Season 2 in the Baltic, First Stop: Orth!

With almost no wind, we purred out of the slip in Ancora Marina, Neustadt in Holstein, easily. I had a few butterflies in my stomach the day before, but by the time we threw off the bowlines, I felt fine, and Gero made the helm look easy. Pretty soon we were motoring north along the German coast, with the wind right on our bow and clouds gathering. It started to rain, so we geared up. As the wind shifted a little, we thought we could sail, so we hoisted the mainsail (heavy with our new the third reef) and turned off the motor. We could maintain 4.5 kts which was just fine — at the next way point we would fall off the wind and pick up speed. I turned Star Mist into the wind and held steady while Gero winched up the mainsail. "Wow," he said. Heavy. Also, we haven’t done this since last September. Over the winter, our mast was taken down, all the rigging, all the sails. But as I turned Star Mist back on course and we tightened the canvas into a close haul, she started purring! Everything worked! A wave of relief washed over us, splashing away our fears of a cold start. When we turned west to trace the course to Orth, the breezes filled our sails. I tighted up the lines and got us to a cruising speed of 7.5 knots. You would think this would be more stressful than sailing at 4.5 knots, but it’s not. The scary part is when the boat lurches from a gust of wind. I’ve gotten the hang of this and know how to take the tension out of the mainsail by sheeting it out. Then it’s fun.  The rain kept coming, with our rainhoods and ski pants on, it just felt refreshing to be out on the water with the drops sprinkling our faces. Gero said his tummy started to feel slightly queasy, so we ate some stale Danish bread. Almost a week old, that damn bread tasted better than anything you can get back home in the States. This was sort of a pumpernickel rye with lots of seeds and barley flavors. If bread could ever provide a party in your mouth — this loaf that we bought for our wedding weekend in Denmark was it. I took Star Mist into the marina at Orth, a long harbor with slips lined up like sardines along one side. When we were first here two years ago on Hasi, the Bavaria we chartered in Heiligenhafen, I remember feeling frighted about the narrowness of this narrow parking lot. But this time, the marina looked wide to me! Scores of harbors, channels and dockings later, Orth looked reasonable, even hospitable. While most of the yachts were parked nose-in, Gero wanted to try backing in, despite our new davit and dinghy adding length and delicate equipment at our stern. My love gave me some instructions, so I was standing mid-boat ready to wrap our bowlines on the dalbs, but at the last second the dinghy got caught on the dalb hook and it was clear we weren’t going to make it into the slip with ought tearing apart the dinghy. As it was, we ripped a gash in our safety sling. "The dinghy, honey!" I yelped, "The dinghy! It's caught!" I felt completely useless as I stayed at the helm, not sure what to do except get the line secured in  front. A man on a huge old motor sailor sprung out of his boat with no pants or shoes on — he looked like he was wearing a short, purplish sweater dress and his auburn grey hair was blowing around his head like a tornado. “I wondered what on earth you were doing!” he said in precise, German-accented English. The "hero" started to lecture Gero during the docking. I thought, “Oh lord, another know-it-all!” The word for it German is "Besser-Wisser," literally, “better knower.” I hoped Gero would see the humor of it. Meanwhile, I dropped a line into the water that Gero wanted me to hold for him as I scurried around pointlessly, and the purple-dressed guy was shouting commands. Gero steered Star Mist into the slip with just a little wiggling before we had her tied in and secure. It wasn’t the smoothest docking, but it would have been better if I had a sense of where to be and the necessary order of battle, which changes depending on what actually happens during the process. Safely tied in, we trudged into the sweet marina at Orth and had a beer as the sun came out and the wind picked up. Beer tastes so delicious after a day of sailing, especially to wash away a rougher docking maneuver. As if to make us feel better, a big yacht named “Helene” with a crew of four docked in front of the bar with a huge clang as its bow hit the sidewall of the marina. Our Störtebecker suds — Gero had a "Schwarz" and I had a pils — made all the pain go away.