John Apps – ‘GLAYVA’
I read a book recently about an Atlantic sailor who had been up a few South
American Rivers, including the Orinoco. He described sailing [my paraphrasing, I
don’t have the book to hand] as: ‘A mixture of misery and boredom, occasional
terror, interspersed with moments of splendour.’ Of course the point he made
that I am also trying to make is that we all do it for the moments of splendour.
There was misery aplenty on the way over. Pounding into a NE veering Easterly at
F5. When the tide was against you, hardly any ground was made. When the tide was
with you the steepness of the waves with wind over tide meant constant pounding
and little progress through the water. I thought ‘PHILOMELLE’ and ‘IMOTHES’ were
probably handling the waves better than ‘GLAYVA’ as she is somewhat lighter and
beamier. Particularly with wind over tide ‘GLAYVA’ was being tossed around like
a cork, I had many bruises to prove it – all but one, a bad crack on the shin,
have subsequently disappeared. Discussions later with Richard and Jon and the
fact that in distance if not always direction we all kept up with each other
indicated that I fared no worse than the other two.
3 days and 2 nights from Paglesham to West Terschelling. The fact that we all
ended up at West Terschelling was interesting. My understanding had been that we
were to RV at Helgoland. We had maintained contact quite well until dusk on the
second day. I had heard a discussion between Richard and Jon [my microphone was
only working intermittently – so it was next to useless me trying to transmit],
indicating an intermediate waypoint of Buoy TX3, which marked part of the
Dutch/German TSS being off the island of Texel. I had just found a point of sail
where ‘GLAYVA’ was in a groove heading East on port tack. The other boats
tacked North on starboard tack. I decided to stay in my groove and meet up at
TX3.
Being single handed the second night meant I was going beyond 36 hours without
sleep and I had begun to experience major problems with hallucinations. To me
hallucinations are one of the things that are endemic to night sailing and help
to make it interesting. A wave crest turns into a rowing boat and you dismiss it
as a waste product of the mind. The problem I was having the second night was my
body was reacting to the hallucinations before my mind could control it.
Rounding up and slamming the engine into reverse [motorsailing] when Henley
Regatta appeared in front of me. Attempting to drag a spinnaker winch on board
when it turned into a little girl clinging onto the side of my boat. The fact
that I could hear people constantly muttering on the boat and searching high and
low for a radio secreted by a previous owner. Or a set of balloons floating in
the water at dusk, from which I could see a man’s body hanging.
At approximately 0100, I decided that I would have to sleep, something to this
time, as a control freak, had been impossible for me. I came around onto
starboard tack, from which I believe I have right of way over everything when
hard on the wind in deep water. I got a couple of cushions out of the cabin and
lay on the leeward cockpit seat which fortunately is over six feet long and not
interrupted by the autohelm. This was out of the wind and spray protected by the
sprayhood. The next four hours passed very quickly, even though [I think] I was
up every few minutes checking for other vessels. Woke up at one stage with the
lights of an oil platform in my eyes. When I had seen it last I should have
passed well clear of it, but the tide was very strong. (I further refined my
sleeping on my return crossing from Den Helder to Paglesham.
It was blowing Easterly [good this time] F2-3 [too light]. I ran my engine and
motorsailed so I could have my radar going. The display is located on the
starboard side near the companionway. I could lie in the port saloon bunk with
my head towards the companionway and sleep with one eye watching the display. If
anything came within 2 miles I’d get up and have a look.)
Anyway when I got to TX3 the next morning there was no other boats anywhere in
sight. I decided at this point that I had to stop somewhere for a decent sleep.
The easiest Yacht Harbour at that stage to get in and out of, although not the
closest was Vlieland. I arrived at Vlieland Yacht Harbour at 1830 that night
only to be told that it had been closed since 1600 as it was full. West
Terschelling was only about 4 miles across the water so the Harbour Master rang
them and found they had room if I was in by 2100 hours.
I battled across the sandbars with wind over tide again. My hallucinations were
such now that I even saw PHILOMELLE 2 miles in front of me. When I got to West
Terschelling it appeared that once again there was no room at the inn. The boats
were rafted up to ten deep. I approached another boat that was on the outside a
raft. I asked how we went about finding a likely spot. He instead told me that
there was another British boat on a raft just around the corner. I went round to
look. It was PHILOMELLE and Richard said IMOTHES was only an hour or so away.
GLAYVA leaving Paglesham at the start of the cruise.
So I found a raft of only seven or so friendly Dutch boats and joined them as
the eighth and spent a very enjoyable night asleep and in the knowledge that I
had by pure chance met up with the other two boats. Of course at 0700 hours I
was rudely awakened by a boat coming alongside while the raft in front of us
broke up to let one of the inner boats out.
Let’s get back to why we go sailing, the moments of splendour:
1. Warnemunde the port for Rostock, such a pretty place, pity the food was so
ordinary.
2. Darer Ort a yacht haven in the middle of a bird sanctuary run by the
Worldwide Fund for Nature [WWF]. I would really have liked to spend a day here
and explored a bit. I did get in early evening, but being short of vegetables I
decided to trek to the nearest shop in the middle of a caravan park that had an
optional dress code, unfortunately it seemed only men and older women with more
robust figures took their clothes off. Worst of all by the time I got to the
shop it was closed.
3. The Eastern German lakes particularly at sunset and sunrise were quite
magical. The unlit buoys were a bit of a hazard at night, but I learnt to trust
the lead lights even when you thought you were going to hit the shore. For once
I didn’t.
4. While motor sailing from Helgoland to Den Helder in a F2 Easterly, tuning my
exhaust and the angle of heel so that the mutterings turned into a vocal
rendition of ‘Roll out the Barrel’ accompanied by French Horn and Double Bass.
Even better I was able to change the vocal from male to female, depending on
whether I sat on the port or starboard side. [Further to this was one of the
great moments of boredom - I couldn’t turn it off and still keep up my distance
covered. You can imagine after 98 renditions! I was so pleased when the wind
picked up and I could turn the engine off].
5. The highlight of my whole trip was the Giselau Canal and Eider River. At any
moment I expected to see Toad and Ratty from ‘Wind in the Willows’. A calming
place that by itself made the North Sea crossing all worth it. While longer than
the Elbe River / Kiel Canal, it only took me 2 easy days motoring and sailing
from Rendsburg to Helgoland, including being stuck on the bar just short of the
last lock at low tide for an hour or so with three Dutch boats.
Glayva sets anchor off the island of Rugen (East Germany)
Moments of terror! None that I can think of. However deep concern entering Den
Helder from the Northeast at night. I had been in and out of Den Helder Naval
Yacht Club last year in daylight. But entering from a different direction on
what was a pitch-black night was somewhat disorientating.
Den Helder has a lovely lighthouse in daylight. But when entering from the
Northeast it is in your eyes all the time and completely destroys your night
vision. But the real problem was that while the inner harbour is clearly marked
with constant red and green lights, I kept imagining I could see the harbour
wall in front of me and tried to veer off to avoid it. When I got into the yacht
harbour, I found it was chock a block and being well after midnight I sneaked
around looking for a berth. Couldn’t see anything, but someone emerged from a
boat and asked me if I would tie up against any boat and let him sleep. I said I
was concerned I would block the channel between the berths. He said someone
would wake me and ask me to move if I was in the way. So I did.
I’ll say one thing for the Dutch no one ever disturbs you before 0700, but sure
enough the boat I had tied up to knocked very politely at 0700 and asked me if I
would let him leave. I apologised for disturbing him in the night. He hadn’t
heard a thing and was very surprised to see me tied up alongside him when he
arose.
You may have heard that I was thrown out of Poland. Not quite true. As an
Australian passport holder I required a visa to enter Poland. However I was
interested in testing the story that a boat’s papers were more important than
the skipper’s and in fact the only papers a skipper needs are the boat’s. I
explained to the Border Guards, who couldn’t speak a word of English, nor could
I speak a word of Polish for that matter, but it is amazing what you can do with
tone of voice and face and body language., that I required fuel and water and
was requesting temporary entrance to Poland as a registered British Ship [only
SSR part III, but every other country seems to have a lot of respect for that].
Basically the Captain who took over from the Corporal, when they looked
Australia up in the book and decided that it was not Austria and therefore not a
member of the European Union indicated that would be OK, and delegated the
corporal to tell me to wait on my boat for a whistle while he spoke to his
‘Chef’. Well I was really pleased that they were going to lay on a welcoming
banquet for me as a visiting Australian yachtsman, or was I a visiting British
yachtsman?
Any way just before the kettle boiled so I could make myself a cup of tea, the
corporal whistled me up. The captain had disappeared at this stage and I never
saw him again. Basically the corporal told me that the captain’s ‘Chef’ had
refused me permission to enter and I had to leave immediately. I said fine I
didn’t mind as I was due to turn back as I had to be back for 7th August when my
Daughter’s baby was due, and I would just whip up to Bornholm, a Danish island
25 miles north [We were right at the entrance to the Baltic Sea from the
Swinajouscie ship canal].
He said I couldn’t do that, but I had to return back down the ship’s canal and
out through the East German lakes the way we had come. I asked: ‘do I still get
my welcoming banquet?’ Fortunately he didn’t understand this, as it may have
just been too frivolous for him. As I headed back down the ship canal, not
touching land as instructed, I saw Richard waving me into a Yacht haven, so with
the engine in idle and still not touching land, I explained the situation to
him.
I had already sent a text message to Jon, as I was not expecting to see either
of them again. So technically I was not thrown out of Poland, legally I was not
allowed to land.
I have discussed this situation on a sailing newsgroup on the internet and a few
Poles who inhabit the newsgroup have explained that a Polish yachtsman was
thrown out of Sydney for staying too long [about six months] some months
previously. So in retrospect it was just a little bit of tit for tat. I must
admit when I got to the actual Polish border with Germany [a line of buoys in a
lake] some 4 hours later, the border guard in his RIB bade me farewell and
offered a brief apology as he came up to check on me. It’s a pity with his
perfect English he wasn’t on duty at the check in station.