January: The harsh winter with snow and long periods of frost allowed for outdoor activities,in particular, using the newly acquired cross country skis.

February: It was therefore a natural extension of the season, when the family went on a skiing vacation to Norway in February and a delightful week was spent in the family's cabin in Hallingdal

April: Jørgen's birthday was celebrated with a day trip to Malmö, Sweden, which is only 1 hour drive from our home.

March: Jørgen was invited to Stockholm to tell about his job in making the Laurin Society Homepage, which covers details about Yachts designed by the famous Swedish constructor - Arvid Laurin.

The visit included a "sight seeing" trip to many of the Yacht harbours around Stockholm.

The picture on the left shows the trendy "Saltsjöbaden Hotel.

From there, we went to Palma de Mallorca, where we rented a car to see more of this lovely island. The tourning point was Cap de Formentor in the North of the Island (picture below right)

May: The family decided, that it was time for a cruise.

We sail from Rome's seaport - Civitavecchia - on board the "Costa Concordia" - heading west to Savona and later Barcelona.

The cruise continued to Palermo and then back to Rome.

Since we had never been to Rome, we extended the holiday with 2 days, which of course is far too short for this magnificent capital, but enough to make an impression and a desire for a soon return.

Nota Bene: About 9 month after our cruise, disaster struck "Costa Concordia" on 13 January 2012

July / August: In the middle of July, Daniel and I left on the summer cruise. First leg to Gilleleje went well, but leaving the next morning the engine only started with great difficulties and smoked a lot. When it wars started again to run into Odden harbour, I realised that something was seriously wrong with the engine.

On the following days I worked hard to get the engine into shape to sail on, but didn't succeed as it turned out, that the problem was severe intake of saltwater into the oil. I decided to sail to Aarhus to take out the engine (the picture) for a complete overhaul. As I predicted this to take "a while", Daniel and I decided, that he should go home

It took, however, only 2 days to make the overhaul and sailed to Fredericia, where it was planned, that Michael should join. We then sailed southwards towards Northern Germany, were we have never sailed before. Although the summer was one of the worst on record, we had many fine days, which can be seen in below picture of Flensburg Fjord.
 

 From Flensburg we sailed via Graasten to Kappeln to meet the German "ambassador" for Laurin Yachts in Germany.  From here, we sailed via Maasholm back to Denmark, where Bagenkop (picture) was visited for the first time.

The following day we returned returned to Germany where Burgtiefe on Fehmarn became our "home" for some days of hard wind. Then back to Denmark, where we spend some days Stubbekøbing, only due to strong winds and heavey rain.

 The weather did not improve a lot on the leg of the return trip back home....