We set sail on 25 June from Gothenburg, and it has been a fantastic trip so far. Some days it’s hard, but we knew it would be hard and after some sleep or chocolate it is usually better! We are keeping a trip log in the beautiful log book that Magnus father hand-made for us, his hobby is bookbinding.
Total nautical miles sailed to date: 975
Number of countries visited to date: 6
Number of ports / stops to date: 21
Favorite harbor to date: Aeolus in Amsterdam
Best city visited to date: tie between Brugge/Bruges in Belgium and Lemmer in the Netherlands
Longest day trip to date: 65,4 nautical miles – Cuxhaven to Norderney (Germany)
Longest straight sail: 150 nautical miles – Dieppe to Guernsey
Number of times Diesel purchased – 3, approximately 280 liters total
When we aren’t sailing, we often have small boat projects that we are working on in addition to walking around being tourists. Today for example Magnus is working on some dynema lifelines for the stern where there is a gap, and he also spliced one of our mooring ropes. Everything we do takes a bit more time than it would take in our house, there is a limited amount of counterspace and to make room, something often has to be moved / emptied out. Simple chores like grocery shopping become bigger when you have to hand carry everything, and it’s sometimes a long walk.
A certain amount of time is spent in route planning, finding the next target harbor and figuring out if we need to try and catch a high tide or ocean current that is going our way. We try to have alternative harbors identified, in case we need to stop earlier or if we want to keep on going. On longer passages out the current will be against you at least part of the time, so the most important thing for us is the wind. We have several different sources of weather forecasts and look at them all before setting off.
Diesel consumption has been higher than we would have liked, but we have had lots of headwinds and also spent time in two canal systems – both of which required motoring. The goal is to motor less as we make our way down to Las Palmas – which may mean that we travel fewer days while waiting for good winds to sail on.
Since we have had fairly rough seas during our sails, it has been hard to bake. So this week in Guernsey I will be baking some of my favorite recipes, to get a better feel for how the oven works.
