South to Cuxhaven

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Position: 53°52’29.0″N 8°42’22.5″E

Back to adventuring! If you’re going to deny reality (and who doesn’t want to deny reality at the moment?), then sailing is a perfectly plausible excuse for doing so. Our heads are too full of boaty things to consider the news cycle. Which, even if we wanted to, would not be nearly as interesting as figuring out just what the heck is going on with our propellor. Tip O’Neill, the late congressman from Massachusetts, famously said that “all politics is local”. So are engine issues. Local, I mean. Even when they’re not engine issues, but propulsion issues. Let’s back up just a couple of weeks and return to our ‘spawn point’ (a term I recently learned from the New York Times crossword).

With our new damper plate installed and the propellor cleaned, it was finally time to leave the Kiel canal and head south towards Cuxhaven and the North Sea. Roland had suggested several times that we do a trial run and make sure everything was working. Having given Aleta a full 2,500RPM at dockside for a good half hour, I figured we’d tested her sufficiently to leave the dock. If we broke down in the canal, well shoot! That would be just bad luck.

Buttery

The alarm rattled us awake at 05:30 and we slipped our mooring an hour later. Many sailors rise early. Some even at four bells. The earlier the better, they say. Not me. Not if I can avoid it. I prefer Royal Naval rules that say officers don’t appear on deck before eight bells of the morning watch (08:00 to you lubbers). Yet, time and tides wait for no one, and our plan was to reach Cuxhaven at slack water which meant starting early. This far north, the crepuscular dawn began at 04:00, accompanied by more cuckoos than Carol could stand. (For reference, more than zero cuckoos is too many for Carol.) Motoring out to the main channel under grey morning skies, Aleta was a smooth as a vegetable samosa gliding across a vat of ghee.

The next few hours were relaxed and uneventful. Ferries crossed our path a couple of times, and we made enough speed to keep ahead of the cargo ships looming large behind us. Speed is limited to six knots in the canal, which levels the playing field. At Bruinsbeutel, the southern end of the canal, the weather made itself known. A stiff breeze blew up the Elbe from the North Sea and we ponced around for a few minutes trying to figure out what our next move was. Up to this point we had only entered or exited the canal in the company of other recreational sailors – whom we assumed knew what they were doing. Thus far, that strategy had worked. This early in the season we were on our own, and therefore responsible for our decisions. Decisions like when to enter the lock safely.

NOK Knock

Of course, the highly detailed instructions from the NOK (Nord-Ostsee-Kanal) website, while entirely correct, missed a crucial point. At least in the Google-translated version I read. Briefly, recreational boats may enter the outer lock when a pair of white lights is flashing. Those lights sit at the top of a very tall pole with at least four other layers of lights relevant to other ships. When it is safe to enter the lock, the top-level white lights continue to flash, but you may only enter when EVERY OTHER light goes off. In other words, you may enter when the only lights you see are the top-level flashing white lights.

Naturally, in my excitement, I followed a large Rhine barge into the lock at what I thought was a safe distance. But just as we entered, the captain kicked his prop hard astern and turned the lock into a hellish cauldron of churning water. Enough that Aleta got lifted and spanked against the mooring boards on the opposite side from the barge. Nothing serious, though, and with no damage done we leapt off and tied her lines while she idled alongside of us. It is disconcerting leaving Aleta crewless and with her motor running. From the dock it felt like she might take off at any moment and find her way in the world.

Police

The lock gates closed and the water slowly drained out. I looked up to see a couple of uniformed teenagers dressed in NOK police outfits, a man in a high-viz yellow jacket and a woman in a black bulletproof vest, approaching us. “You are American?”, asked the male officer. I said we were and asked, ‘what’s up?’, omitting a ‘dude’ at the end of the sentence. “You know it is illegal to enter the lock until the white lights are flashing?” I said I had studied the rules carefully and now understood that I had not interpreted them correctly. He explained the bit about entering when “ONLY THE WHITE LIGHTS ARE FLASHING AND WITH NO OTHER LIGHTS SHOWING”. Apologizing with my best Hannoverian-accented German, ‘Es tut mir furchtbar leid’, I said, trying hard to ingratiate myself. His colleague, young, blond and fetching, was clearly amused by the presence of a crazy old American trying to speak German.

“The fine is 35 Euros, but I have the ability to waive it if I feel the situation warrants it.” (His English was almost faultless.) Grovelling a bit more because I had finally grokked the canal’s rules of the road just at the point I would never need them again, I encouraged him to use his discretion. I also reassured him that Aleta was undamaged and not taking on water. Behind us, the barge captain cursed at the top of his lungs, urging the officers to, “Throw the book at ‘em!” In the end, they let us go with a warning and our promise never to do it again.

Wind on Current

Out in the Elbe, the wind picked up to a steady 20 knots, fine off the starboard bow. Thanks to a bend in the river, we let out a full jib and with the help of the current, made over seven knots towards Cuxhaven. Arriving at slack water meant we needed to sail at six knots, not seven, and we endeavoured to slow down. The outgoing current met the incoming wind and short, steep waves kicked up and helped slow us down. Then the river straightened out and turned us head-to-wind. Down came the jib and up went the iron gennaker (i.e., I turned on the motor), and we arrived in Cuxhaven bang on time.

Thanks to a bit of docking help, we tied off on a pontoon next to a power boat from Kiel. The dock was about six feet shorter than it should have been, but safely moored we had no interest in undoing everything and dealing with the harbour’s squirrely winds on our own. Walking a little unsteadily off the dock we headed for dry land and dinner. If you’re in Cuxhaven, we recommend the Seeterrassen Restaurant & Café for fresh fish and friendly service.

Karma

Walking through the town after supper we admired the huge berm or dijk (as the Dutch would say) designed to keep the North Sea out of the shops. Steps heading up the lee side of the dijk indicate how high flood waters have reached over the past few decades. For some incursions galoshes would suffice. For others only a full dry suit and rebreathing apparatus. Most of the architecture looks post-WWII, but built on top of the old, narrow lanes. That was probably the result of its proximity to Hamburg and opportunistic bombing by the Allies on their way back to Britain. It didn’t help that the Wehrmacht sited a V2 rocket launch site 10 kilometres south of the town.

Back at the dock, our stinkpot neighbours decided it was time to buy gas. They looked a little glassy-eyed, as if they’d had a few in the pub. I waited to see how things would unfold. Because our mooring lines covered theirs, they got grumpy. Downright shirty, in fact. But after a couple of minutes we cleared their lines and they clambered on board. Hitting the throttle, the captain forgot he was in forward gear. With a loud bang, they crashed into the dock and bounced backwards. Swearing loudly, the captain spun the wheel and threw his boat into reverse. He swerved out of the mooring box and never returned. Karma, as they say, ist eine Miststück.

Props

It was our good fortune to meet another sailing couple, Lousie and Alfons, moored a couple of boats down. Dutch to their core, they are circumnavigators with over 20 years of experience. Like us, they had sold their house and abandoned solid ground for the open ocean. Only they left about 14 years earlier than we had. Crossing the Atlantic, they sailed up the Gulf of Maine to Nova Scotia, then back down to Guatemala, the Panama Canal, San Francisco, Alaska, Fiji, New Zealand and on and on. Along the way they ran a medical clinic on Vanuatu for two years, he being a doctor and she being a nurse. These days their sailing ambitions are more modest, and they take on crew whenever they can. I asked Alfons if he had written a book about his adventures. No, he said with some finality. Perhaps an energetic sailing podcaster will collar them for an interview. I would love to learn more.

All this riveting blather tells you nothing about Aleta’s propellor and its problems. That is because to this point in our story there was nothing wrong with it. Everything below the waterline was working far better than either of us anticipated. At least until we left Cuxhaven. Stay tuned…

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