Some Scandi talking

Sam Fortescue escapes lockdown to explore Scandinavia with his family.

Joining dozens of other boats that poured out of the narrow mouth of Germany’s River Schlei, I was prickled with a sense of excitement and trepidation. Very few others turned north like us, towards Danish waters just 12 miles distant. In these Corona times, most turned south and east towards Kiel, safely in the German Baltic. And yet, we’d done our homework. Sweden to the north was open to all-comers, and the Danes were adamant: ‘Danish waters are not closed’, read an email from someone at the Danish Maritime Authority. Transit and even anchorage were permitted, although we could not go ashore without ‘permission from the authorities’.

That bravado began to evaporate somewhat as we observed two large patrol vessels converging on our position. With a confidence I didn’t feel after so long in lockdown, I assured my wife Alex that they were just on a training exercise. Naturally enough, the coastguard and a German naval vessel took no interest in us whatsoever, and plied their way on up the Flensburger Fjord. We slipped over the ‘border’ and anchored quietly off Sønderborg, a lively little town that straddles the bridge between Jutland and Als. It was a windless, bright evening, and, with the children in bed, the first waves of relaxation began to steal over us. Hard to believe that just two weeks earlier, the boat was still unreachable across state lines, in her winter cradle, and in dire need of a coat of antifouling.