Coastguard vessel circles us menacingly making sure we behave
The Teutonic efficiency that we normally expect on a visit to Germany has been lacking, silence on the VHF radio from German Bight Traffic, silence from Cuxhaven-Elbe Pilots, speculation on the e-mail about a possible berth on Saturday, well we have to wait it out at anchor. The only action is from a Coastguard launch who has asked us a lot of questions aggressively on the VHF radio in bad English “VOT VOS ZE LAST PORT OF KAWL” etc. the answers to which we have already given to them via our agent on our arrival 2 days ago, I guess some things never change in Germany. I would get the boys to do a spot of painting but its raining, Murphys laws of time management and weather, when there is plenty of time for painting it will rain, be too windy or there will be no paint left. Plenty other jobs to do but they don’t have the same visual impact as a new coat of paint.
We are at anchor near the island of Helgoland (click on the name in grey to go to Wikipedias entry), a name on the dial of the old Radiogram and famous for nudist beaches before most people knew about nudism or why one would want to get sand up your arse anyway. It has been Danish, British and German in the past 300 years,we are a few miles away anyway, probably the closest I will get to it unless I decide to take a holiday there and get naked with lots of elderly Jormans. It is not under the rule of the EU, popular as a tax free haven.
Still listening to Jeff Buckley superb sound. Also have a Rory Gallagher disc lined up in the machine “Wheels Within Wheels” from 2003 another who has unfortunately left this life , but the record still spins.
More later, Tim
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