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| Peter with a breakfast burrito for brunch |
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| Mantra sailing at 7.5 knots on the North Sea |
Around 2 p.m., the wind dropped to 10-14 knots, but we were still able to sail, just a bit more slowly, for two and half hours. We turned the engine on when the wind dropped to 6 knots around 4:30, but it picked up to 13 knots an hour later, and we sailed until we reached our destination, Helgoland, Germany, the largest island among a small archipelago where only two are above water all the time. It lies 46 kilometers off the coast of mainland Germany. We docked at 5:40 p.m. at Südhafen with the sun beaming down. In distinct opposition to the docking in Borkum, showing his mastery, Peter pulled the boat up to the dock with impeccable precision so that I could just hand the lines to other boaters who were walking on the dock and stopped to help.
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| Approaching Helgoland |
With many hours of daylight left to explore the one-square kilometer island of Helgoland, we set off to see the red sedimentary rock cliffs from the paths along the cliff edges and the sea birds that nest and shelter there. The island is a geological oddity, composed primarily of 250 million year old red Buntsandstein (Triassic sandstone) that formed in a dry, desert-like basin that experienced periodic shallow flooding. This durable rock core was pushed up from subterranean salt domes by tectonic movements about 50 million years ago and has withstood the harshness of the North Sea since then. A smaller, flatter island called Düne lies just to the east. Unlike Helgoland, it is composed entirely of young Quaternary sands, gravel and moving coastal dunes. Helgoland and Dune were connected by a natural land bridge until it was permanently submerged by a severe storm surge on New Year's Eve 1720.
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| Mantra on the dock with Düne in the background |
When we left the harbor and walked into town, we were surprised to see that the architectural style and colors resemble those we saw in Greenland last year. From reading, we already knew that everything on the island was destroyed by British bombing after WWII. The West German government built houses and other buildings on the island in the early 1950s before allowing the evacuated citizens to return in 1952. There was an architectural competition and the current structures are modeled on Bauhaus and Scandinavian styles.
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| Typical architecture in Helgoland |
The island, which is now part of Germany, has been owned and governed by several sovereign nations and has been occupied since prehistoric times. Flint tools and copper plates have been found underwater near the island, which much larger centuries ago, and archaeologists have found evidence of processing of copper ore, which can be found on the island, from the 12th to 14th centuries. The basis of the economy from this period onward was fishing, hunting birds and seals and wrecking. Until 1714, ownership of Helgoland switched several times until in August of that year, it was conquered by Denmark-Norway.
In 1807, the British took control of the island, and Denmark ceded the island to King George III of Great Britain by the Treaty of Kiel in 1814, after the abdication of Napoleon as the French Emperor. The British retained the island but did not use it as a military base after the Napoleonic Wars.
In 1826, while still under British control, Helgoland became a seaside spa and attracted the European upper class as well as artists and writers. The island became German in 1890 as a result of the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty. For the Germans, ownership gave them control of the water near the western of the Kiel Canal, which was under construction along with other military installations.
Under the German Empire, Helgoland became a major naval base, and the civilian population was evacuated to the mainland. Fortifications were built along the cliffs as well as other defenses. The first naval battle of WWI was fought nearby. After 1918, the islanders return, but their home became a naval base again when the Nazis rose to power.
During WWII, the Germans built a submarine bunker, coastal artillery, an air raid shelter, extensive bunker tunnels, and an airfield. During the early part of the war, the island was seldom bombed, but on April 18 and 19, 1945, 1,000 Allied aircraft dropped about 7,000 bombs. The populace hid in the air raid shelters, and the German military suffered heavy casualties. The attack rendered the island unsafe, and it was totally evacuated.
From 1945 to 1952, the uninhabited islands of Helgoland and Düne became part of the British Occupation Zone. On April 18, 1947, the Royal Navy simultaneously detonated 6,700 metric tons of explosives under Operation Big Ban, completely destroying the island's principal military installations, including the submarine pens. The annihilation of these pens resulted in the creation of the Mittleland crater. The British continued to use the island as a bombing range.
A movement to return Helgoland to Germany was initiated in December 1950 and on March 1, 1952, the former inhabitants were allowed to return. The West German government cleared a significant quantity of unexploded ordnance and rebuilt the houses which exist today before their arrival.
For Germans and other EU citizens, Helgoland continues its 200-year history as a holiday resort, although the tourist economy is spurred less by the beauty and birds of the island and more by its status as a duty-free zone. Ferries run back and forth from the mainland from five cities on the coast.
It is easy to tell that we have had plenty of leisure time in the last two days by the amount of history and geology I have learned. It has required research online, because all the signage around the island about history and nature is in German only. In addition to the man-made Mittleland, the island has two distinct parts, the lower land and the upper land or plateau. It is on the lower land, at or near sea level, that most of the accommodations, restaurants, shops and amenities for tourists can be found. There are a few routes to the upper land, by stairways or climbing paths. None are arduous as the highest point on the island is 61.3 meters (201 feet). Outside the inhabited area, the upper land becomes green, open land with wildflowers blossoming among the grasses. There are no trees. A brick-paved trail runs by the edge of the cliffs. As one approaches the southwestern end of the island, first the sound and then the sight of thousands of birds on the cliffs tell of the abundance of undisturbed wildlife.
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| South side of Helgoland |
Before going to the cliffs, we stopped in town for dinner and were surprised to find that reservations seemed to be required. The second place we went in, however, was able to accommodate us. Peter had pizza and I ate lasagna, pleased to have a selection of vegetarian options. We had a little conversation with a family of adults at the next table, whose great-grandfather had been born on the island when it as British.
We had our binoculars and I was carrying my new Canon DSLR camera, which allows me to take much better photos of things that are not close than I can with my iPhone. It was approaching sunset, and the birds were settling in for the night. The guillemots were sheltering about halfway down the cliffs while the northern gannets were practically on top of each other on the tops of the cliffs, where some of them were nesting. It was amazing that they were close enough to touch and obviously accustomed to people and totally unaffected by human presence. It was stupendous to be close enough to see every detail of the plumage, all the color gradations, and the bill structure of the gannets as they sat sedately on the ground or pruned themselves. Some of the sea birds were still out getting food from the water, and their graceful, gliding flights were a thrill to watch.
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| Northern gannets |
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| British fortifications and 47-meter high Lange Anna tower |
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| Northern gannet on its nest |
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| Northern gannets nesting |
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| Cliffs of Helgoland |
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| Guillemots and northern gannets |
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| Gannet with a fluffy chick under its breast |
As we came to the tip of the island, we came upon a flock of wooly sheep who were also oblivious to all the humans on the paths and overlooks. Some people were even petting them. The sun was lowering on the horizon, creating glorious shades of orange in the western sky.
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| Grazing sheep |
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| People waiting for the sunset |
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| Sunset over the North Sea |
We returned to town along the northern side of the island, passed back through town, and returned to Mantra to go to bed after a long and delightful day.
The next morning (Saturday, June 6), it was still sunny and windy--a perfect day for doing laundry in our washing machine and hanging it out on the lifelines to dry. It had been a while since clothes and linens were washed. In our small machine, I did three loads and hung them out to dry along the starboard and port sides. In the early afternoon, Peter and I walked into town to buy groceries but found that the store we intended to shop at was already closed for the day. We decided to wait until the next day and found a place along the promenade for ice cream. As we were enjoying it while seated on a bench overlooking the harbor, I noticed dark clouds quickly piling up in the western sky. Rain, we could tell as seasoned sailors, was imminent. Peter had finished his cone and dashed off before me. I followed a minute or two later, but the rain was already pelting down before I had gone a dozen yards, and I was soaked when I arrived at Mantra in time to help Peter retrieve the laundry, which had been nearly dry when we left the boat. Peter strung up the clothesline in our cabin using the loops for lee sheets, and I hung everything in there. By bedtime, it had dried very little, so we slept in the aft cabin last night.
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| Our cabin as a drying room |
The weather, which is unpredictable unless you are constantly consulting a weather app, changed a short time later, and the sun re-appeared. June 6 marked the 200 year anniversary of Helgoland becoming a vacation resort, which called for a special festival, which brought a lot of tourists who came not just to shop. We did not see it, but swimmers were attempting a swim around the islands. There were events for children and a parade as well as small boat races in the harbor. The large search and rescue boat, the Hermann Marwede, which is moored near us, was open for tours. The 46 meter long ship is the largest search and rescue cruiser in the world. We walked on the decks, through the bridge, into the engine rooms and the recreation room and found a crew member in the hospital quarters who spoke English and was able to provide us with lots of information about the boat and its activities. He told us that the crew is on board continuously for 40 days and then has 2 weeks off before the next shift.
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| SAR ship |
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| Peter on the deck of the SAR vessel |
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| Fire hoses and other gear in the aft of the ship |
We had reservations for dinner at 7 p.m. at a restaurant serving mostly vegetarian food (yea!) and planned to attend a concert afterwards. Peter used AI to translate the menu (as he had done the night before) and chose rib-eye steak with large helpings of potatoes and beans while I had an enormous portobello mushroom sandwich with an enormous amount of fries. The waiter was very friendly and the restaurant had a nice atmosphere, so we had a pleasant time. The portions were too large, but the waiter hesitated and then said "not really" when I asked if they had a box or a doggie bag.
Afterwards, we went to find the concert, which was just a block away on a pop-up stage. Their was a huge and boisterous crowd, despite rain that started and stopped before we left the restaurant. Performing was the Hamburger Goldkehlchen (gold-throated warbler), a famously unconventional, 70 to 100-man amateur male choir. The group came together in 2016. The choir, instead of focusing on technical perfection, emphasizes community, unbridled joy and charity work. Their motto: "70 men, nobody can sing--you'll love it." And even though some of the lead vocals were cringe-worthy, we did! The choir was highly engaged with the audience, who sang along on most of the songs.
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| Hamburger Goldkehlchen |
Peter and I went in search of provisions. The merchant who specializes in ship provisions does not offer any fresh food, so we bought duty-free chocolate and a bottle of rum to have for guests. We used Google Maps to get directions to another grocery store in the upper land, but it also mainly had the same duty-free goods you would find in an international airport, so I googled where to find groceries. We had a nice up and down walk past Mittleland before arriving a Edeka market in the low land, which is a regular grocery store where we were finally able to get fresh food.
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| One of the craters created by the British detonation of munitions in 1947 |
We had skipped breakfast and were hungry. Places had not yet open for lunch in the heart of town, but two small take-out shops were open along the promenade. One sold only fish and chips and the other only brats. Peter got an order of fish and chips and an extra order of fries for me (which I could not finish), and we ate at a picnic table on the waterfront. Back at the boat, I took the still-not-dry clothes out of our cabin and put them back on the lines outside, stuffed our sheets in the washing machine, unloaded the groceries and vacuumed the inside of the boat. Luckily, there has been no rain (yet) today, the sun comes and goes, and the 20 knot wind is blowing the clothes to and fro. Despite the wind, with 85% humidity and 55 degree Fahrenheit temperature, the clothes have not fully dried. I have brought most of them in when, after multiple checks, I have found them no drier than they were an hour before. Our cabin is once again festooned with clothes.
We are leaving for tomorrow morning after filling up with duty-free diesel. The wind will be continue to be from the west, not strong, but with plenty of fetch, so we will have higher waves, particularly since the wind has been brisk from the west for two days.
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