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Off the coast of Germany, rising out of the North Sea like a small speck of rock, sits  Heligoland . Legoland? I’d never heard of the place before, but it turns out to be quite famous for two things: cheap duty-free goods and obese day-trippers from Hamburg. It is also 17,166km from Tasmania (sez them) Heligoland is actually two specks of land—the main island, where the harbour, town and shops are found, and a smaller sandy islet a mile or so away. Fast ferries leave the German coast each morning and disgorge their slightly dazed and ambling passengers onto the wharf for a day of... well, I’m not entirely sure what. Certainly, it seems to involve food. Lots of food. Ice cream features prominently, as does wandering around the shops and having your photograph taken in one of the many wicker beach chairs scattered around the town and beach. There is a steady procession of people posing, eating, shopping and generally enjoying themselves before the ferry eventually arrives to collect ...

A new appreciation for me is the need for constant surveillance of the weather. Kate has been keeping a weather-eye on an approaching storm which is about ten days away, so we left Ystad for a long journey south and west while wind and wave permitted. Our route Upon the way we skirted the EnBW Baltic 2 Wind Farm. So since I work in renewables this offered an excellent chance to distract ourselves from the buffeting waves worked up by the wind. EnBW Baltic 2 Wind Farm The wind farm was built in 2013-15 and has 80 Siemens 3.6MW generators to produce 288MW of power. The EnBW website says this can provided the needs of 340,000 households, and who am I to doubt them. The project is in shallow water ranging from 25-45m, so turbines have either a monopile or a jacket support. The foundations are driven between 36 and 55 meters into the seabed in order to ensure that they are securely anchored.  Wind turbine foundation options Each hub is 78m above the sea surface and the turbine blades ar...

The air in the Baltic does not have the heavy smell of the sea. I suppose this is due to the landlocked nature of the water, fed from rain and freshwater rivers, and absence of sea kelp. The waves are smaller but choppier, kicked up by the winds, and don’t burden the air with the heavy humidity and smell of salt. Spray on your lips seems fresh, but not of the ocean. Baltic sailing But approaching land, you can smell Denmark before you reach it. Out of the light sea air comes a pungent, thick, organic funk, oozing out over the land from the pigs and cows of Danish rural industry. It assaults your nose with animalistic intensity. We prefer the cows. “Grass fed beef”, we opine, connoisseurs of the situation. The scent of pigs have a higher, sharper tang and are somehow more intense. In the Kiel Canal, we find new olfactory offerings – pigs again but also chicken – plus the whiff of German sausage and French fries from the food houses along the water. We nose forward into the unkno...

 Sandhamn is not where you think it is, at least according to Google. This small port on the south coast of Sweden has a name shared with many other locations, so I've found - so Googlish defaults to the daytrip spot near Stockholm. But we are not there. The Sandhamn of this blog is on the south coast of Sweden, between Kalmar (where I joined Chinook ) and Ystad. I am here with Kate & Sean Collins. I mentioned (jokingly) that I should do a guest-blog and was told immediately it was a new condition of continued passage on Chinook - so here I am! Sandhamn is a small port with an off-season ferry and a few fishing boats, and notable down-at-the-heel character. It's littered with the detritus of rusted bits from boats, boats under repair, or those under once-enthusiastic but half-finished renovation. But it's a nice place to shelter from the weather and there's not too many people now that the summer season ended about five minutes ago and all the "restaura...