I have found that there are no travel brochures featuring sailing canoe trips, so in order to decide where best to go, I have turned to historical accounts of the voyages undertaken in the late 1800s when the sport was first popular. The first week of this trip reverses some of the route through the Limfjord which was taken by George Holmes and his friend in 1896 in their two canoe yawls Ethel and Nan. The second week, working up the Eastern coast of Denmark form the German border at Flensburg Fjord as far as Fredricia, was inspired by various accounts including E.F Knight’s “Falcon on the Baltic” and an 1879 cruise by 4 sailing canoes: Willow-the-wisp, Popsey, Wavelet and Cambria, which was written up in the Field magazine of that year.
Week 1: Through the Limfjord
The complement for the first week was Greg, Nick, Jon and I. We drove up through Denmark in Greg’s VW camper van to begin at a beachfront campsite in Lemvig which is near the North Sea ( West) end of the Limfjord.
Day 1 Sat 22/07/2017 – 15.4 miles
The weather was uninspiring for July, overcast with a cool Easterly force 3. We left the beach at about 12.15pm
and tacked along the Southern shore of the wide Nissum Bredening. The long Easterly fetch had allowed quite a ‘lop’ to build up and the going was rather wet for the forward crew members and also for my, supposedly waterproof, mobile phone which had drowned and died by the time we stopped to warm up with a brew of soup, on a slightly sheltered beach, at 14.15pm. This was a shame , as I had intended to navigate on it for the whole of the forthcoming trip! We has only made good about 2.75 miles to windward and looked unlikely to reach the bridge at Oddesund at the Eastern end of the Bredening that day. Some were also finding the conditions too cold, wet and unpleasant and at the very least wanted to change into their wetsuits.
An alternative suggested itself: a dryer close reach NNE directly across the 6.5 miles of open water to a beach on the Northern shore where the map seemed to show only a narrow neck of land across which to portage into Skibsted Fjord.
the One and a half hour sail went well and was a good introduction to how open the waters of the Limfjord can feel. However, the portage turned out to be much further than envisaged. We stripped the rig and unloaded a lot of the gear to lighten each canoe enough so that it could be carried 350m along a road by all 4 of us together.
We were assisted by a Dane and his small dog, who went to get his bicycle to help us ferry the bags of gear and also took some photographs.
He was a chatty fellow and he told us that the Vikings also used to use this spot as a portage, back in the day.
We re-launched in what might be described as an open sewer which led into a very shallow mere surrounded by an electric cattle fence, on which Jon managed to electrocute himself.
We sailed on for another hour along the South coast of the fjord and camped outside the cattle fence on a small peninsular in light rain, then cooked a stew of Chorizo and potatoes around a small campfire. Greg sounded an initial warning that this sort of sailing and camping were not for him anymore.
Day 2 Sun 23/07/2017 – 9 miles
We awoke to pissing rain and a stronger, Force 4, Easterly wind. We had to pack up camp in the rain so that much of the gear was stowed wet. Greg was not very happy!
We tacked on under reefed mainsail and full mizzen. Lots of water was still coming aboard, even though there was not much fetch and the waves were small. We has a short stop on a gravel spit
and then headed North to try and cut inside a small island bird sanctuary. There appeared to be a passage of water on the map but it was very shallow.
It was so shallow that it was even hard to drag the empty canoes along when we got out and walked. We met two cagey German kayakers coming the opposite way, whom we surmised wanted the island to themselves as a campsite.
By making the portage on the previous day we had cut off a lot of distance and now had only about a 2 mile downwind run to reach Doverodde, our target for the end of the second day.
The place has a small marina and a huge concrete grain silo from which one can look out over the surrounding countryside. It was once important for grain export, but is now a very sleepy tourist village without any visitors or any open facilities.
Admittedly, the weather was bad, but the place was completely deserted. A short walk from the marina, on a cobbled square at the base of the silo, was one open tourist shop at which we at least managed to buy some hot drinks. The guy who ran the shop also turned out to be the manager of the youth hostel. However, I was more interested in the free ‘overnatning’ hut which I had read about. As he could see that we were “hard men” he agreed that , although he had not mentioned it, there was indeed such a place if we really wanted it and gave us direction. We walked over in the rain to look at the open fronted hut. It seemed unappealing in the conditions. We returned to the shop and readily accepted the offer of warm rooms in the hostel, where we were in fact the only guests. We had the luxury of soft beds, a kitchen and somewhere to sort out our wet gear even if the showers were unfortunately cold. That night it rained heavily outside.
Day 3 Mon 24/07/2017 17.5 miles
The day dawned reasonably fine and dry with little wind although still from the North East. It was a pleasant respite from the awful weather of the last two days.
There were lots of small jelly fish in the water, and a seal.
Jon took a turn at the helm.
We stopped for tea on the North shore just beyond the ferry, after about 2 miles.
The wind then got up as we tacked on into the wider Visby Bredning and the waves soon followed, then it started to rain again. We tacked over to the Eastern shore and stopped just behind a spit for some shelter.
Greg and Nick’s tack met the shore 3/4 mile further South and as they sailed into the shallows, Greg, fearing submerged rocks, pulled out the centreboard rather suddenly, destabilising the canoe. In trying to correct this he overdid it and dived over the side. Nick, helming, fell out into the shallows and hurt his leg by trapping it between the canoe and the bottom. Spirits where low. Greg had definitely decided that sailing canoeing and camping were no longer a thing he wanted to do and he was very vociferous about it!
We tacked over towards the North shore in the hopes of more shelter from the waves and came to a mussel farm. Jon and I kept outside it and Nick and Greg went further inshore and so fell a bit behind. More rain fell. Nick and Greg went ashore while Jon and I were on an offshore tack. Our return tack brought us to the North shore again about 1.5 miles further on, near a small spit which looked possible as a campsite. We worried about what was happening to the others, as they stayed put for such a long time. Unable to raise them on the phone directly for lack of a number, we phone Barbara back in the UK. Meanwhile Greg was ashore attempting to get help from passersby on the beach to light his cooker and make Nick a hot drink to restore his mood. When they finally caught up, we camped for the night in a pleasant hollow at the back of the beach and had a nice fire.
Day 4 Tues 25/07/2017 – 17.75 miles
The weather was a bit more promising.
We decided to swap the crews around and started out reefed down to beat against a NE wind of only about Force 3 but in surprisingly rough water. However we got up to the long bridge at Vilsund surprisingly quickly, perhaps as a result of some beneficial current. Nick and Jon ( in the newer canoe) just failed to fit under the bridge with the mast up, but Greg and I were just OK under a section noted as having 3.75m clearance.
We stopped on the North shore beyond the bridge at 11.30am.
Continuing now under full sail in smoother water, we tacked, long and short, up the Western shore of the Thirsted Bredening. Nearing Thirsted itself, the wind seemed to constantly shift and head us whichever tack we tried in order to lay the harbour entrance. We stopped near the marina and went ashore for a fine fish lunch at a harbour side restaurant then shopped at Netto to re-provision for the next 3 days.
In the afternoon we went on along the shore towards the East on a beam reach for about the first time in the trip. Greg and I stopped to check out a possible ‘overnatning’ place in a wood but Nick and Jon carried on and found a fine campsite 3/4 mile further on.
Day 5 Weds 26/07/2017
8.5 miles am, 16.6 miles pm= 20.75 miles total
A proper sunny morning at last. Up at 7am in order to get away by 9am and hopefully make some distance as we are still a long way from Aalborg and Nick must finish on Thursday night in order to catch a flight on Friday morning..
Greg is lagging a bit. He has become somewhat negative about the trip and would like to stop being stuck in the canoes and having to camp at all, if possible. Unfortunately there is very little wind. We tacked over to the South shore for 1.5 miles.
Then after a brew up we continued onwards on starboard tack in very shallow water again to stop for lunch at 13.30pm near the ferry at the spit which sticks out into the main open sea area of the Limfjord.
It has been decided that Greg will leave today and hitch back to Lemvig to pick up his van. This will enable him to come back and rendezvous with us, wherever we have got to by Thursday evening and get Nick to the airport. It will also release him from the tyranny of further sailing canoeing and allow him to have a bit of a hitching adventure of his own in Denmark. He thinks that the spit looks like a good place for him to start from, as there is a direct road from the ferry to Nykobing, the main town on the island of Mors.
Jon Nick and I set out across the 9.5mile wide open sea towards Logstor against a NE force 2-3 wind with me sailing the older canoe on my own.
The sea is very broad and the land around it low lying, so that one feels very small and vulnerable out in the middle.
Maybe as a result of parting with our ‘Jonah’ , the wind angle changed subtly in our favour, allowing us to just lay the course and did not die away, as it might have done, before we arrived at the far shore at 18.30.
Day 6 Thurs 27/07/2017 – 26.5 miles!
This is our last available day of sailing before Nick has to leave, and we still have a very long way to go to Aalborg, so we aim for an early start. At least the wind has gone round to the South and is about force 3. It was raining at 6.30am but is dry again by the time we strike camp and get under way at 8.45am. The water off the campsite is very shallow so we need to do a lot of paddling to reach deep enough water to sail through the narrow channel North of the small island off Logstor. We ran into a submerged causeway and had to haul the canoes across.
Finally into the deeper water of the river, and after going under the bridge, turned gradually East. It started to rain again and get cold. Visibility clamped down. However we seemed to be averaging 4.5 knots, perhaps due to some favourable current.
Stopped for a miserable brew below the last wind turbine on the South bank. The two canoes are surprisingly well matched on a reach today, considering that I am the only occupant of the older one.
Onwards, just North of due East, across the Nibe Bredning, which seems very wide in the poor visibility, requiring us to follow a compass course at times in order to pick up each new channel marker, although the increasing stream of yachts also helps.
We finally reached the Eastern shore as the rain stopped. Lunch with the delight of hot Hungarian Goulash cupasoup.The wind has come round to Southwest, so we are on a dead run, wing and wing, up the narrowing river and across a lot of very extensive shallows. The older canoe, with only one person, now gaining ground significantly over the other one.
The last stretch into Aalborg was very fast, suggesting a strong current. We have covered 26.5 miles in 7 hours and caught up totally with my planned schedule.
We have prebooked a hut at “cabin Island”, part of a civic amenity campsite on the Western outskirts of Aalborg, in order to have some ‘luxury’ at the end of the cruise.
The cabins come into view on the high right bank just after a wind turbine graveyard. I do not want to get swept past it and so land in a deep, weed-choked cesspool of a bay immediately adjacent to the cabins. Having prospected for a better place on foot, Nick and Jon arrive and we all paddle round to a slipway in the adjacent marina to unload.
Greg joins us later by road, in his van.
