented beach chairs in Germany, Denmark defines the pinnacle of life's pleasure in a flaky delicacy beyond comparison.

Tomorrow we enter the Danish "Little Belt," a sailing playground where some of the prettiest villages are to be found.