Langelandsbælt, the belt connecting The Baltic Sea with The Great Belt further north, is the narrowest part of the international shipping lane Rute T (Route Tango). One of the World’s most important highways for shipping, passing through Danish waters to and from The Baltic Sea and the North Sea Canal. There is only 1,200 meter from Spodsbjerg Beach on Langeland’s east coast to the shipping lane, marked by the Spodsbjerg SE Fyr (offshore lighthouse).
The booming cruise traffic in the Baltic area, some summer evenings, nearly creates convoys of north-going cruise vessels passing Langelandsbælt. Most of them departures from Kiel or Warnemünde at 18:00 or 19:00, or have seadays from destinations farer away as Stockholm, Tallinn or St. Petersburg.
Many of them have Copenhagen as their destination the following morning at 07:00 or 08:00 or The Norwegian Fjords after a seaday in the Skagerrak and the North Sea the next day. Navigational restrictions in the southern part of Øresund for large ships, force the ones heading for Copenhagen to circulate the west and north coasts of Zeeland and instead approach from north via Øresund.
Beside the increasing number of cruise vessels, both Color Line and Stena Line also makes daily passages of Langelandsbælt with their ferries between Oslo-Kiel and Gothenburg-Kiel, all accompanied by the domestic ferry route across the belt between the Spodsbjerg and Taars.
paxpix - maritime photography 