HappyWanderer.org

Boat life is in some ways similar to life at home and in some ways very different.  It is nice to be able to sleep in (until 7:00 or so) if we choose, so long as the girls are not up raising a rucus, which they usually aren’t.  On weekdays, schoolwork usually comes first with sailing starting in the late morning or after lunch.  Sometimes we are too interested in what we are doing to stop and get dinner on the table before 7:00 and thus bedtime here slips later (and later…) for the girls and ourselves.

We do not have the modern conveniences that we had been so used to.  We do not have a car and food shopping is a very different experience.  The whole family walks from the harbor to the food store about once a week with backpacks and bags.  The girls read and play while Michael and I try to figure out what a Hel Cantelope is versus a Dehel Cantelope and which is which and why one costs so much more.  How many Kroner/Kg = how many $/lb again?  What does one substitute for sweet Italian sausage in the recipe?  Which is whipping cream and which is sour cream?  Finally we have everything paid for.  Time to stuff everyones backpacks and bags, walk back to the boat and perform the feat of stowing it all away.

Another appliance missing is a washing machine, let alone a dryer.  The kitchen sink does quite well for an outfit or two at a time although it does use a fair bit of water from our water tanks.  A sunny warm morning means it is a wash day and the lifelines get hung with clothes to dry (undergarments are strung above the table in the main cabin below so that the whole world will not need to admire them – and if you overlook the fact that they are undergarments they almost make it look festive at mealtimes!)

A dishwasher is also not to be had.  Well, yes it is.  It is the one who does not cook.  And it is quite handy that we have three little girls and have three meals a day with three dishracks full of dishes that need drying.

On the other hand with such little floor space, a small broom and dustpan does the job in five minutes.  “Cleaning the house” is not a very large or lengthy task J!  There is no lawn to mow, no garden to weed.  Instead we fill water tanks when in port.

It’s going to be quite an adjustment to be back in a house again!

–Donya

Hello Everybody,

We are now in Sweden.  When we sailed from Denmark to Sweden we could see both countries at once.  The towns in Sweden are like those in Denmark.  The museums still have fun children’s sections where children can do things.  We have seen lots of huge ferry boats.  They take lots of cars and trucks.  Some go to Norway and some go to Denmark.  The coastline is not sandy anymore.  It is very rocky instead.  One time we climbed down between cliffs with the help of a rope and went into a cave.  We went swimming off of Happy Wanderer twice since the last post I sent you.  I even learned how to kayak.  I kayaked from shore all the way back to Happy Wanderer anchored out in a bay.  I’ve been having a great time.  Did you have fun at the spring fair?  Until next week…

Your friend,

Sophie 

Hi friends,

We went to a castle.  There was a moat and we got to see it We saw holes where the guards used to stand.  It was a king’s castle.  It’s called the Varberg castle and we got to go inside.  There were dress-ups and a computer where you could e-mail a picture of yourself and a message.

It has been very warm. One day we hiked around an island and it was very very warm.  That day we learned how to kayak but water got in sometimes and I got a little bit wet.  I went swimming.  I wear a shortie wetsuit and then it isn’t too cold.  We got to build lots of sand castles.  I made a sand castle for a queen and king fairy and a church.  The sand was very wet.

We sail a lot.  It is bumpy and wavy and sometimes it feels cold.  And sometimes it is tippy. Sometimes I get seasick.  Mom reads to us while we are sailing and then we tell her something that we remember from the book about Sweden.  She reads about The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.  It is a good chapter book.

In the town there are train tracks and we watched a train go by.  It looks a lot different than home.  There is different money.  We see lots of people walking in the town and one day we saw three ducks in a fountain.

We have seen a lot of swans.  We were on an island where there were lots of birds and we saw their nests.  We saw duck eggs and seagull eggs.  The ducks and seagulls were flying all over and making sounds.  We went away quickly so we wouldn’t disturb them.  I am wishing to see an octopus.  There were dolphins.  Some went really close to our boat.

I hope you were excited about the spring fair.

From, Maria

We arrived in Laboe (near Kiel, Germany) on April 8th.  Laboe is a holiday town at the mouth of the Kieler Bucht (bay).  The season hasn’t really started, but it was still fun to walk along the strand and imagine the place full of holidaymakers.

Happy Wanderer had been shipped to Laboe from France a few weeks earlier.  The container with most of our gear was scheduled for delivered the day after we got to Laboe.  Cruising requires a lot of gear: tools, spare parts, safety equipment, a dinghy and motor, not to mention books, bedding, and cooking things.  After looking at the prices in Europe (and getting our breath back—the Euro is over $1.50 now), we decided to simply take everything off of Avocet and ship it to Germany in a container.

But… the container was a week late—it had gotten bumped to the next ship.  We’d planned on staying in a hotel for two nights while we got Happy Wanderer in order.   Rather than hole up in the hotel waiting for our stuff, Donya and the girls took the train to Wedel (on the Elbe, near Hamburg) to visit her cousin Christian, and to show the girls where her grandparents had lived.  Walking along the Elbe River they saw all sorts of ships and boats, including a container ship.  Could our container be on that ship on its way to the Hamburg Harbor from where it would be trucked to Laboe Harbor?

Michael stayed on Happy Wanderer to get her ready for the trip: the mast was stepped on a rainy morning, with a 1/2 Euro coin on the mast step for good luck.  We had a few changes to make: the stove has been converted from butane to propane (less expensive and easier to find).  Michael aligned the propeller shaft, tuned the rig, updated the plotter and radar, oiled and cleaned everything in sight, and generally got the boat in order.  He also installed our new friend: a 175 ampere alternator that will allow us to charge the batteries with a minimum of engine running time.

The sails were rigged and the pantry well stocked when the container finally arrived on the 15th.  Then what an unpacking, stowing of goods and flurry of projects that followed.  And it all fit!

Finally on April 18th we made for the fuel dock before our departure from Laboe.  As is often the case in Germany, Visa was not accepted and Donya was off to the ATM to pick up more Euros (we’d spent most of our Euros in Germany, as Denmark, Sweden, and Norway each use their own currencies).  But wait – the friendly, well-seasoned gentlemen manning the dock lent Donya his bicycle.  She felt truly German as she rode the somewhat rickety upright bicycle with the handy basket up front through the quaint streets of town.  With that done, we motored three hours north to our first anchorage in Schleimunde.

April 19th,  after Michael had gone up the mast to tighten the spreader bolts and make all ready, we finally raised the sails and took off for Denmark.  The weather was sunny but on this chilly spring day the crew were all wrapped up in sleeping bags in the cockpit, listening to books, singing sailing songs, doing mad-libs and solving crossword puzzles.  Six and a half hours later we reached our destination of Bagenkop, at the southern tip of Langeland. 

April 20th was a day of exploration, walking through the quiet town on a Sunday morning, listening to the church bells, noticing all the small, neat houses, many with rock gardens instead of grass, following the road through the countryside, past pastures with shaggy ponies and back to the beach.  And clusters of spinning wind generators everywhere—Denmark has over 5000 wind turbines and gets 20% of its electricity from wind.

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