Easter 2000. Sailing along the east coast of Denmark.

We had finally bought a new boat. Our Bavaria 34, named Waltzing Matilda, had been trucked from the yard in Germany to Randers in Denmark. There she waited for us to sail her back to Kristiansand in Norway.

Kaisa was left at home in a kennel and Marianne and Andreas had flown to Florida, USA together with their grandparents for the holyday.

Bjørn, Cecilie and Anette were ready for a 2 weeks Easter holyday on board.

On Saturday the 15.th of April we arrived in Randers two o’clock in the morning. It was lovely to get onboard in our new boat and go to bed.

Saturday noon, after having finished taking in supplies, we left the harbor and sailed towards the outlet of Randers fjord. The fjord was narrow and shallow, and we kept the boat carefully inside the buoy marked canal.

Without wind, we engined for several hours, but at the outlet of the fjord we got a nice westerly wind. For the first time we unfurled our genoa and mainsail, and sailed south towards Grenaa.

After a couple of hours the wind increased and turned south. The waves increased too, and we got them straight into our bow. Anette started to become seasick, and didn’t enjoy it anymore. We decided to change the course towards Bønnerup instead. When we moored, Anette was quite green around the grills, but after a short while she felt better and wanted to go and by some sweets for Saturday evening. Fortunately seasickness doesn’t last long for kids.

A nice guy from the harbormasters office came along, asking if it suited us to pay the mooring fees.

- Of course, I answered him. What’s the price?

- 20 kroner (about 1,5 £), he told me in Danish, - and 10 kroner more if you want electricity.

- 30 krone! I said amazed. It was too cheap, I supposed I had misheard him.

- Do you think it’s too expensive? He looked worried at me.

- No, I answered him. – I just thought it should be more expensive, that’s all.

We paid, put our heater on and had a nice evening before we turned in for the night.

Sunday we sailed to Grenaa, where we moored nearby the Kattegattcenter. The day after we visited the center. Anette had really looked forward to the visit, because they had sharks alive inside. She really enjoyed it, but it wasn’t the sharks that took up her attention. She loved the activity division, and the funniest thing was to make large soap bubbles. When lunchtime arrived, and her parents wanted to leave, she was not ready. We decided to take a cup of coffee, and let her play for some more time. In the cafeteria we experienced something, which is quite different from Norway. In Denmark you don’t need to buy what you eat in the cafeteria. Families gathered around us, bringing their own food. Some bought their meal, some bought what they drank and some bought nothing. In Denmark you buy what you want, and bring the rest yourself.

We just planned a short stop in Ebeltoft, before we should continue to Århus.

In the high season I suppose the harbor is overfilled with boats, because this old town is really delightful.

Old, leaning houses and narrow brick streets made the town extremely charming.

The sailship “Fregatten Jylland”, which is turned into a museum, lay alongside the quay. We visited the ship, and enjoyed to experience what it must have been like being onboard on a warship about 150 years ago.

We were the only guests in the harbor, and since it was outside season we stayed for free for five days.

There were a lot of things to do and see.

One day we took the bus to Århus. The bus used 1,5 hours tortuousing between small fields, grazing cows and small villages. But for Anette, it didn’t matter. She spent the rest of the day having fun in Tivoli Århus.

We had brought Anettes bike with us, and didn’t regret it. It made it possible to see much more of the arias around Ebeltoft. We walked and Anette biked.

On Friday we packed the rucksack, and left for a combined picnic and treasure hunt on the beach.

As usual Anette biked and we walked. When we arrived we had kilometers of the wonderful beach just for ourselves.

First, we arranged the treasure hunt. Anette found lots and lots of beautiful pebbles. They had the colors of the rainbow, and had been polished by the sand and the seawater for years. She decided to sell them, because such beautiful pebbles had to be worth a fortune.

Treasure hunting makes you very hungry, and it was time to picnic. Filled buns, white wine for the adults and fizzy raspberry lemonade for Anette, vanished like dew before the sun.

Afterwards we became very drowsy laying on the beach, closing our eyes and letting the sun heat our faces. It was like anticipating the summer.

Early Sunday morning we left Ebeltoft and sat course towards the island of Anholt. We passed all the windmills ashore, but none of them moved. There was no wind, and we had to use our engine. On distance we could see the fog like a wall in front of us.

When we sailed into the fog we imagined the weather had already become better. Unfortunately, after a while we couldn’t see more than 200 meters, and we realized it had actually been denser.

This was no fun.

It was our first time on GPS only, we had no radar and found ourselves in very crowded waters. Believe me, you don’t want to meet a cargo boat in such weather.

Anholt is a small island in Kattegatt, and when the GPS showed that we were supposed to be 500 meters from the island, we lowered the speed and stared into the fog. After 400 meters, still seeing nothing, we started to worry. After 300 meters we were really afraid we were lost. Then, when we had almost decided to turn back, the island rose in front of us.

Safely moored behind the breakwater, we got a new problem. We had been spoiled by the Danish bakeries, which usually are opened every day, even and Saturdays and Sundays. Suddenly we realized it was Easter Eve, and on Anholt with just about 200 inhabitants, everything was closed for the next couples of days. Too much holidaying and no planning, left us with an almost empty fridge, an opened packed of crispbread, pasta and nearly 100 kroner in cash. The crew on the neighboring boat (the only boat except us), took pity on us and gave us some old toasts.

We got Anettes bike ashore, and started hunting for a cash machine and some food.

We didn’t find any open shops or any cash machines, but along the road we found a small inn, which was ran by a nice married couple. They had some frozen baguettes we could buy. It suited us fine, and the rest of the money was just enough to buy us two bears and a coke for Anette.

When we returned to the boat that evening, we had seen most of the city. The next day the weather was terrible, with heavy rain and wind, and we used the day relaxing on board, reading and eating warm cheese toasts, crispbread and pasta.

Tuesday morning we left Anholt, and sailed towards the island of Læsø. After an hour in shallow sea, we turned north and hoisted the sail. The weather was still heavy with rain, and after a while the nice breeze calmed down. We had to furl the sails and start the engine.

After 10 hours at sea, we moored in Vesterhavn (The harbor at the west coast of Læsø).

The day after the weather was wonderfully vernal. The sun shone from a perfectly blue sky. It was a perfect day to go picnicking. We rented two bikes, and started to explore the island.

We passed a sign marked museum, and took a detour.

The museum showed how life was on Læsø in the old days.

After visiting the museum, we continued on the road, and passed a farm, which sold vegetables and eggs after self-service principles at the gate. We stopped, took some eggs, and put the 10 kroner into a moneybox.

Anette was shocked. We couldn’t just take the eggs without asking the farmers!

Even though we tried to explain, that this was how it worked and we had paid, she really didn’t like it.

We decided to visit the salt extraction area. Unfortunately we arrived to late for the last guided tour, but anyway it was interesting to walk around.

The last harbor we visited in Denmark, before we crossed Skagerrak to Kristiansand, was Skagen. The weather was wonderful and the temperature improved to 28 °C.

In Skagen, there are a lot of things to do and see for visitors. Once more we rented bikes, and biked around the city between small, yellow stone houses.

We had our last picnic on the lovely beach. The last day of April, Anette had her first swim for the year. She didn’t stay long in the water, where the temperature was only about 4°C.

After a couple of eventful days, we were ready for the last leg.

Sunday, 4 o’clock in the morning, we waved goodbye to Denmark and sat out for home.

Our only company was two porpoises. They played nearby for a while, before leaving us alone.

The crossing was lovely, in calm sea under a cloudless sky. After 14 hours at sea we proudly moored Waltzing Matilda in the harbor at home.

Updated 04.10.03 of Cecilie Simon Husebye