At 'Marken' island just 15 miles north og Amsterdam

Very nice houses along the chanals

Marken and it's chanals

Lot's of brighes, and some strange looking

Came from Harlingen cross over the lake towards Amsterdam. Harlingen had a harbour festival with alot of people and live bands. Harlingen is open water harbour, so you have to prepare your ropes for the tide. ( 2,5 meters.)
After a great night at the festival, we went on a nice sailing day crossing the lake. I never seen so many sailing boats at one time, probably about 2000 ships.
We stopped at island 'Marken' which is a fantastic beautiful little village with 1800 residence all year round.
The lokal people we meet are born, rised and live here. Many works around Amsterdam, which is only 25 minuts away in a car away. The island was connected to main land 53 years ago with a road.
Tomorrow we sail into Amsterdam, and spend one night there before we go out to the open water and the British chanal.

Close to Amsterdam (28/8-10)

Ok, I'm not at Zephyr anymore, but I can't keep my blogging-finger away from giving a short resumé:

Ijsselmeer controlled by dutch dikes

Saturday (28/8) evening, Bent called me about some computer technical issues which we solved together, and he also then explained shortly about the proceedings of Zephyr.  They are now in harbor a place close to Amsterdam:

Bent told about a interesting navigation on shallow channels width sand and mud bottom. They happened to get stuck several times, and Bent think the channel has been more distinctly adjusted for Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 43 from now on...
The straight red line on the upper part between the black dots, shows the artificial dutch dike which are regulating the Ijsselmeer to an average level somewhere between high and low tide.  Zephyr needed to wait for some hours (or a night?) before they was let through the lock. When first sailing on Ijsselmeer, it was really a great experience with almost no waves and good wind doing more than 8 knots.
When I talked with Bent, they where sitting together with some nice English sailors sailing a catamaran.
We all wish we were there!
:-)

Zephyr leaving Coxhaven - Kjell Arne leaving Zephyr (26/8-10)

After some 3 days with too much wind in the English channel for proceeding the sailing, finally a opportunity window came on Thursday morning at 04:00. The wind is decreasing and the tide was optimal:

Resulting wind forecasts based on GRIB files

Thanks to education from Koss at No-X, we've learned how to master the core information delivered by and for professional meteorologists - GRIB files (GRIdded Binary is a mathematically concise data format commonly used in meteorology). When downloading these fresh files from our region, we can make our own precise weather forecast for our localization, destination and own selection of time. 

Zephyr in Coxhaven

The destination for Zephyr before next stop could be anything from Gröningen to Amsterdam depending on weather and sailing conditions. Since Kjell Arne had a  flight booked for going back to Oslo on Friday, the safest was to terminate the participation here in Coxhaven.


It has been really nice joining Zephyr, Bent and his crew for nearly two weeks now, since I first came down to Ishøj on Friday 13. August.  I know there are many people booked up for later parts of this relaxed, safe and really joyful cruise with Zephyr.You will enjoy it!


About the BLOG:
Since I have handed over the BLOG-address and ownership to Bent, there are some minor technical changes:

1. The ownership is changed from my (Kjell Arne) google-account to Bent
2. All articles are "republished" and some of the earliest with new pictures, film-cuts and sometimes a little more text.
3. Old comments and followers are gone - so please register as a follower once more

Thanks a lot to Bent for allowing me to join the cruise - and thanks to all you folks, following my part of the documentation of the beginning of this event.

Old map from Hamburg Maritime Museum

Hamburg by night before flying back to Oslo, Norway

Stuck in Coxhaven (25/8-10)

Sorry for being late with updating the blog, since we left Rendsburg.

The second half of the Kieler kanal was finished on sunday, with a straight head wind in the river Elbe and down to Coxhaven going by mainsail and motor.

Quite huge boats passed us in the Kieler Kanal

Finn watching the rudder

We arrived Coxhaven in heavy rain and low tide. Monday morning Bent had been awake and out for investigation of the harbor while the rest of us still had a good sleep, and he announced that the harbor restaurant had a excellent breakfast buffet to offer, even though we had our fridge full of good food. Bents suggestion for the buffet won - and was really a nice experience.

Wilma and Koos in No-X

Wilma and Koos sailing in "No-X"  did we first meet in Rendsburg, and now later in Cuxhaven where we're all stuck in the port because of the strong winds out in the sea.  We have had a really good company with our new dutch friends here trading Christians gourmet dinners, with some great sailing programs for our PC's including professional GRIB layout program (ZyGRIB). The plan for tomorrow, Wednesday, is to have a crew meeting together with "No-X" (Koos and Wilma) and the German neighbour boat. As the weather says right now, its looking good to depart at noon and we are all going to the same destination Nordeney. The navigation precision is increasing even more tomorrow when Bent is picking up another new GPS for more accuracy in our navigation.

A working day in Rendsburg (21/8-10)

The wire attachment in Bents right hand

Saturday 21-aug-10 started out with doing some planned repair on the Zephyr. Last year Bent experienced that a 20 ton+ vessel rammed into his aft on Zephyr, while the boat was secured in the port. The marine repair company doing the excellent repair on the hull, did not do so well when mounting the rig. They managed to deliver the boat back without working engine- and deck-light, with two port stay (babor stag) twisted and finally the VHF antenna still positioned in transport mode. None of these problems have had any impact for sailing or security (The top mast navigation lights and VHF has always been working). Anyway was the calm and nice Rendsburg marina was a perfect place to fix this problems. The electrical wiring was hard to spot between the mast footing and the cabin ceiling, but finally interesting to observe that the cable was actually not connected at all. When first found, this was easy to fix. The port stay went also really well all until Bent suddenly slipped the end block of the spreaders on the mast.


It first followed the stay wires it is holding, but managed to slip off and out in the water. Ok, no big deal was our first idea, and Kjell Arne started free diving after the lost block. That was too hard with a visibility of 10-15 cm on 4 meter depth. The very nice and service-minded people on the Marina-office, called a local diving instructor, Rudy, which was living only few minutes drive from the Marina. He found the block after 5-10 minutes of diving.

Rudy is preparing his mask before diving

Kjell Arne and Rudy are sharing experiences of the dives with 15 cm visibility

Rendsburg - and the Kieler kanal (21/8-10)

Today on Friday 20-aug-2010, we started from our harbor in Kiel at 08:45 to make sure to get trough the lock (da/no: sluse) which opens at sharp 09:00 (German precission). Compared to Nordic boat locks, this one much wider and longer, while the water level change on some 10 cm or whatever is not recognizable. 

During the rest of the Kieler kanal, we don't passing any locks before entering Elbe close to Brunsbüttel.

We continued our good work of increasing the quality of Zephyr today, when we found and repaired some of the electricity going through the mast. Even the marine repair companies do fail (sometimes too much).
Rendsburg is really a nice city, as well are the marina here. If you ever passing the Kieler kanal, you really have to stay one day on this beautiful place.

Christian, Finn and Bent is studying a model of the old city of Rendsburg

Our evening today was almost magic sitting in this warm nice summer weather under the newly installed bimini eating shrimps and drinking cold white wine. And I forgot to take picture of this? To bad - but you know how it looks like... ;-)
The traditional competition for guessing the correct sailed distance was for second day on row wan by Christian, which Bent suggested was not so important to mention in this blog. ;-)
Start: 08:45
End: 15:30
Dist: 22,8 nm

Kiel (20/8-10)

This day was quite productive when talking about preparations which had been delayed earlier. We've fixed the sprayhood, secured the lifeboat, added light to the rescue floating whatever what we call this horse-shoe-thing we could throw after swimmers. The cockpit simply went even more professional than it already was.

The sun is shining and Christian navigating

Today's sailing was really great. We started out width some hours by motor to navigate through all these narrow man made channels in the shallow water west of Langeland. On this first part we was observing literally thousands of white swans swimming around in the sea.

This was one of the areas with swans

Then we set sail when we had open water all the way to Kiel. It was one single leg with wind from starboard until we navigated into the harbor at midnight (as usual ;-).

Sunset on the way to Kiel 

Start: Svenborg 19-aug-10 15:10
End: Kiel, 01:01
Distance: 51,3 nm

Svendborg - last stop before Germany (18/8-10)

Hi there everybody following us - we're pleased, and thanks for feedback on comments, SMS and phone! :-)
Finn, Christian, Bent and I (Kjell Arne) arrived at Svendborg 16:15 this evening after close to 6 hours of head on wind with iron-genoa (some people name it running by motor... ;-) from our successful 33 hours stay at Omø.

Strong wind and rain was uncomfortable in the eyes

 This day was also kind of wet and windy, and the fresh fish we was donated made a perfect dinner this evening. The approach into Svendborg today was very much like the Norwegian Blindleia or similar to some of the classic places on the Swedish Bohuslän coastline:

I really have to express our great confidence to having Bent as our skipper. He is very focused, security minded and even noticing small details which need to be corrected before it makes any interference with our sailing. We're really having a good time everybody here on Zephyr!
Start: Omø, 10:37
End: Svendborg, 16:15
Distance: 26,7 nm
Average speed: 4,8 knots

PS: It's a kind of strange this post. There is absolutely NO wireless connection in Svendborg Harbor.  I took my iPhone, asked for wireless connections, and walked up in the city now in the middle of the night.  When approacing the "Pistolstrædet" connecting the main walking street, I found the open wireless connection named "Fullrate" and sat down here on the street and posted todays blog. (Thank you pal, for borrowing bandwith on your "Fullrate" wireless server! ;-)
To all  our followers: Be prepared to wait a couple of days or more, if we're sleeping in a no-wireless area, or simply sailing non-stop for a couple of days.

Some pictures/moments to remember (17/8-10)

To sail into the sunset on monday night gave us some scenery which is worth to remember:

Farøbroen

Storstrømsbroen in the sunset

The moon on rise

Storstrømsbroen after sunset

The food we was served at Jørn Bondos house on  Omø was of memorable culinary quality. We simply stayed an extra day for some minor fixing on the boat, and got more of the generous hospitality from Jørn. Thanks Bondo! :-)

The White Cliffs of Møn (16/8-10)

This second day of Around the World with Zephyr and Bent has been the longest so far.
Even though Christian and I had been working like hell yesterday and we went to bed not long before the birds woke up, we was called for duty by captain Bent early in the morning, when you guys, reading this blog was still at sleep. 
We had to move the boat up to the diesel-pump, fill it up together with the two 20 liter extra cans.
(oh yes, we're still sailing most of time though ;-)

The Køge Bay was not very nice to us this morning, but the boat speed was alright, since we had some nice 12 m/s wind speed. The only problem was that the rocking, rolling waves we got indicated at least a double wind speed here in this shallow ocean. But great, no one got sick.

One of the big challenges of today, was to hit the narrow and shallow Bøge Stream - a manmade channel with a depth only 20 cm deeper than our keel. The waves was higher than the boat-hull. We turned out again, took the longer route (20 nm) around Møn island, which also Bents friend, Stig thought was a better idea. 

Another great idea with this route, was our experience of seeing one of Denmark most famous nature attractions: Møns Klint - from now on renamed to The White Cliffs of Møn. :-)

Start: Rødvig, 16/8-10 10:00
End: Omø, 17/8-10 01:15
Distance: 91 nm

Location: Approaching Omø

Depature and goodbye to Ishøj (15/8-10)

Sorry guys, if you don't read Norwegian - at least for this time:

Den fantasiske gjengen av seilere i Ishøj seilerklubb, hadde dermed også ordnet med fulle startprosedyrer med avfyring av startpistol på 30 minutter, 10 minutter, 5 min og start. Det var sikkert 100 besøkende for å si adjø til Bent som har bodd 6 år i Ishøj havn. Det var glad-jazz band som spilte, fyrverkeri og flust med gaver og hilsninger i nydelig vær.

Da Bent kom til Ishøj for 6 år siden, var det bare for å klargjøre jordomseilingen, og stikke av gårde igjen ganske snart. Med den fantastiske gjestfriheten som alle i Ishøj havn viste, og med dette oppmøtet vi fikk, er det ikke så merkelig at Bent ble boende så lenge i Ishøj før reisen startet.

Vi er nå (endelig) underveis! Presis kl 16:42 søndag 15. august hadde Bent spøkefullt gjennom et år sagt at avreisen skulle være. Og slik ble det:

The pier is crowded with people saluting the depature 

Mye moro ble det med våre tre fire returer til Ishøj havn etter dette, innkludert bading rett innenfor moloen fra båten til Ivan og Bent.

Some of the following boats out of the port

Først tøffet vi rolig et par timer for motor på et speilblikk vann i et område beryktet for mye grov sjø, mens så kunne vi sløre i nærmere 8 knop resten av turen til Rødvig. Neste dag går turen mot Omø hvor vi skal plukke opp Finn før veien går videre mot Kielerkanalen.

Start: Ishøj, DK, 15-aug-10, 16:42 (20:00)
End: Rødvig, DK, 16-aug-10, 00:15
Dist: 25 nm

The last preparations (14/8-10)

In the well equiped boat shop in Ishøj, the last list of needed items for our sail journey is bought today, some 24 hours before we are setting sail first time. 

Bent have just experienced that the one thing we could not get, is a broken inner glass for the stove. That must be ordered for later delivery, and have to wait until a new port which will revisited, like somewhere on the Canary Islands. It will at least be nice to have the possibility to bake fresh bread during 20+ days while crossing the Atlantic.