At the door of the Baltic Sea

Both good news and bad. Having rounded the nose of Denmark, Skagen, we sailed again overnight at good speed. Had to reef twice not to be over-powered by the howling wind which again blew at 25 knots. Well, that suited us as we wanted to be sure to be in Helsingoer early enough to get the Lawyer and the Consultant. The instruments showed again top speeds of 8.4 knots and the boat was very steady on the waves.

Kattegat, as expected had a lot of big ships that were passing us on both sides, coming and going. However, the visibility was good and even at night there was no need for the radar, which was on standby. Perhaps it was the radar, perhaps the fridge but we hadn't needed the engine at all as the wind was so good and so the battery no 2 had not been charged for a while and ran flat - how did we discover this? Well, at 0300 in the morning the gas alarm went off and as the bottle had been carefully closed, it did not take us long to figure out the gas alarm had to have a warning about losing the primary power source.

Well, we turned on the engine to charge up the battery but weren't as careful as with the gas bottle...forgetting to open the cooling water seacock. Got the engine overheat alarm tested too! We let the trusty Yanmar to cool down properly before restarting it. Saved! It worked as ever.

Going was good through the morning and so we arrived in Helsingoer slightly ahead of estimates, around 4 pm. Got together with our friends and started frantically to rearrange the space onboard. Decided to take the kevlar race main out put the trusty dacron main in storage as it required less space. At this point Dynamo, to our great regret decided to pull out and fly home from Copenhagen - he had always kept his options open and not bought a return flight. Our warmest thanks to him for a brilliant effort, invaluable input and good camaraderie. So, slightly sombre moods for losing one crew member but wishing him all the best and a well deserved good night's sleep, where-ever he puts his head down next. I think he'll sleep very well in deed.

We've eaten well, stocked up the provisions and will now head into the night for Bornholm on the Swedish South-East coast. The Viking Quest continues!