Flensburg - by sea

We left Marina Minde just after 1000 and had a wonderful sail for a couple of hours, close-hauled in a NW3, up the sparkling Flensburg Fjord on a fabulous morning. In a moment of indulgence I even put my favourite sailing music, from Pirates of the Caribbean, on the cockpit speakers.

When we got to the harbour at the head of the fjord, which is always very full, we saw a yacht coming out of a green- marked berth and managed to get into it, although it took several goes to lasso the starboard (fortunately downwind) sternpost, and the berth is very shallow so if the water level drops we may have problems leaving again. But still, it's a superb location with a wonderful view of the old city astern, and a quay backed by restaurants and a park on the bow.

Alas, despite all this, we were not all happy bunnies. Just after I finally captured the sternpost, I was trying to control the two stern lines, tiller, throttle and boat hook, and all of that plus the mainsheet and genoa furling line were tangled at Sam's feet. Somehow as we moved forward and the stern lines paid out, Sam got hit quite hard by the boat hook, and thought I'd hit him on purpose. He was very, very angry, I was very, very upset, and the wonderful achievements of the morning were overshadowed for a while by temper and tears.

I did threaten to go home, and I think Sam would have done too if he could. Still, on reflection, the point of doing this is just to be here and give it a try, whatever our states of mind. We've always had sailing rows and perhaps they have always been just as unjustified as this one. Hopefully however grumpy we are, it's still better than being at home and wishing we were sailing.

It's also definitely more rewarding to arrive by sea than by VW Passat - we were here six days ago to drop Guy off at the station.

Anyway, must sally forth and explore, and find some food. Must also dig out euros as we are back in Germany.

Miles today: 9.5, of which about 8 were under sail.