This is how we imagined it: Summer sun, softly gurgling wake and the Flensburg Fjord in front of us. It lies there like a watercolour painting, blue in blue, with countless dabbed sails. Despite their name, the Danish Ox Islands off the northern shore exude a touch of the Côte d'Azur; the small passenger ferry is just setting sail, sunglasses flash and summer dresses flutter in the breeze. Ahead of us lies a trip through one of the most beautiful areas of the Baltic Sea, along the coast of Schleswig.
On the Danish and German sides - you really can't talk about borders any more - you should head into the fjords and fjords. Small paradises in their own right, well protected from the open Baltic Sea. We picked up our charter boat, a fine Linssen 34.9 from Freewater Yachtcharter, in the Sonwik marina, about 3 km from Flensburg city centre. Supermarkets and other amenities can be reached by car in five minutes.
Our steel displacement boat (named "Jacqueline") will be a lot of fun over the next week; not only because the equipment exceeds the usual scope, but also because we will often be approached about the boat - especially by sailors. Our first day of sailing takes us straight to Denmark - no mean feat on the Flensburg Fjord. However, due to the course of the border, special evasion rules apply, namely from buoy pair "1/2" to buoy pair "13/14", where the rules of the KVR - the international collision prevention rules - apply instead of the maritime shipping lane regulations.
We spontaneously decide to take a look into Nybøl Nor, separated from the fjord by the narrow Egernsund. The bascule bridge there has a clearance height of 6 metres and is easy to cross even when closed. But we don't want to stay there; we still have a few nautical miles to go to our destination for the day, Sønderborg, and our steel displacement vessel is no glider.
At the height of the Holnis hook, we thread our way back into the fairway. The position of the legendary "mother-in-law" now lies ahead. This dubious title of honour had become established over decades for buoy "6", which warns skippers of the sandbank of the Holnis Hook that juts far out into the fjord. Immediately on the land side of the buoy line, the water depth here drops to less than 1 metre. Hence the "mother-in-law": "If you go behind her, she'll run you aground!" Precisely because of its importance, the buoy was replaced by a lighted pile a few years ago.
We noticed it earlier: a thunderstorm front to the east - its shadow is currently engulfing what is still visible of Flensburg - is approaching menacingly. Its towers of clouds tower sky-high. On the sailing yachts travelling with us, there is a flurry of activity. Genoas are lowered, spinnakers collapse, and on one traditional sailing yacht, the entire cloth is removed as a precaution. The sky turns yellow, the water steel-grey and oily, and the horizon slowly constricts us from the west.
Then we see the squall line: Where it pushes across the entire width of the fjord, the water is suddenly white - from the whipped-up spray. What will it do to our Linssen? We close up the "cake shack", stay on course and wait for things to happen. And then it starts. The roller reaches us, tugs at the deck and pounds into it as if trying to find a weak spot. The fjord begins to boil and the rain clatters down like a thousand sewing machines. We've never experienced anything like it. And our boat? It stoically follows its course without even bucking.
The spectacle lasts a good half hour, then it slowly clears up again. And as if nothing had happened, the sun is already feeling its way back over the green hills and the striking double church tower of Broager in the north. The fairway of the Kiel-Flensburg route runs right along the border, so the red buoys are German and the green ones Danish. Time for us to "turn off" to the north, towards Sønderborg. Behind the south cardinal buoy "Helts Banke", whose tattered brush topping sign nods over to us in the swell, we turn round into Sønderborg Bugt. Soon the Düppeler Schanzen with the mill and the bright red "Danebrog" come into view on the port side. From the seaward side, it is hard to believe that this peaceful spot of land was fought over so bloodily a long time ago.
The cosy town, which lies on both banks of the Alssund, is a "must" when sailing in this area and offers several good mooring options, depending on your taste. Those who prefer a fully equipped marina should choose the marina whose entrance is located before the beginning of the sound on the eastern shore. One of the 50 guest berths there is always free. The town centre is 1 km away, but we are drawn to the commercial harbour directly in the town. On the east bank, south of the König-Christian-Klappbrücke, you can moor alongside the harbour wall, which is well equipped with wooden guide rails. There is space for around 60 pleasure craft here, although parcels of up to three boats tend to be the rule in high season. Arriving early ensures good places.
When mooring, you should watch out for sailing yachts, which are often circling around waiting for the next bridge opening, as well as the sometimes surprisingly strong current in the sound. If you are going into the packet, you should of course (if possible) ask the crew on the other boat for permission before going alongside and only go over their foredeck when going ashore. As is increasingly common in Denmark, you check in at the machine at the entrance to the harbour office. For our 10.70 metre long "Jacqueline" we pay 125 Danish kroner (DKK) including electricity, which is about 17 euros.
Although we have been to Sønderborg many times before, the interesting regional museum in the massive castle is a first. Many of the exhibits are reminiscent of the German era from 1864 to 1918, when Prussia greedily annexed the province after the German-Danish War, the decisive battle of which was fought at the Düppel redoubts outside the city gates, until North Schleswig was returned to Denmark by referendum at the end of the First World War. Afterwards we stroll past the town hall and along the Brogade in what is now the finest summer weather, where we finish the day at the "Ox-En", a modern and highly recommended steakhouse near the harbour.
The next morning, we head north into the picturesque Alssund. Incidentally, the bridge's clearance of 5 metres when closed is no problem for motorboaters. The green hills on the western shore undulate picturesquely, with magnificent old country houses appearing again and again among the oaks and beeches, and the passage ends all too soon. Three nautical miles north of Sottrupskov, the Augustenborg Fjord opens up, which we follow further into the island of Als. At its very end, after another five nautical miles or so, lies Augustenborg, which can be reached via a well buoyed, albeit narrow, fairway.
From the modern marina on the south bank (we pay DKK 120 this time), it's a ten-minute walk to Storegade, the small main and shopping street. The castle is also particularly worth seeing here. The magnificent, three-winged baroque complex dating from 1770 can only be viewed from the outside, but the park located directly on the fjord is also freely accessible - perfect for an evening stroll under a high, gently rustling canopy of leaves.
We return in our wake; we stop again for the night in Sønderborg because the next day's leg, to Maasholm on the Schlei, is far enough anyway. But the next day we say goodbye to Denmark: we leave the Flensburg Fjord on an easterly course, accompanied by a light, warm wind, and then the Baltic Sea lies before us in all its summer splendour, competing with the cloudless sky for the purer blue. Pure holiday mood!
At a leisurely 5 knots, we head south under the coast, the diesel barely audible. Sailing couldn't be more beautiful! The approach from Schleimünde is not difficult to spot: long before we can make out the red and white approach buoy in our binoculars, the yachts coming in like a string of pearls tell us where the narrow opening is, past the black and white lighthouse and the houses on Lotseninsel, we enter the Olpenitzer Noor, always following the buoy line until we "turn" to starboard at buoy "15/Mh.2" to starboard towards the dense forest of masts in Maasholm marina.
We pass the outer pier heads, but avoid the inner harbour with its narrow "pit lanes" and instead go alongside on the outside of the harbour wall. Protected by two piers, the harbour is quiet here too. After taking our 15 euros to the harbour master, there is of course only one dish on the evening menu in Maasholm: the legendary currywurst, with its homemade sauce, right in the snack bar next door. When Berliners and Hamburgers argue about who invented the currywurst, the people of Maasholm can only laugh ...
The Schlei, Germany's longest Baltic Sea fjord at 42 kilometres - just under 23 nautical miles - is an extraordinary experience. Navigation is completely unproblematic, as the Schlei is buoyed throughout and critical points are also particularly well marked. The only obstacle (depending on the height of the boat) are the bascule bridges in Kappeln and near Lindaunis, which have a clearance height of 3.30 metres and 3.80 metres respectively when closed. If this is too low for you, keep to the fixed opening times: Both open every hour from 5.45 am to 9.45 pm, 15 minutes before the hour. Passage is permitted when there are two green lights; if there is also a white light above, you must watch out for oncoming traffic.
We pass Kappeln and Arnis, with its historic wooden boatyard, before the Schlei widens again. Accompanied by gentle, green banks, fields and meadows, we follow its course further south-west, via Lindaunis with its rusty bridge monstrosity on to Brodersby. At Missunde, where a cable ferry also crosses and caution is therefore advised, it finally reaches its narrowest point with a distance of less than 100 metres from the shore. However, this bottleneck is now followed by two more wide stretches of water (which, with the right winds and the shallow water depth of around 3 metres, can create an unpleasantly short, steep sea): the Great and the Little Broad.
While the "skyline" of Schleswig with the cathedral tower and the far less elegant Wiking skyscraper can already be seen to the west, the Stexwiger Enge still has to be negotiated; a pole and a row of buoys mark the fairway here, which must be observed at all costs - because not a boat's length away to the north it is already so shallow that the seagulls can stand ... Schleswig itself lies at the very end of the Schlei; access to the town harbour, which has been extended in recent years, is still to the east of Möwenberg, a small island with very shallow water surrounding it. A glance through the binoculars suggests that we won't find any more space there - it's relatively late in the afternoon, and our Linssen isn't made for small gaps.
So we continue on to the Viking marina, past the Möwenberg and towards the Viking Tower. In the shadow of the 90-metre giant, unmistakably an urban development project from the 1970s, lies Schleswig's large marina, the Wiking Marina. At 13 euros, we get away cheaply here and the service is extremely friendly. We also learn that the high-rise building, which seems so out of place here - it was even built directly in the water - also has its good sides: namely a café at the top, behind whose panoramic windows you have an unrivalled view over the Schlei. The only drawback of the harbour is the distance to the city (around 2.5 km to the cathedral), but the walk leads along the waterfront promenade and through an area redesigned for the 2008 State Garden Show.
If you're really hungry, you can stop off at the "Luzifer" about halfway along the route, where the adjoining brewery serves delicious "Asgaard" beer to go with its unusual menu. Speaking of Asgaard: anyone coming to Schleswig should not miss the completely redesigned interior of the Haithabu Viking Museum; it is located on the south bank, around 2 kilometres from the marina.
We have reached our turning point: the following day brings the "Jacqueline" a good distance back down the Schlei to Kappeln. The town has four marinas - proof of how popular the area is - two to the north and two to the south of the bridge. We're lucky and manage to get hold of one of the pits right next to the wall of the town harbour for 15 euros. The evening comes and with it the "blue hour". While the Schlei becomes the perfect mirror in the last light, we enjoy a last glass of something special on this extraordinary trip in a beautiful area - not far away, but right on our own doorstep.
WHAT SKIPPERS NEED TO KNOW
The company The Hamburg-based company Freewater Yachtcharter has five bases, three of them in the Mecklenburg and Märkisch waters and two more - since this year - on the Baltic coast in Wiek on Rügen and in Flensburg. The centrepiece of the fleet is a fine Linssen steel displacement boat in seven different versions - which is why the company is a member of the Europe-wide Linssen Charter Association, with partners in Germany, the Netherlands, France and Croatia. However, other boat types, such as Pedro, Doerak and Nidelv, are also available from freewater. Information and booking: freewater yachtcharter, Rainer Daues, Kiefernhain 5, 22297 Hamburg, Tel. 040-64 50 57 30. www.freewater.de
The boat We were travelling on a 10.70 m long Linssen 34.9 AC steel displacement boat. The boat, which was elegantly equipped throughout, was perfectly equipped for the trip and below deck.
The two spacious double cabins were each equipped with their own bathroom. Extensive navigation material with charts and harbour guides was also on board, as was a practical colour chart plotter at the outside helm. The weekly rates
for the 4+2-person ship were between € 1490 and € 2425.
The precinct The sections of the area we travelled through were mostly shielded from the open Baltic Sea and therefore easy to navigate even in stronger winds. Navigation in both Denmark and Germany does not pose too great a challenge for the skipper if he has studied the relevant charts and has the necessary knowledge of the sea sports boat licence. Of course, good seamanship is a must - especially at weekends in the high season, when the water and harbours can be very busy. The distances are easy to cover even with a
slower boat like the Linssen, and the trip we had planned could easily be completed in a week. If you want an even more relaxed trip, you can skip the detour to Augustenborg.
The cruise stages
Flensburg - Sønderborg 18 nm
Sønderborg - Augustenborg 10 nm
Augustenborg - Sønderborg 10 nm
Sønderborg - Maasholm 23 nm
Maasholm - Schleswig 25 nm
Schleswig - Kappeln 22 nm
Kappeln - Flensburg 37 nm
Total 145 nm
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