The Middle of the Sands

Day Two

Monday dawned damp, misty and windless. We investigated the as yet untried spirit stove, as good coffee was proving hard to find. We lit it, turned it up to maximum and set the coffee pot to heat. As designated galley slave, the Mate was sceptical of this little stove’s ability ever to boil a pan of water, but all at once the thing really got going, and there followed a frantic few minutes as I tried to figure out how to shrink the leaping flames. Quicker than expected, we got our caffeine fix, and we made an improvement on the previous day: it was still morning when we left harbour.

Our departure was, inevitably, not quite as stylish as we might have wished. I was in charge of the bow lines, and all the Skipper had to do was lose the buoy and back us out gently away from the pontoon. The buoy had other ideas. It did not want to see us go, refused to pass down either side of the boat, and settled happily just next to the rudder. Terrified of damaging the prop, Skipper tried to guess which side the buoy had decided to go and gave in to its greater personal authority. Finally we were moving slowly astern towards the boats moored to the next pontoon.  Closer, and closer, and closer to them. Engine in forward? I suggested helpfully. Skipper declined to reply. After lots of uncontrolled wiggling about, watched nervously by other sailors trying to look inconspicuous as they shuffled around clutching their largest fenders, Das Drama was ready to leave and we proceeded smoothly out of the marina. Boats are like horses: you have to let them know who’s boss.

As we motored down the little channel in oily calm, the mist closed in progressively, and we passed a number of boats showing lights. Our bow and stern lights had to be slotted in to a fitting on the deck and plugged in to a little socket, so we decided to do this straight away, in case the visibility were to deteriorate. As I tinkered about on the foredeck (unsuccessfully, as it turned out - it seems there was a loose connection), my ears were assaulted by a very worrying sound: silence. Engine stopped. Fortunately, there was not much traffic around, just a couple of motoring yachts, but the lack of company just added to the spookiness. We weren’t going anywhere, as the sea was as glassy as it gets, but we were uncomfortably aware that outside the channel there was little more than a metre of water. We checked the fuel tank of the outboard and there seemed to be plenty left, so why had the engine stopped? I suppose we are too accustomed to dealing with recalcitrant computers: if something goes wrong, start it again, and if it works OK then carry on and don’t worry about it. We perhaps should have given it a little more thought, but in the event we managed to restart the outboard after a couple of tries, and carried on merrily.

As we approached Stralsund – this time having actually done the pilotage before setting off – the motor died again. This time, of course, we had indeed emptied the petrol tank. OK, no problem. Hanging over the stern I filled up the tank from the jerrycan, and re-started the engine. Trouble was, as soon as we put it into gear it stopped, every time. Reluctantly facing the possibility that the bolshie buoy at Barhöft might have hit the propeller, we hoiked the outboard out of the water and had a look. It seemed fine, although wound up in huge quantities of weed. It is true that anything technical is the Mate’s job, and I was supposed to have read various thrilling tomes about boat maintenance, but sadly I was at a loss. I pulled the weed off, at least.

Skipper, meanwhile, was undaunted. We were close to Das Drama’s home port of Altefähr, a fairly simple harbour with which we were familiar. A gently breeze had risen in the meantime, so we raised the sails, and managed to sail at about 2kn. “We’ll sail in to Altefähr”, he declared, barely able to hide his glee at having a good excuse to enter a harbour under sail. There was some debate, between the Skipper and himself, about whether we needed jib or mainsail, and I was kept warm raising and lowering canvas for a while. Just as we got our act together and headed for the harbour entrance, a load of teenagers in kayaks emerged and proceeded to circle about in preparation for a race. Great. Whilst figuring out which German phrase we might usefully yell to their safety boat if things got hairy, we sailed on, and you will be disappointed to hear that we spotted a free berth and tied up to it, with the help of another Folkboat sailor on the quayside, and with remarkably little Drama. Skipper was a little bemused by my praise of his manoevring under sail. I’m not often that nice to him.

Skipper remained reluctant to ask for help, but was eventually persuaded to call the charterer. It turned out to be a simple matter of an oily spark plug. We felt silly, especially as when the same thing had happened to our lawnmower we had worked it out and fixed it. Anyway, the bow light socket was re-wired, and we had our evening in Stralsund – well worth a visit – by resorting to four wheels.