Schlei, Kiel, Brunsbüttel, Cuxhaven. Three days in which it all finally got going. The sail to Kiel was a quiet one on a broad reach. The two of us easy underway. Kathrin steers a while, then I do. And when the newly fitted windvane holds a better course, first time out, than the old one ever managed, the work of the past weeks is repaid already. In hindsight, this is the moment the journey really began for me. In Kiel we find a spot at Stickenhörn – a marina without polish, full of honest boats. A last evening together. At nine in the morning Kathrin leaves the boat and sets off for Kiel station. I cast off and make for the lock of the Kiel Canal.
The canal passage – what’s there to say. Some ten hours of monotonous motoring. At first it feels like driving through a park. Woods to left and right, a concert of birdsong. (What I remember most are the countless chiffchaffs.) Until the first container ship comes the other way. You know it, you’ve seen it in pictures, but when, in the narrow canal, those house-high ships pass within thirty metres of you, it is of course more thrilling than any picture. By the tenth, the thrill has worn off again. In the evening I reach Brunsbüttel, tie up in the little harbour on the inner side of the lock, and mean to set off the next day around eleven, through the lock and out onto the Elbe towards Cuxhaven.
In the evening I fall into conversation with Christian and Kirstin, a Danish couple with a gorgeous aluminium Koopmans (Punya). The usual where-are-you-bound turns to the question of when I want to leave, and whether I know the Elbe’s tides … it’s my first time too. He says he’ll follow me. A little later I meet Markus on TeKielA, also sailing single-handed. Last autumn he took redundancy from Cariad, the VW subsidiary, and means to head for the Mediterranean over the course of the year. The talk turns to the tide, and he too says he’ll fall in at eleven.
Next morning. Coffee, breakfast, cast off, to the lock, made fast in the lock … as the lock opens towards the Elbe, as I spend my first minutes out on the broad tideway, my mind goes straight to Southampton Water. I’ve never been here before, but it feels familiar, feels good. Ocean giants, tugs, pilots, the radio traffic in English, more international. Today is motoring again. The wind is dead against us, the tide with us. That kicks up an unpleasant sea, but with this wind it’s still well within reason.
After a few hours’ motoring we arrive at Cuxhaven, a little apart from one another. An interesting harbour. The sailors here are a different sort from the average you see in the Baltic. Everyone is in transit. Dutch, French and British heading for the Baltic; Germans, Danes, Swedes and Poles bound for the North Sea. The first harbour in a long while for me with floating pontoons – that too familiar from memories of England, France, the Channel Islands. The pontoons rise and fall with the tide, moored boats and all. Around two metres of it here.
In the evening I cook with Markus aboard. We chat about how each of us came to sailing, about sailing single-handed. And about the plans and hopes we each have for the summer.
The next day it's blowing a hooley out of the north-west, just as forecast. No good for pressing on. Christian, the Dane, asks whether I know my way around electrics, whether I might help him. He isn't sure he can carry on like this. The details are too long-winded to recount. Over a cup of coffee, some crawling about in cockpit lockers and a quick bit of metering, it turns out an electrician fitted him a shunt back to front a week ago. False alarm. Nothing serious, as it goes. Only the readout for his battery has its signs reversed: when he’s charging it shows discharging, and the other way about.
In the evening Jacqueline, Henrik and Jasper, boat neighbours from the Netherlands, invite me for an aperitif and later for dinner aboard their boat Shãlom. They are Christians. There’s a grace before the meal. As I leave they send me off with Psalm 121. A lovely, moving evening. Partway through, Christian comes over, thanks me for the help, and presses a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape into my hand.
Lost for words.
Cuxhaven, then.