THE SLOW LIFE

A LATE SUMMER CRUISE IN DENMARK PROVES A TONIC FOR TOM CUNLIFFE

- TOM CUNLIFFE

The North Sea is all right if you like that sort of thing, but what with wind farms, gas rigs and shipping lanes it’s not what it was when a sailor could walk across it on the backs of the herring shoals. In recent years my wife, Ros, and I have taken to cruising Scandinavia, and rather than face the 600-mile trip each way, we’ve been keeping our American cutter Constance in Denmark.

As it happens, a lay-up in Augustenborg Yachthavn’s climate-controlled shed costs less than leaving the boat weeping in the drizzle on a patch of dirty gravel back home. Anders and his men handle her as if she were their own and it’s two easy days to drive to the boat from the south of England with the necessary car-load of gear.

Until the Year of COVID, Denmark’s low-lying shores had served as no more than a pleasant pathway to the more spectacular skerries and highlands further north. In 2020 we weren’t able to escape to the water before July, and there’s meteorological sense behind the fact that Norwegian and Swedish yachting winds up in September. This left us with a truncated slot. We considered giving it a miss, but that was never going to happen.

Ros and I have done our time on marathon-mileage cruises. This is our conclusion: you may win a cruising award for visiting 25 harbours in 28 days, but you’ll be like the cove who joined the Navy to see the world. What did he see? He saw the sea!