These 3 weeks of flying in Denmark have been the most windy vacation time in my life. We could hardly find suitable time to fly from one destination to another! We had to tie down my Aeroprakt with double as many straps, and even shield it from the terrible gusts of up to 53 knots by placing a heavy road roller in front of the aircraft. Both Jens and I missed being airborne a lot. On Læsø, we finally got nice spring weather – cold and sunny, with almost no wind. And one day, we went for a tour of Læsø by air.
Jens happily indicates we are airborne and climbing!
Læsø is the largest island in the Kattegat, situated halfway between the towns of Frederikshavn in Denmark and Gothenburg in Sweden. The island covers a total of 118 square kilometres and has around 1,800 inhabitants.
The first traces of humans found on Læsø tell us those people lived on the island during the Stone Age for about 5,000 years ago. It is also known that Læsø later disappeared under the waters of Kattegat, and for a period of about 1,000 years there wasn’t any island there. Throughout the Bronze Age, Læsø was just a troubled seabed.
Later, the seabed began rising and the waves could wash sand and gravel up around the sandbank. Læsø was thus formed by sea-washed materials, after the northern Kattegat became calm enough.
From the 1st millennium till now, a completely different type of coast has emerged along the southern coast of Læsø. Here we have Denmark’s largest collection of huge rocks, wildly stretched low-lying salt marshes and shallow areas, and a number of small islands, called Rønnerne. Rønnerne is the youngest area on Læsø, and still grows today by approx. 5 mm per year, which is not seen elsewhere in Denmark:
The most isolated of them is Hornfiskrøn – the youngest of the islands:
I’ve always wanted to visit it, and it is still on my “to do” list.
From there, we changed direction and flew to the eastern part of Læsø and Bovet Bay:
In Bovet Bay, a significant commercial fishing used to take place, but it ebbed out when the eelgrass disappeared. There are several theories as to why the eelgrass has disappeared from Læsø and most other Danish waters in general. One of them points to a fatal turnaround in the summer of 1999, but already in the 1930’s the eelgrass declined sharply when it was struck by disease. The eelgrass has been used by the people of Læsø for centuries for roofing. Of these seaweed roofs, there are today only a small dozen left, half of which are protected.
The colours of Bovet Bay were incredible in the sunlight:
East of Boven Bay there is a peninsula called Bløden Hale (Soft Tail in English):
It is called the Soft Tail because this elongated thin part of land resembles a tail on the rest of the island. As a result of a natural process where material from north is brought in by the current, the tail has taken on an almost hook shape, and it now forms a barrier to the east, so that Bovet Bay today lies like a protected bay behind it, with very shallow water. The tail is still growing year by year, and who knows if it will not one day close off to Bovet:
Syrodde, the north easternmost point on Læsø:
Læsø is perfectly located in the northern part of the Kattegat which means, among other things, that the island avoids mainland clouds, and benefits from the so-called island effect. This effect gives Læsø the most hours of sunshine in Denmark – 1,951 hours a year!
We flew by its northern coast, and took pictures of the two harbours – Østerby and Vesterø. Below is the one of Vesterø:
We landed, so high on what we had just seen, and agreed to drive to the eastern part of Læsø next day, and to experience Bløden Hale on foot.
Jens refuelled the aircraft:
And we spent the rest of the day relaxing, and dreaming of new destinations.