Heather and Heidi Poirier joined us in Kalmar and sailed on South to Germany with us. Heather had sailed with us often since 1979, and Heidi had been on board a couple of times as a kid. Now a teenager, she learned fast, and also stretched us out biking ashore.
Bornholm and Christianso are Danish Islands, despite being well out in the Baltic, and much closer to Sweden.
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We
had an easy sail from Utklippan to Christianso, which is a pair of
tiny islands, joined by a footbridge, which can be opened to let boats pass,
but not for casual visitors like us. The harbour in the narrow channel between the two islands is snug, but probably not good enough for a real blow.
The
main street has some parking problems, because there are so many bikes and
and wheelbarrows on the island. There are no cars, and even the mail
"van" is a wheelbarrow, seen here outside the post office. The cannons overlooking the harbour reflect the warrior past for this peaceful spot.
Gudheim
on Bornholm was much recommended, but we felt it was too small for us to
enter, so we docked at Svaneke, a few miles away and biked along.
We were glad we did, once we saw it, and learned that the entry gate, on the
left, is often closed to keep the seas out.The extensive network of bike trails on Bornholm is high-tech, with air stations equipped with interactive maps like this one.
We have two bikes on board, so rented a tandem one day to make room for four of us. One day on a tandem was enough, so we rented ordinary bikes after that.
In the pre-electricity days, the island had many windmills for processing grain. A few are kept running as living museums.
Heather and Heidi came prepared for biking, which led to all four of us covering more kilometres that Helen and I normally do.
After a week in Bornholm, we set sail for Germany, as shown on the map at the top of this page.