Anholt

Marina near Anholt by

Last edited 12.03.2024 at 15:13 by NV Charts Team

Latitude

56° 42’ 54.4” N

Longitude

11° 30’ 42.6” E

Description

Single fishing and marina on the west side of this scenic island in the Kattegat, always crowded in summer.

NV Cruising Guide

Navigation

The fueled harbor can be approached day and night. A landmark visible from afar is the high radar and transmission tower immediately northeast of the harbour.

Watch out for the three shoals around the island: Østerrev, Stensøre and the NW Rev.

Berths

Yachts are moored on the east side of the middle bridge or at the floating pontoons with stern buoys at a water depth of approx. 3.5 m. Often, due to heavy traffic in this popular harbour, you can moor in the so-called second row; that is, you moor in front of the stern anchor and tie up the stem to the yachts that are already moored at the bridge. The northern quay is reserved for fishermen and the ferry - and may only be used with the permission of the harbour authority.
For very large yachts, the inner edges of the pier heads of the outer harbour offer good space in calm weather or offshore winds. Here, however, you have to gymnastics over granite blocks ashore.

Anchorages: Quite good anchorages, which should however only be used in safe weather conditions, can each be found to leeward of the island. In westerly to northerly winds, you can lie close to the shore in Pakhus Bugt, which slopes steeply here. The water depth is 3 - 4 m. With southerly winds you lie northeast of the Nordbjerg on 3 - 4 m water depth. The outer harbour is only suitable as an anchorage to a limited extent, even in ideal weather, as there is very little room to berth. An increasing wind from the west quickly makes the outer harbour very turbulent.

Surroundings

In addition to the usual sanitary facilities, you will also find fuel and food supplies at the harbour. Anholt By", three kilometres away, offers further supply possibilities. There is a ferry connection to Grenaa on Jutland.

NV Land Guide

Nearly 15,000 pleasure craft visit the island's harbour each year, so it's often turbulent here in high season. Occasionally the harbour is so crowded that it seems to consist of a single, huge parcel of guest boats. Bad luck for those who come early and want to sail early. Still, the crowds don't seem to deter Anholt fans.

The paradisiacal landscape of the ten-kilometre-long, five-kilometre-wide island exerts a magnetic effect. A unique dune area, a small shifting sand desert, stone walls and juniper bushes as well as the lagoon area "Flakket" in the northwest of the island with many bird species and a large breeding area attract not only sports boaters but also numerous tourists who come over by ferry from the mainland (Grenaa). A total of 50,000 guests visit Anholt every year - with only 160 inhabitants.

While glacial moraine hills dominate the landscape in the west, the eastern part of Anholt is flat - except for the sand dunes. The highest elevation is the Sønderberg. From this almost 50-metre-high hill in the west of the island, you can even see the Danish and Swedish coasts on a clear day.

After an hour's walk through the dense coniferous forest of the western island, you reach the only village, Anholt By, which has 120 inhabitants. It exudes cosiness and is now inhabited not only by farmers but also by artists and craftsmen who offer their work for sale. Of course, fishermen also live in the tiny island capital, but their fleet has become smaller in recent years because the transport of the catch to Grenaa has caused problems. Many fishermen have therefore moved to the mainland. The remaining fishermen mainly catch lobsters and sole.

The village's church, which is well worth seeing, is said to have been built in 1819 because an entire wedding party was in distress on the way back from the wedding ceremony on the mainland and the newlyweds almost drowned. The remains of the foundations, however, testify to an even older church building. The interior is decorated with a Romanesque baptismal font from Halland (Sweden) and a 100-year-old altarpiece showing Jesus walking on water. The bells on the altar, a gift from the owner of the island in 1716, were to be recast in 1909, but the captain who sailed them to the mainland, fearing God's punishment, turned back on the way and returned the bells to the island. No one else could be found who would have been willing to transport them to the mainland.

The fine sandy beaches on both sides of the harbour (a total of 26 kilometres of sandy beach) are another reason for Anholt's popularity. Extensive walks along the coast are a must for most visitors. However, as the majority of yachtsmen prefer to sunbathe on the beach near the harbour, you can find a quiet spot all to yourself just a few hundred metres away from the hustle and bustle.

Solitude is even more guaranteed in the eastern dune area. The more easterly, the lonelier, is the rule of thumb on Anholt for those who want to leave the summer hustle and bustle behind. The day hike to the lighthouse in the east is therefore highly recommended. Although almost the entire island is protected, the "desert" may be crossed on foot.

Archeological finds from the younger Stone Age (Pit Ceramic period) tell of prehistoric times. Occasionally, one can still see traces of the making of flint tools on stone blocks. The dwelling places of the Stone Age people were located where the village is today. No finds have yet been made from the Bronze Age, but household goods from the Viking Age have been discovered, when, according to legend, the pirate Borris kept a lookout for passing ships in his castle on Sønderbjerg.

It is also known about the island's history that Anholt was still completely overgrown with pine trees when the Danish king blew the whistle for hunting here in the early Middle Ages. In the course of time, however, the inhabitants cut down most of the trees because they needed the wood as fuel for salt production and to light the first lighthouse. The pine forest that now stretches west along the coast was reforested after the island was almost treeless some 150 years ago.

A cunning Danish officer is said to have ingeniously but simply prevented the island from being ceded to Sweden at the peace treaty of Roskilde in 1658. He poured beer for himself and his negotiating opponents, drank up quickly, and placed his tankard on the map at the exact spot where the island was marked.

In 1668 Anholt was sold to the customs administrator Peder Jensen Grove; whose wife, after his death, married the nobleman Hans Rostgaard of Krogerup. The descendants of the noble family still own Anholt today.

As a strategically important point in the northern Kattegat, the island was hotly contested, especially during the Danish-English (1807-1814) War. First, the Danes extinguished the Anholt beacon, which was important to the English, whereupon the English converted a frigate into a lightship and anchored it off Anholt. But the crew of the ship got into distress in the ice, had to save themselves to the island and to their astonishment they were not received hostilely on the island, but friendly cared for as stranded people according to old custom. This did not prevent the English from conquering the island six months later, although they encountered fierce resistance from 100 soldiers of a Jutland regiment. The bloody attempts of the Danes to recapture the island are commemorated by gravestones in the cemetery of Anholt By and a cannon surrounded memorial in the village. By the end of the war, the English had managed to repel attacks and also built a small fortress by the lighthouse to the east, the remains of which can still be seen today.

Some 130 years later, during the Second World War, German troops were among the unwelcome visitors. However, the occupation had the positive consequence of developing the port. The importance still attached to the island by the military can be seen in the tall radar tower above the harbour, built around 1900.

A strategic point for a stopover on the sea voyage between Denmark and Sweden, Anholt is now mainly for pleasure boaters, who also appreciate the island's climate. Statistically, it is the sunniest place in Denmark, which is underpinned by the sparse vegetation on the eastern side of the island and the dryness in summer. Sparse heather and scattered birch trees grow on the sandy soil in the east of the island, also beach oats, crowberry and homebush.

The island, now 22 km², was formed very gradually in 15,000 BC during the melting of the ice. A ring of ice wrapped around the island and formed the marginal moraines after the ice had melted at the highest points. Slowly released from the pressure of the draining ice, the land began to rise. But Anholt was still connected to the mainland. It was not until around 7000 BC that the water rose more than the land. Anholt became an island, which at first consisted only of what is now the western part. The flat beach wall, the "desert" east of the hills formed in the course of the following 5000 years.

It was only in the last 100 years that the aforementioned flakket, a flat, wet foreshore with beach meadows northeast of the harbour, which today may not be entered to protect breeding birds, came into being. Breechfoot, swan, eider goose, grebe, coot, water fowl, lapwing, gulls and various species of duck can be observed with binoculars.

Anholt has a considerable population of spotted seals, which have their young here in summer. Conservationists therefore urge visitors not to touch the seal pups (howlers) at all, otherwise the mother will abandon her young. Environmentalists and islanders are also concerned about the acute fire danger that exists almost every year during the summer months. Smoking in the forest is strictly forbidden and every guest is asked to help fight the fire if one breaks out.

Sports skippers are asked to take their rubbish back with them if possible, as the rubbish has to be taken away by ferry.

There is a supermarket both in the village and at the harbour. The Kro in the village offers good home cooking, the two restaurants at the harbour are recommended to gourmets who know that harbour views, nouvelle cuisine and long drinks have their price. There is also a snack bar and a fish stall by the moorings where you can buy smoked fish and fish cakes. Last but not least, there is a lounge with cooking facilities and a terrace above the sanitary facilities, from where you can enjoy a fantastic view over the harbour. The harbour fee is not very expensive, if you compare it with the prices in the northern Kattegat.

The island doctor lives at the north end of the village, where the roads Nordstrandvej and Gennem Landet share. There are regular flights with small aircraft to Læsø and Copenhagen from the airfield east of the village.

Marina Information

Max Depth 3.7 m

Contact

Phone +45 8631 9008
Email Please enable Javascript to read
Website https://www.anholthavn.dk

Surroundings

Electricity

Water

Toilet

Shower

Restaurant

Imbiss

Atm

Internet

Fuel

Diesel

Petrol

Grocery

Public Transport

Bikerental

Garbage

Comments

Kai, MaxiCosi
Lieblingshafen
30.04.2021 09:28
philipp.von.saurma, Möve
Schöner Hafen mit sauberen Sanitäranlagen, schöner Strand in direkter Nähe in der Saison aber restlos überfüllt, dafür dann meist eine tolle Stimmung.
10.08.2020 16:22

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Places nearby

Related Regions

This location is included in the following regions of the BoatView harbour guide: