In April, we landed in Germany to start our adventure and pick up our boat. Upon landing, we received notice that the boat wouldn’t be ready for a few more days. We used the time to start shopping to make the boat our home and also to see a bit of Berlin.
We may have been a little excessive with the shopping — the food and supplies we bought to provision the boat weighed down our VW rental van so much the back was almost touching the ground as we drove. If we ever get stranded anywhere, we know we have enough canned food and random sauces to last us for years 🙂
On D day we had snow as we went to pick up the boat! We made great use of the wet weather gear we invested in, to say the least. Then, after a bit of confusion over the type of life raft the dealer ordered for us, we were off for the UK!
For the trip over, we recruited Alan, an experienced sea man from the UK. We had a great few days debating the Brexit as we sailed and enjoyed lots of hot tea, soup, and coffee to combat the cold.
The first leg of the trip took us through several shipping channels to get to the Kiel canal. We familiarised ourselves with the boat’s navigation equipment, which includes a wifi network that let’s anyone view the navigation screens via phone or tablet.
We then had a nice motor through the Kiel canal, and enjoyed seeing cargo ships from as far as Eastern Europe.
At the end of the canal, we stopped at a marina to stay the night, wait out some bad weather, and find fuel. The marina wasn’t equipped with pumps as we were used to, so we had to get our gas from a truck and siphon it into the boat with Gerry cans. Not quite what we were expecting to encounter so far from the South Pacific Islands, but good to be prepared for anything!
In the marina, we met an outgoing Dutch couple who came over for a drink and regaled us with tales of sailing local waters, as well as visiting Galápagos.
It turned out our pit stop was actually the holiday island of Borkum off the coast of Germany. We took a bus into town. The weather was cold and windy, but people were still sun bathing on the beach. The other side of bay also featured heaps of seals, another thing the island is known for other than the beaches.
From Borkum, we had a nice 4-day sail across the North Sea to the UK. The calm after the storm we waited out made the North Sea uncharacteristically calm, so all we had to deal with was the cold.
As we neared Southampton, the U.K. Customs approached us in a large vessel labeled “Border Force”. It’s a setup prime for a reality TV show similar to Australia’s customs show filmed at the airport. After we passed on our details, the drama ended, as they didn’t have any interest in boarding our ship.
We also saw our first Dolphins of the trip as the sun rose on our last day approaching Southampton. The small pod of Dolphins swam and jumped enthusiastically in the bow wake of our boat while the first rays of the sun peeked out a pink sky. It was the first magic moment of the trip.