At last we managed to cut those docking lines. Probably the hardest part of any voyage of this nature. That doesn't necessarily mean that the rest is going to be easy, but most likely very simpe in comparison. A year and half, spent on selling the landased possessions and then refitting the boat is finally over.

With a magnificent High Pressure System covering most of the North Atlantic from the Azores to Scandinavia we just had to go now. A weather window like this doesn't appear more than once a summer at best. The forecast is sunny and warm and N-NE and then E winds in the 8-23 knot range for a week to come.

By now we have skipped the iea of going to Scotland to start with. Since we are already delayed for about a month, we want to get south ASAP. So it will be the English Channel and then Bretagne (Brittany) and from there across Bay of Biscay to Galicia in Spain. Pretty much the same route as most people take from this region. Hopefully we'll get the opportunity to sail in Scotland som other time.

Three a clock we went south under the opening bridge in Falsterbo Kanal, to set course for another Canal, the Kiel Canal, or Nord- Ost see Kanal as the Germans call it. 210 degrees on the compass and approx 140 miles to go, so we should be there tomorrow evening at dinner time. The wind was fresh, around 24 knots, so we started with a reef in the mainsail.

After just a couple of hours, we had to shake it out and the wind went down to just enough to provide steerage. So much for forecasts! A mere 2 hours. Normally very reluctant to fire up the engine on a sailing boat, I did. Not only do we want to make the best use of the high pressure and the (forecaasted, remember?) winds but the mechanics 'orders' for the best of the Iron Genny was to run it pretty hard and long hours at the start. So we did, with diesel tankage for more than 70 hours of motoring, we didn't hesitate to keep on for most of the 27 hours to Kiel. We managed to sail 3-4 of them, that's all.