The 130 miles to Helgoland took me 27 hours and offered a lot of what you can experience at sea. No really serious conditions though but some adrenalin-filled sailing in the late night and morning. I left Vlieland one hour after high water a bit before 12, which is not ideal since I would start with the current against me when I came out at sea. Outside Vlieland there is a big shallow area one must take a long detour around, so I started with seven miles in the wrong direction. That sucks and it's one of the reason I am very tired of North Sea cruising. After Den Helder all the ports on the Friesan islands are like that, more or less. They are on the "backside" of the islands, since there is no protection against the wind on the outside and no natural harbours. All you see from the sea is sand dunes.

Coming out at sea I had a lovely day though, warm and sunny and a gentle breeze that let me make around three knots against the current. Stronger winds was forecasted towards the evening, but that never happened. When the second west going current hit me around midnight I had to start the engine to make some headway. Very cold it was also, I actually used a rescue blanket to keep me warm.

But around four in the morning I could here the wind start howling and soon I was making between six knots against the last of the current. When it turned in my favour I was making over eight knots in periods, but it was quite uncomfortable when the seas started to build up and getting some sleep was not to think of.

Even more uncomfortable it got when I turned to port against Helgoland, with the seas against me and also in a quite irregular pattern. But that part was only 15 miles and around three in the afternoon I steered in to Binnenhafen for filling up tax free diesel. I had hoped that the 140 liters I filled on Guernsey would last a good part of the summer but that was very naive of me. I had 20 liters left of them when I arrived.

Very tired I took the boat to the marina and went to the supermarket since I was out of food. Then one hours nap before I woke up freezing badly. I didn't connect the shorepower when I arrived, and when I now tried I discovered that I had to fill up with one euro coins to activate it. Which I of course didn't have a single one of. A new walk to the village to find someone that could give me some change.

That wasn't what I mostly wanted by now, but nothing else to do, since the night was going to be cold. There is no end of these cold winds from the north, more than one month now. When I come to Malmö, hopefully on Sunday if I am lucky with the winds, I will stay there until the weather turns to the better. If it does at all, summers in Scandinavia can be terrible, it's a bit of a lottery.