In the morning everybody wrote his or her postcards and after attaching our new very expensive equipment we were on the road again.
The seas were calm and spirits high we were flying in 15 to 20kt rich, couple hours later we spotted very unusual and beautiful cloud behind it was a huge white Nike logo extending from one side of the horizon to another. My heart stopped for few seconds before I ordered everybody to put the life vests on and hook up the teters, there was no time to drop sails, and we could only take few pictures blurry from shaking hands and pray. St.John was watching the shore line on the computer, Dave drove surfing 14/15kn trying to keep us up away from the beach while I worked on the plan B.
It was real white squall with consistent 40+ with stronger gusts that lasted some 30/40 minutes; most fun we would have for the whole summer.
Sailing along Frisians Is not the most relaxing thing to do in yachting, it is hard to pick a safe line between the traffic and the beach, you have to watch the charts, radar and the sea constantly, channel 16 sounds like a United Nations High School cafeteria while novice crew take turns at the wheel for Dave’s surfing lessons, others being busy reading revelations in Chapman and cruising guides, you always need theoretical base for next chapter.
Elba is a fast flowing river, even south of the channel in 20feet of water current rips at 3/4kt and it seams like the shore with all the wind turbines and flocks of sheep keeps moving east with us. We estimated to get through Kiel Canal before the night but Elba has slowed us up by 6 or 7 hours.
The locks in Brunsbuttel open every half an hour on an hour, we narrowly missed 9PM.
You must remember we are displaying the yellow red and black we are in Reich folks!
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal also known as Nord-Ostsee-Kanal, has a serious set of rules and regulations that you can check for yourself all 76 pages at:
http://www.kiel-canal.org/pages_english/vorschriften/regulations-KIEL-CANAL.pdf
We respect rules, we read them, try to understand them, then filter them, consider the consequences of braking them and carry on, that is why so many people have moved to America, after all we are still flying our stars and stripes 60” by 36” on a 5’stock.
Pleasure boats may sail in the canal between 3.30AM and 11PM, but we were in hurry trying to make it to our prepaid hotels in Copenhagen and there were no berths in the Brunsbüttel yacht harbor so we carry on towards Holtenau
I have sailed through a number of canals at night despite day light regulations of the same fashion, and I was not concerned at all.
The night was quiet, there was no traffic and they did let us in without any fuzz, it was Gosia’s shift so I briefed the crew on the traffic lights pattern and possible hazards and took a nap.
At first it was a walk through the park, we passed some docked vessels in the harbor and there was some shouting in German but we did not make much of they, didn’t sound threatening.
A while later Gosia crossed in safe distans behind some ferry that flashed their beamers at us and yelled through the loud speakers, but they do that in Germany, standard precautionary procedures in concentration camps and everywhere, we yelled thank you and Danke schön! and kept going, the next one about 10NM east was much more persistent we have stopped in the circle of 4milion candle light spotlight and the car ferry was chasing around us in fast doughnuts with 3 different loud speakers and horns on, somebody heard machine guns and German shepherds barking, I can’t confirm that but passengers were yapping for sure.
I am not easily intimidated, but that was not a friendly behavior, after checking the charts and the cruising guide we made a by the book U-turn and wet back to look for nearest legal mooring, we found it after about 3 miles, Nautor Swan facility and a bunkering pontoon with few small sail boats, we docked and went to sleep.
Ten minutes later the search torches hit us from the side of the canal, on the shore stood police car with two cups who ordered us to move to Brunsbüttel inner harbor immediately, we complied without cry, despite our fatigue.
An hour later we started docking, it took forever even with an assistance from bundes polizei, since there wasn’t any room.
After we secured the lines I was called to dock with all documents of the ship and crew, they checked them thoroughly and took notes and than I got the full report of my crimes, 26 counts some more serious then others. The highway patrol officer told me in decent English that they have to punish me by issuing a summons of 5 EURO in cash; I accepted at 2.50AM we were good to go in 40 minutes, leaving behind fat new folder in archives of Ministerium für Staatssicherheit.
I read the rulebook very carefully afterwards; we actually broke 48 rules by motoring on the very edge of the canal at 7.6kt in the straight line with no other vessel in sight!
Even the post office clerk with his hooch is officially obligated to enforce the low in Bundes Republic!
We would have no illegal alien or any crime problem if we assign this kind of authority to our power armed red neck society.
I mentioned the flag, and I could not drop the subject since we carried it on display thought most of Europe causing emotions from unfriendly to hostile. The peace demonstration took form of public urination verbal abuse and mooning, finally kidnapping in Kiel the night before our obedient return passage through Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal. Luckily we did not get fined for sailing without national colors.