Where to next?
DENMARK IT IS
This hopping along the Norwegian coast had now got us to the country’s southern most point. Here we needed to make a call, is our next port the Netherlands (still 3 days away) or Denmark (1-2 days depending on the harbour). We poured over the charts, read the weather forecasts and had a brainstorm session with SY Anna Caroline, who crossed the North Sea a few weeks before in what was probably the last weather window for the season. We were desperate to get to the Netherlands now, but the constant procession of closely spaced gales whipping in across the North Sea gave us few options – we had to head to Denmark. This route would take us down the eastern edge of the North Sea and give us the option of a shorter hop to the Netherlands but it did so at a cost. At this time of the year south-westerly winds dominate and this manoeuvre pushed us further into a tight corner of shallow choppy seas and wind angles that would be firmly on the bow. It is possible to get stuck in this corner of the North Sea. But the high frequency of gales had left us with few options. Denmark it would have to be, and unless the weather changed, it would be Thyborøn in the north-west of Denmark.
A RHUMB LINE TO DENMARK
Again, we had a limited time window as the next gale was already coming into the North Sea. So we motored away from the pontoon at 0000 for an estimated time of arrival at Thyborøn just on dark, between 1900-2000. On our way out, we got to wave to a neighbour who thought he could have a quiet midnight piss over the railing undisturbed. Not tonight, bucko. Once out in Farsund harbour’s entrance, the uncomfortable conditions were similar to those we’d experienced all along the southern coast of Norway: wind, rain and swell, this time complemented with lightining all around. Luckily this was the tail of the storm and things calmed down by the time we got into deeper water offshore. Soon, we were able to settle into a long, but comfortable (motor)sail into Thyborøn. Given the tight timeframe, we decided not to diddle-daddle with tacking and went in a straight line for the harbour’s entrance. As we were approaching Denmark, we noticed several fishing boats also making a dash for the same harbour as us, presumably also looking for shelter for the impending gale. Luckily, as planned, we arrived just as dark settled and were escorted into the harbour by a pair of common dolphins who rode our bow wave for 10 or 15 minutes. What a welcome!
Yuma moored up safely in Thyborøn.
In the harbour, we moored up on the leeward side of the guest jetty and got ourselves sorted for a long wait for a two-day weather window to Delfzijl or Lauwersoog in the Netherlands.
A SAFE HARBOUR, BUT NOT MUCH ELSE
Thyborøn is a dull, almost featureless town and there really isn’t anything to report of our time there, except that it was exceedingly windy, what with another storm barreling down over the North Sea.
Maybe Thyborøn is not so dull…?
However, aside from providing a safe harbour (quite important!), our stay in Thyborøn had one other benefit. A number of professional sailing boats had been travelling down the Norwegian coast at the same time as us. Several of them had continued ahead of us through the Kattegat to their home ports in the Baltic. However, one, a French boat that had moored next to us in Stavanger, arrived to share the Thyborøn guest jetty with us. They, like us, had wanted to do a north-south North Sea Crossing passing the northwestern corner of the Netherlands, but had ended up here in the far eastern reaches of the sea. It was some small comfort to us to see that the professionals had made the same choices that we had made, and ended up in the same inconvenient port as us. A small comfort.
