Dear friends and loyal readers

This is the last blog about our over nine years of sailing distant seas.  We have to admit that we are close to tears as we write that sentence.  Nine years and a bit.  Almost 20% of Vinni’s adult life and over 15% of my adult life, over 25% of our married life, have been spent at sea.  It is difficult to get our heads around that.  Many people have not lived in the same house as long as Vinni and I have lived aboard Capri.

We have seen much of the world, including places that can only be visited if you come on your own keel (or a seaplane).  We have met and befriended sweet and amiable persons from the four corners of world.  Some will remain friends for life.  We all have one common trait – the desire to live the free life and enjoy the ultimate that defines a sailor.  We have been sailing vagabonds and we bear the label “boat bums” with immense pride.

But this blog is about our final sail and about having Kronborg Castle to starboard.  Let me explain about having Kronborg to starboard for all you non-Danes.  Kronborg, sometimes known as Hamlet’s Castle, guards the narrowest point of the Straits between Denmark and Sweden and has stood there since 1585.  For centuries, it has signified for sailors that if you have it to port – you are leaving Denmark, your home, family and loved ones.  In older times, sailors literally didn’t know if their ship would make it back again.  Many ships were lost to storms, pirates and poor maintenance.

On the other hand, if you have Kronborg to starboard, you are coming home.  The long voyage is over.  You have made it out and back.

You are home.

Kronborg to starboard is an old expression here, and is used by many, not just sailors, to signify that all is well and you have successfully completed whatever task you had at hand.

So you must understand that having Kronborg to starboard brings a tear to even the oldest and saltiest of old Danish salts.

We left Struer after almost six weeks.  Vinni and I had been in Portugal for most of that time.  During those six weeks, Capri had accumulated an unbelievable layer of growth on her bottom – it was like a foot long shag carpet.  Sadly, this growth meant that Capri would sail slowly.  By rights, I should have donned my diving gear, gone under and scraped the bottom.  Dear friends – I was lazy and decided not to.  Instead, I used a long brush and got a goodly portion of the growth off, albeit nowhere near all.  It showed.  Capri could only sail six knots, not her normal eight.  After a long day, we reached Aalborg at the other end of Limfjorden.

Vinni has, during the past nine years spoken about a real Danish boef sandwich.  She claims that one of the best she has ever had was in Aalborg when we sailed through here nine years ago.  She wanted to go back and have another.   So she was excited when we walked down the pier to the restaurant where she had eaten this marvel of a sandwich.  It was 7:30 pm and the kitchen closed at 8:00 pm so they weren’t taking any more food orders (they certainly must earn too much money).  The restaurant next door also had the sandwich and weren’t shy about taking our order.  Afterwards, Vinni declared that while the sandwich was good it wasn’t as good the one next door.

The next morning we left Limfjorden and headed for Anholt, an island in the middle of Kattegat, squarely between Sweden and Denmark.  Anholt is always worth a visit and this time was no exception.  We made the long trek (21 kilometers) out over the desert to the lighthouse and back again.  Sore feet and leg muscles – we are not as young as we once were (sigh). 

On Anholt, you can pamper yourself by buying freshly caught langoustines off the boats when they come in in the morning.  Fresh langoustine, fresh baguettes and champagne for breakfast.

Beat that if you can!

For those who like their seawater chilly – just jump in.  The beaches here have no equal anywhere in the world.  Miles and miles of pure white sand beaches with no one on them.  Vinni and I have become chickens, or rather used to much warmer waters.  In Polynesia, the water temperature was close to 30C or 86F.

We had a funny experience one day while on Anholt.  A boat came in and I helped them take their lines and tie up.  When I asked where they were coming from they noted with some pride in their voices, “We’re coming from Goteborg and we’ve been sailing for over 2 months”.  The wife then looked over at Capri and noted that it looked like we also were long-term cruisers.  “Where are you coming from?”   I answered that in fact we were coming from Alaska (the furthest point we had been away from Denmark) and we were returning after over 9 years at sea.  We all smiled and went below.  From below, I could hear the wife saying to her husband, “It’s just not fair.  Here we have been sailing for over two months and we are going home where we were going to brag a little in the club about being long-term cruisers and the first boat we tie up next to has been at sea for over nine years and sailed over half the world”!

From Anholt, we sailed to Helsingoer and tied up at the marina.  We could see Kronborg just south of the marina, but we hadn’t passed it yet.  Finally, the big day arrived, we took in our lines, left the marina and I told Vinni to take the camera, go to the bows and make a video for all eternity.

As you can hear, Vinni bawls the entire time we are sailing past Kronborg and I have to admit that even I got a lump in my throat and perhaps even a tear in my eye as we passed.  It is difficult to describe what having Kronborg to starboard means to a Danish sailor – especially after nine years at sea.

We have come home.

The vastness and the difficulties lie behind us.  Our fantastic experiences are now memories.  We don’t know if we should laugh or cry when we think about our long journey ending in a couple of days when we sail into Lynetten.

Are we ready to abandon our vagabond life?  Cease to be “boat bums”?  We don’t know – time will tell.

We spent a couple of nights on Flakfortet, a small island just off Copenhagen.  Partly because we needed to get Capri ready for the big homecoming.  She needed to “dress ship”, meaning have all her signal flags flying from bow to stern and all our courtesy flags flying from port to starboard.  A courtesy flag is a small flag you fly when you make landfall in a foreign country. It is that country’s national flag.  And we had invited everyone to the dock at 12:00 sharp saying we would dock exactly at noon.

Early morning August 30, we hoisted all the flags.  The other boats and sailors on Flakfortet knew who we were, yelling “Well done Capri” and “Welcome Home” as we sailed out.

Brave with her flags up, we could feel just how justifiably proud Capri was to come home with no less than 47 courtesy flags flying. 

Kaj and Charlotte (Foreman for Danish Ocean Cruisers Association) had met us on Flakfortet and followed us with their boat “Dressed Ship”.  As we closed on Lynetten, Klaus and his wife Lise, owners of the boat supply store in Lynetten sailed out to meet us in their “Miss Emily”, also fully “Dressed Ship”.

Both boats fell in behind Capri and, wonder of wonders; we tied up exactly at noon.  The dock was filled with well-wishers, friends, family and even friends from Sweden and Holland had made the journey just to say “Welcome Home”. 

Unbelievable.

When I reached down to turn off the engine, I suddenly realized that when I turn that key then our Grand Adventure would be finished.  I hesitated, because it would mean an end.  An end to a great portion of our lives.  Did I really want it to end?  Friends, I get a lump in my throat just writing those words.  I turned the key, the engine died.  The Adventure was over.  We had ordered hotdogs and beer for everyone who came so now all that was left was to eat, drink and glad-hand our way around the 80 some odd well-wishers.

Is our Grand Adventure over?  Many have said that there is no way we can become landlubbers.  “Just wait, they say, a year from now they will take off again”. 

Tempting.  Tempting indeed, but it won’t happen.  Our Grand Adventure is over (I think).  We will find other, new adventures (we aren’t made for sitting at home in a rocking chair).

Finally, a thank you beyond words to our good boat Capri who sailed us across the world’s distant seas safely.  She logged over 40,000 nautical miles with us and is part of our family.