Its a short flight to Hamburg and I usually feel short changed by the brilliant sunlight above the clouds knowing so well how it is for us mortals living in the gloom below. Apprehension had plagued us both for days but all of this vaporised in that moment above the clouds - it must be good being an angel.

I should have felt impressed with the Avis lady who took pleasure in emphasising that she was giving me a new car and I was to be the first driver - I made appropriate appreciative noises which hid my true meagre interest - wanting only a clean, quiet car without any trouble but she was not to know. It was black but fine and went well until in the suburbs of Hamburg; roadwork barriers and copious signs of explanation in German, presumably, caused Sat Nav lady to have the vapours, so in spite of driving off in any direction she was consistent in delivering us back to the same blockage. However....... all's well that ends well as somebody or other said.

Luxury of luxury, is this the way to sail would you say? - a comfortable apartment a cobblestones throw from the boatyard where Talisman stands in a cavernous "hall' - Jurgen, the yard owner never refers to these massive boat storage hangars as sheds. Hall should be grand like Carnegie or Albert or imposing as in "...of the Mountain King" but these are actually only colossal sheds after all.

And so the first days pass with heavy duty provisioning interspersed with technical stuff to do with batteries and essential pipes best not mentioned and legs now aching so from ascending a high ladder a innumerable times to get on board - boats are surprisingly high when they are on the land you know, and the funny thing is, no matter if you are the top or the bottom of the ladder, the thing you want is a;ways at the other end. Yet an easing hot shower in the evening, the quiet village atmosphere changed the focus - a spotted flycatcher came into the apartment today, the first I've seen for years - she honoured me by settling on a dining chair and allowed me to carry her to an open window where she took her chance of freedom again - how wonderful to be so close to that little life, I am mysteriously moved.

Rain drops pattered the windows through the night but barely disturbed my deep sleep, it was a colder morning wind drying the cobbled harbour road - heavy round pigeon coloured cobbles meant to deafen motorist and encourage cyclist to take to pathways. On the towering grain silos, the studded climbing walls were empty. Only belayed ropes swung slowly mimicking vines hanging from the canopy of some tropical forest - not a day for wall climbing.

Most of the pre launch work on Talisman has been finished: there was another Talisman launched yesterday, a German one, it is smaller and rounder and not as beautiful - I think. Two men were knowingly standing at the forestay, tweaking it and looking up and appearing to be confident in what they were doing - always a good start but rigging is a black art rarely mastered by most and certainly not by me but somehow it looks right at the end of the day - Nancy and Simon in their eighth year have cruised most of the Baltic from Norway to Russia and back here to Germany, now selling the boat and heading to the US to buy something else to cruise the inter-coastal waterways for a few years. An entertaining evening with them in the fisherman's harbour bar learning how to order white wine spritzers and people watch - a curious thing, but all the fishermen are characters taken from Asterix and Obelix - at least in so far as their facial hair is concerned.

The terrain on Fehmarn island is flat land - dark green fields of grain, lines of vivid yellow oilseed rape and ochre fringes where rushes mark inland lakes. A buoyed channel to the harbour at Burg leads through a shallow inlet where tufted duck, merganser and shell duck nest and small groups of eider coo like old women across a garden fence, exchanging shocking gossip about someone else's daughter. It is impossible, I find, to resist the locally smoked fish sold on the harbour side - a deeper honey gold than can be found at home, a flavour to make the eyes roll and defying all superlatives.

The penultimate day in the apartment, a full on Summer day in which Talisman is launched and the mast re-erected and swallows came to settle on the guard rails almost within touching distance - dazzling gunmetal blue and rich brick brown while others scythed the air at devastating speed. A fellow traveller from Southampton saw our CA flag at the yardarm and came to see how the work was going. It was their second Baltic year having cruised the Danish Islands in a big Westerly OceanQuest, then East Sweden up beyond Stockholm before returning here for Winterlager. "It's such a nice place to be and the people are so helpful" - just how we feel about the harbour too and the yard crew who all have a smile and an "easy - can do attitude."

A magnificent conifer with elaborate candles and cones stood across the lawn from the apartment. I had never seen clouds of pollen such as this, floated out into the atmosphere each time a gust of wind wafted through the branches - clouds of yellow mist drifting away looking for a mate, or millions of mates, would you think.

There was a nonchalance or manjana attitude when trying to pay our bills for work done - "I trust you" said one, "you can pay half …. then when you want...," said another and thus the following day we searched high and low for our creditors but they were nowhere to be found and moving from the harbour to our new berth in the marina would not cause them any concern, they clearly would not lose sleep over it. We would still be here tomorrow putting on the sails if the wind was kindly.

With a cloudless sky, the evening light brought that golden vivacity to everything and tourists flocked from the Burg, a mile away, to the bars along the working harbour where a large red fishing boat had arrived and after tea I sat and did a quick sketch of the grain silos and gantries which tower above everything - the sea was lazy and glassy flat save for wayward zephyrs swirling out of nowhere. Pretty good all in all and no rush to move away.

Let me end this chapter here afloat in the marina and ready to go. Sunday 18th May, it is raining - "it comes from Poland" we are told as if to explain everything, but a forced rest and time to post my first blog of 2014.