“Killing time” on Terschelling was a visit to paradise. But these fragile islands are not only beautiful. During World War II, they were taken hostage to build Hitler’s “Atlantic Wall,” an archipelago of bunkers and guns established to prevent an invasion of Germany by the Brits, and later to shoot down the bombers of the RAF and US Air Force.
A trip to the Bunker Museum gave us a haunting taste of this history. You can crawl into the subterranean silos from which Nazis targeted British and American bomber pilots, who literally formed a thin dotted line helping to prevent an Axis victory. The Nazis took over Terschelling with more than twice as many troops as there were Dutch residents. Their bunkers and gun emplacements sit above this delicate town in an eerie but must-see hideout of brick caves built into the dunes. On the nearby island of Texel, WWII fighting continued two weeks after the Nazi surrender after a Georgian prisoner-of-war uprising in 1945.
You would never guess these peaceful and delicate dots of land would be the site of so much war drama. After our walk into history Friday, the winds slowed to a whisper. With Saturday’s expected gale, the 51-foot Jeanneau yacht in front of us decamped to the more sheltered enclave of our fairway. Skippers eyed their dock lines nervously. In the SPAR market, sailors young and old lined up to buy extra stocks of bread and rum. On the dock, the couple next to us postponed their Friday sail to Harlingen (two hours away) to Tuesday. (Tuesday?!)
Force 10 is expected Saturday,” warned Buck, the friendly Dutch Jeanneau owner. On the Beaufort Scale, that would mean winds climbing all the way to a sustained 45 mph, with gusts up to 56. These violent blasts were the reason we had stayed in the marina in Terschelling for a few days — to let the storm pass. So we reinforced Star Mist with extra lines to our cleats.
After Gero went to bed, I paced the dock, examining our fenders (rubber balloons hanging off the sides to protect the hull) as a misty shower started, adding two more for a total of eight. The fenders would take the brunt of Star Mists’s 11 tons rocking against the dock at the storm’s peak. Saturday, “Gale Day,” began more like a lamb’s bleat than a lion’s roar. Then, around noon, heavy winds slammed into the marina.
Interestingly, the sturdy Dutch, with their intrinsic calm and joie de vivre, didn’t seem disturbed at all by the gale. Teenagers on bikes zipped along the dike paths. At the marina, in swerved a truck serving margaritas to salsa music! Party time.
A walk into town revealed hopping cafés and bars.
Journalist Olga Mecking wrote a book about “niksen,” the Dutch art of doing nothing, which she says explains why the Netherlands is consistently ranked one of the happiest and healthiest countries on earth. OK then, bring on the gales. We’re ready to practice more “niksen!”
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