Recent content by rbmatthews

Thanks for all your helpful advice and comments, everyone. I think I'll try the new aluminium ones on the hull and the prop, and put a new zinc one on the bowthruster and see how it goes next time we lift her out. Vetus said they were thinking of making an aluminium anode for the bowthruster (a...

I have a dilemma. We are keeping our boat in the Baltic with its low salinity, and I have been advised that it is better to switch from zinc to aluminium anodes for everything, as they work well both in sea water and brackish water, whereas zinc only works well in seawater. My understanding...

This summer we continued our voyage around the Baltic from Kappeln in northern Germany, along the German Baltic coast to Rügen, up to Bornholm in Denmark, then to Sweden , where we explored the archipelago and ended up in Lake Mälaren, west of Stockholm, where we are overwintering. Lovely...

Spotted in Iceland on Oct 1: ‘He’s so majestic’: Wally the walrus hits Iceland on tour of Europe

Interesting. We experienced them about three or four times. Two of them were in fjords (Schlei and Flensburger), so that might have been some kind of channelling effect by the fjord, but the other times were in Sønderborg and on the island of Årø. In the case of Sønderborg it had been blowing...

Holland is beautiful - we did the Staande Mastroute last year (there is a section in our blog if you are interested) - so would definitely recommend it, but having time to enjoy it all is desirable.

The other thing I forgot to mention is that you should be aware of the 'wind-tides' in the Baltic - there are no lunar tides to speak of, but if the wind blows from the same direction for a few days, it can blow the surface water from one side of the Baltic to the other, so the water level can...

The Danish archipelago is shallow - the Baltic used to be a freshwater lake called Ancylus blocked from the North Sea by glacial moraine, but eventually the sea did erode through the barrier, to give what we have today. In most places though, it is deep enough for sailing, even an 8' keel...

Yes, the Viking ship at Ladby is a 'must-see' if you are at all into Viking history.

Yep, but I was very emotionally attached to the old ones, and still haven't quite recovered from their loss yet :(!

Won't elaborate on the B thing here, but suffice to say thay we had no problems at all. In fact, at more than one Port of Entry, it was quite difficult to get anyone to take us seriously when we told them we had come from the UK and needed to get clearance. We fully realise, however, that it may...

This year we continued on from Hoorn in the Netherlands out to Terschelling in the Frisian Islands, and from there through to the Kiel Canal and into the Baltic, where we spent the rest of the summer exploring the Danish archipelago - the islands of Als and Fyn, and lots of little ones in...

That's quite a bit of weed. Looks like we did well to avoid it!

Thanks everyone for your comments, and apologies for the tardy response, we carried on and crossed over from Dover to Calais and up the coast to Vlissingen in the Netherlands where we did the southern half of the Staande Mastroute. It was only because we couldn't face the extra half a lap back...

Following on from our circumnavigation of the UK, we carried on and did the southern half of the Netherlands Staande Mastroute, starting at Vlissingen in the south, passing through Zeeland, South Holland and North Holland where we left the boat for the winter. Covid and Brexit permitting, we...