Norreborg

I arrived back at the rail on Deck 12 at the exact moment the ship got underway, the wake just beginning to foam between the ship and quayside. As I had expected, with about 16 knots of way on the ship the exposed deck began to feel distinctly chilly so I donned my scarf and jacket. We headed out past the old fortress that once guarded the entrance to Copenhagen’s port, and past the the large wind turbines which stood just off shore onto waters that were calm as a millpond.

A few small container ships were heading into port - the relatively shallow waters of the Baltic presumably creating a niche for them as coasting vessels that can’t be filled by 'mega' containerships with their deep drafts. One moving quickly into Copenhagen was sitting very high in the water and obviously in ballast - when I looked through my binoculars I saw her name was ‘Star Nina’ - the same sake of the friend I’m on my way to see. Once we were a couple of miles out from shore the crowd that had gathered on deck started to disperse, but the Øresund straight, one of the Denmark straights was something I wanted to see.

Much to my delight, once we had stood out from Copenhagen, our course took us to the east of the island of Ven (not to the West as the route indicated on Google maps had suggested*). Normal rules of navigation compelled the ship to keep to the starboard (right hand) side of the channel - this placed us on exactly the same track taken by Commodore Hornblower’s squadron in C.S. Forester’s novel ’The Commodore’ (albeit on the opposite - northbound - course and, at nigh on 17 knots, traveling nearly twice as fast as Hornblower’s fictional force).

Even with binoculars, I couldn’t make out any remnants of the batteries that would have stood on the shores during the Napoleonic era; that didn’t prevent me replaying the events of that endlessly re-read book in my mind as passed the key landmarks. It was easy to imagine Napoleonic cannon wreaking havoc from mounts on the crests of Ven’s relatively high hills, or the dismasted ketch Moth struggling past the low island of Saltholm, which I had just been able to make out far to our south.

In all, I spent nearly two hours out on deck, punctuated only by a brief dash below to fetch food and place my phone in the warm (as the cold on deck was causing it to lose power). I obtained a surprisingly tasty ‘vegansk sanwich’ before returning with it to the open deck. I sat at the aft end of the ship, reading and munching the sandwich (avocado with tasty pickles on a soft roll whose flavour carried a ciabatta-like hint of olive oil) until the straight was behind us.

*PSA, do not use Google maps for maritime navigation; Google’s track would have sent our ship aground on the shoals west of Ven. Navigate by novel instead.Read more