Tims Times

Another visit from 50

The ship having finally berthed in Hamburg Tankschiffshafen or miles away from anything interesting was visited by the local plod. They had some questions (see prior posts to confirm my suspicion of the aforementioned)to ask, they had Glock pistols in holsters and had black leather gloves on, they also had uniforms in case anyone thinks they only had pistols and gloves. One was from the same mold as Jean-Claude Van Damme the other was from the same mold as Inspector Frost aka David Jason and they both had similar ages to their respective actors. They were courteous and shook hands, as is the tradition, there is plenty hand shaking in this game. Policeman2 had obviously just splashed on half a bottle of Brut aftershave prior to his leaving the police launch (see above) and when he took off his black leather glove the air was filled with the scent of aftershave which he then transferred to my hand in a good Attila the Hun style death grip handshake, maybe I exaggerate on the grip but the unwanted aftershave doft still lingers above the petrol fumes.

After all our visits from the Police, do they not have anything better to be doing? I mean we are hardly crime suspects and we get plenty of police time, what do the crims get? Away with it, probably.

After that note of Zen, I sign off for today. Auf Wiedersehen.

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