Wet, Dry and Wet Again

We slept pretty well, considering that the cabin was, unsurprisingly, a little damp. I had brought a new sleeping bag which opens out completely, to use as a quilt, so at least we weren’t cold. Next morning, the Skipper was in macho mood. “You should try sleeping on a pile of wet sails in a Force 7 in the middle of the Channel!” Yeah, course I should. Or maybe a cardboard box in’t middle of ‘t road?

Most importantly, the sun was shining. The sea was flat, but there was a gentle breath of wind, so maybe Stefan hadn’t got it totally right. We repaired to the restaurant terrace to do the passage plan – never mind the bedclothes, just don’t let the charts get damp.

Making Plans for Haltlos

We had hoped to get as far as Lauterbach, on Rügen island, today, but hesitated because of all this talk of windlessness.

Lauterbach was, of course, the scene of our most ridiculous, in the literal sense, attempt to berth a boat. The Skipper was confident that we now had much better mastery of manoeuvring a long-keel boat, albeit a small one. I didn’t like to contradict him – after all, I certainly couldn’t do any better - but I didn’t honestly remember having acquired any real proficiency in this area.

Our Plan B was a bit vague, but it was light until almost 9 at night, so we didn’t really envisage having to put in an extra overnight stop. In the event, the wind picked up to a steady Force 4 all afternoon, and it even had the good grace to back sufficiently to enable us to cross the bay on one tack. There was a bit of a chop once we cleared the shelter of the Strelasund channel, but only enough to make helming more interesting. This is the sort of sailing the Skipper loves. Not very strenuous.

The Greifswalderbodden is dotted with clear water marks, strategically positioned so you can navigate from any one port to another in simple stages. On a good day, you can see the next buoy from each one you pass. In a manner reminiscent of the episode with Basse Nouvelle in Brittany, the Skipper made sure to pass close enough to read the name on the buoy, just to make sure. He insists this is in no way a comment on his confidence in my navigation, or indeed helming.

Talking of which, though, we did have a bit of a hairy moment, which was entirely my fault. The Skipper asked me to look at the charts to see how close we could pass to the mainland at the end of the channel, to avoid tacking. We were well outside the dredged channel, but our planned course appeared to take us across an area of flat bottom with about 10m of water. Virtually no tides in the Baltic, of course, so it looked fine to me. I went back up, and took the helm. We were idly discussing how soon it might be a good idea to tack, when the depth sounder suddenly showed 2m and started flashing at us. The Skipper went over to peer at it and press buttons. “Never mind that,” I cried, “TACKING NOW!” Curiously, there was nobody in our way, and soon we were scooting along in deep water again. A closer inspection of the chart revealed a small shallow I had failed to spot, for the simple reason that I had been too lazy to put my specs on. I didn’t get a telling-off – it was more one of those schoolmistressy “I’ll leave you to reflect upon the error of your ways” jobs. In my defence, at least I got us out of the fine mess I’d got us into.

We arrived at Lauterbach late in the afternoon, still in warm sunshine. There was plenty of space in the marina, but we hoped to find a smaller box to avoid a repeat of last year’s performance. On our way to investigate the land side of the last pontoon, we spotted an unoccupied hammer head with a green “vacant” sign. This seemed the easiest option, so we tied up there, wondering nevertheless if we were going to be told to move to leave space for a bigger boat. The spot was rather exposed towards the marina entrance, and the only things to tie up to were the pontoon piles, but we got it sorted with a lot of rope and carefully-placed fenders.

The best thing about Lauterbach, we remembered , was the restaurant attached to the chandler’s, which I think belongs to the boat builder Vilm Yachts. (Vilm is a smaller island off Rügen.) Sure enough, we had an excellent supper there, although it was a bit uncomfortably breezy on the terrace. As we were finishing our meal, the wind died completely, and an eerie calm descended. We strolled back to the marina, taking the shortcut through the little railway station. I was distracted by the sight of a beautiful old steam locomotive chuffing away at the platform, when the Skipper pointed out a rather nasty-looking squall coming our way from out in the bay. We hurried on, and as we came down onto the pontoon the first large raindrops began to fall. We were, of course, moored right at the other end of this very long pontoon. There were plenty of people about, taking a little post-prandial constitutional, or just chatting in groups. I started to run, and couldn’t understand why nobody else seemed to see the urgency.

"That," observed Owl, "is not a Good Cloud."

Just as I got to Haltlos, the storm broke and it was like being underwater. There was lots of Donner und Blitzen, and the wind literally screamed through the rigging of the two hundred or so yachts. The Skipper donned his foulies and went on deck. The tempest seemed to bring out his sense of Drama, and he fretted and tinkered with the mooring lines. Suddenly, he let out an anguished cry. I hurtled out to help, but fortunately the problem wasn’t ours. On the next pontoon, the wind had got underneath the corner of a rolled-up jenny, the furling line had either snapped or come uncleated, and the sail was being shredded into tiny ribbons. The noise was appalling. Suddenly, it was all over, and there remained just a few innocuous little clouds racing after the squall like ducklings trying to keep up. Thankfully, we had not put our cockpit tent up before going out to eat, or else we might well have lost it. The flip side of that being, of course, that our stuff was not getting any drier!