Ecologbook: Time for a bit of holiday

In the morning after my arrival in Sønderborg, I started to look for a replacement for my failing autohelm. Well, to be fair, I had started to look at a second hand one on various websites the day before already. But after moving to a proper berth, I opened up mine to see if I could fix it and realised that, in short: no, I could not.

I also spent some time trying to fix or understand what was wrong with the depth sounder before completely giving up: I think the screen is gone and there isn't much I can do about it…

At this point I was tried, a bit depressed by not sailing how I wanted to, not sure about my plan to go to Sweden any more, why going there? Was it right? Where should I go? Where do I want to go next season? It felt like I could do with a bit of holiday, recreational sailing without real goal other than seeing nice stuff, resting and playing some music. While I was starting to spiral a bit, I reached out to colleagues sailing in the Baltic to see if I could meet some here or there. I was stuck in Sønderborg for a few more days at any rate while fixing a new autohelm.

Shortly after sending messages around, I got an answer from one of my friend who had planned to go sailing with some of her friends around south Denmark for a bit and asked if I wanted to tag along. And so I did, we went around with 1 or 2 other sailboats in small harbours, staying at anchor, using my newly got inflatable kayak, and take pictures ! All of this was rather fun, uncomplicated and overall what I needed to come up with some reflection time to decide what to do next!

Left to my own devices again, I would go north, round Denmark maybe touch in Norway and then head back to the Netherlands. Elvira would winter there while I try to find some sailing opportunities on tall ships for the early part of the next season, and I would do a good refit of Elvira next spring.

When their isn't much speed, the weather is nice and you're not alone onboard, you can go for a small dip in the water and be slowly pulled by the boat.