Our third day on the Kiel Canal was the longest and the most exciting. After an aborted first attempt due to fog and traffic movement restrictions in the canal, we made a 36-mile run from Rendsburg to Brunsbuttel at the western canal entrance. During the transit, we ran at wide-open-throttle for a time in order…
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Kiel Canal Day 2
On our second day in the Kiel Canal, we stopped for the night in Rendsburg after an 11-mile run from Lake Flemhude. As part of our “full Kiel Canal experience” we had lunch canal-side at the Bruckenterrassen Cafe with a view to the passing ships. We also walked under the canal through a pedestrian tunnel…
Kiel Canal Day 1
The Kiel Canal was completed in 1895, connecting the Baltic and North seas through northern Germany. It is the busiest artifical waterway in the world and annually carries nearly as many ships as the Suez and the Panama canals combined. In contrast to Scotland’s Crinan Canal that we passed through last year, Dirona wasn’t even…
South Towards Germany
We turned south towards Germany after departing Aalborg and exiting the Limfjord, travelling 165 miles and making two stops before our final Danish anchorage at Thuro Bund. We were scheduled to arrive into Amsterdam by November 1st, so didn’t spend as much time exploring Denmark as we would have liked. But the town of Svendborg,…
Aalborg, Denmark
With a strategic position at the mouth of the Limfjord, Aalborg has long been an important Danish city. Settlement dates back to 700AD and it currently is Denmark’s fourth-largest city. A major industrial 20th-century industrial center, the city has done a wonderful job of revitalizing it’s waterfront and has a number of beautiful heritage buildings….
The Limfjord
The Limfjord is a peaceful cruising ground that provides a sheltered passage across Denmark’s Jutland Peninsula between Thyboron and Aalborg. With a maximum depth of 4m in the main channel, the waterway is too shallow for large ships and sees only light commercial traffic. Although not a fjord in the geololigical sense, the Limfjord once…
Thyboron, Denmark
The largest naval battle in history took place 55nm west of Thyboron, Denmark. In 1916, 99 ships German High Seas fleet faced 151 ships of the British Grand Fleet in the World War I Battle of Jutland. One of the reasons we’d stopped at Thyboron was to visit the Sea War Museum there, with its…
North Sea Crossing to Denmark
In early October, we made a 180-mile overnight crossing of the North Sea from Stavanger, Norway to Thyboron, Denmark. We’d had an incredible five months in Norway and wish we could have stayed for a year or more. The North Sea has a fearsome reputation, but we had a blissfully easy run with winds less…
Forward Spotlight Upgrade
Most fish boats run both deck lights and forward lights. They use the deck lights for working at night and the forward-facing lights to see further in front of the boat better. Our experience from operating around commercial fishing vessels at night is their forward-facing spotlights can be seen from great distances. We sometimes find…
Norwegian Oil Museum
We spent most of our final day in Stavanger at the exceptional Norwegian Oil Museum in Stavanger. The museum details the history and technology behind Norway’s growth as an oil nation through models, interactive displays and actual industry equipment. Below are trip highlights from October 4th and 5th in Stavanger, Norway. Click any image for…
