On the first of September, we set off to represent the WYC in some very foreign waters. Alex Schlaefer, a former WYC member, and I met a Swiss boat owner and another friend for an interesting trip. The four of us crammed into a small auto in Fürstenberg / Havel (an hours drive north of Berlin, Germany) and drove the 1.5 hour ride out to the coast town of Stralsund. We were greeted by the Liza , a 9 meter steel boat, mostly self built.

We were also greeted by tons of Leergut, that is, empty glass bottles that need to be cashed in at the local supermarket. After cleaning up, and getting under way, I got my first taste of German sailing. That is lots of boat traffic and super complicated buoy systems (hint: red-right returning no longer applies). The main rail bridge was set with a red/green signal light, telling when boats can go under the bridge.

The next day, we headed into Darßerort, an Emergency Harbor, that was reserved only for "emergency use." We interpreted that meaning lightly, as the rest of the 25 yachts there seemed to do. The place was amazing for the sheer nothingness of what was there. An empty concrete basin filled with water, and used by the former East German Navy for patrol boats. These days it was filled with a bunch of boats tied up eating dinner.

The next day, we headed off for the crossing to Gedser in Denmark, and a beautiful sail in 25 - 30 knot winds. Things were made choppy by no mountains and shallow 5 - 20 meter water depths the whole way. The winds made things a little difficult for docking in these slips, as witnessed by the german boat in the picture. They were blown into the pole and were trying to wrench themselves off it. Note, this was typical of the entire sailing revere. Since the tidal difference was never more than a foot, people didn't bother with building nice docks. You had to board from the bow, and tie the stern to poles on either side.

It was in Gedser that we supplied our stocks of food (hint: Danish potato chips are good), and unloaded our Danish Leergut (Danish empty bottles are different!) but forgot to cash the coupon for them. But except for a few differences, things seemed pretty close to Germany. For instance, the locals seemed to speak a strange mixture of German and English which they called Danish. And then the highly rated showers took a strange type of token with holes in it, that they called Kroners. The local dock master gave us a speech about power cables shorting out his grid, and told us his plans to head south to Greece, and we were done for the day.

The next day of sailing, found us back in Germany on the Island of Fehnmarn. A nice quite little vacation island with tons of windmills.

The next morning, we woke up early for the final run home. We motored out of the harbor and were greeted by a double set of bad news. One, the wind was blowing against us, and two the area ahead of us was closed off for a German Armed Forces Exercise. With warning red lights on land, and 10 German Naval ships running about, we weren't about to cross into the area, so we spent the greater part of our day skirting along a 30 nm buoyed area cursing the German navy, while we beat into the wind. By nightfall, we started the motor as the wind fell, and motored into the major harbor of Kiel which is one of the busiest sea ways in Europe. A ship or tug would pass thorough the canal heading to/from the North sea about every 10 - 20 minutes. We finally pulled up along side the canal, and watched as the ships entered the canal all night. Unfortunately, we couldn't go on, since the canal is closed to private vessels during sundown.

Instead we bedded down for the night, while the large group of Finnish speaking boats near by partied on. The next morning, we parted company, although the UW burgee remained behind. The WYC flag is now flying somewhere in Hamburg...