Sea Fever

Once upon a time I went to Denmark. I used to live kinda nearby, about twenty minutes from the last port-of-call for the Scandanavian ferries travelling to Germany from Sweden and Denmark. To get to Denmark from where I was living without taking a boat, you'd have had to drive all the way up the Jutland peninsula and cross several bridges before reaching Copenhagen. Taking the ferry is much quicker, just load on your car and sit upstairs in the lounge and enjoy. Going to Sweden takes two ferries, and a stop-over in Helsingor/Helsingborg, which is Hamlet's castle. It seemed like our local grocery store was filled to the brim every weekend with the car-ferry tourists loading up on sweets and alcohol, both of which are extensively taxed up north. It was frustrating to want to buy some yoghurts and a loaf of bread and have to wait behind someone with two entire shopping carts full of vodka and wine.

The family I was staying with was friends with one of the ferry captains, so on one trip we got a tour of the cockpit and control room, got to see the radar and GPS displays, the weather monitors, everything. The crewmen are usually trilingual (German, English, and Danish or Swedish) and work long shifts three or four days a week before having a similar stretch off. It's fascinating to be up on the deck and see the water stretching out in all directions, seeing the other boats moving about as tiny dots on the Baltic, dwarfed by our immensity.

We vacationed in Sweden quite a bit and therefore always took the ferry. But if we were going to Denmark, we took a boat. A ship, a sailing ship. A 13-meter yacht, to be more specific. On this particular trip my dad was over visiting from the US, and we planned to head for Copenhagen but poor weather left us stranded in a couple of ports a couple of times. It was a steel-hulled boat but narrow, wouldn't make much over 7 knots even in force 7 or so winds, with gusts up to 9. The only day I was ever seasick was the 9-hour stint from Gedser to Rodby, nine hours in a quartering sea. We had to be strapped into the cockpit with lifelines, and clipped to the railing every time we went up on the foredeck.




Sailing on the Baltic is not like the mediterranean or the carribbean. It can be quite cold, and you wear foul-weather gear most days under most conditions, as the wind and weather really aren't all that warm. If you look at Dutch paintings from the 16th and 17th century onwards, the landscape and fishing scenes, you will see a faint golden glow to the sky. That became the fashion after some pioneering painter went to Italy, but doesn't represent the North sea or the Baltic particularly well, which are grey and eisen, and unforgiving.

"Sea-Fever"

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

By John Masefield (1878-1967)

I remember this trip as a series of almost discreet memories: sailing by white chalk cliffs and trying to repair the motor, sitting and playing guitar on the piers in the evening, playing with the dinghy in the harbor and walking for an hour and a half in search of a store. Not having a hot shower for three weeks because I could never figure out how to work the faucets, didn't have the correct change, or was simply too late.

We spent four days alone in Copenhagen, my father and I. Though he and I get on and got on really well, and spent plenty of quality time together, this was perhaps the most intensive time we had spent together in a long time, and it was wonderful. We stayed on the ship, docket at Langlinie by the Little Mermaid, and had four days to cruise town, visit the sights, hang out in the dingy but touristy little pubs in Nyhaven, spend an evening talking over a bottle of Romanian wine.

Evenings faded into night, rocked to sleep by the wind and the waves, uneasy of the coming storm but peaceful.