Skælskør Havn

Skælskør Havn is the town's municipal harbour, at the head of Skælskør Fjord where the water opens towards the old market town. It is three things at once: a fishing harbour, a marina, and a quay that still takes small coasters. You moor in the middle of town, with shops, museum and restaurants a couple of hundred metres away.

The approach from the Great Belt is one of the more memorable in Danish waters — about 2.4 nautical miles in through a dredged channel across Tudsehage, with the beacons at Gedehave keeping you on track and leading lights taking over after dark. The fjord is narrow and shallow outside the channel, and the current can run hard, so keep the speed down, particularly past Vasebro.

The harbour is run by Slagelse Municipality, with a harbourmaster on site on weekdays. Skælskør Bådelaug makes its sailors' room available to visitors, and a restaurant and a fishmonger sit on the quay. Note that Skælskør Havn is not part of the Danish free-harbour scheme — that is Skælskør Lystbådehavn, the club harbour on the north side of the fjord just before town.

The town is small and well preserved, with a local museum, an annual ceramics festival, and Borreby manor and its park a few kilometres inland. A disused railway line, now asphalted, runs as a cycle and walking path all the way to Slagelse and Næstved.