YELLOWDREAM goes out to the open sea

04-07-2010



Today YELLOWDREAM wil sail to the small German island of Helgoland (which are in fact two islands).


Norderney skyline


Norderney sins


Who's afraid of....1100 feet of steel?

Helgoland is as the Germans say, the only "high sea island" in Germany and consists of a rocky island towering up to 65 meters out of the sea an consisting of remarkable red sandstone and marked by a stricking sandstone pillar called "Lange Anna" .


Approaching helgoland with "Lange Anna at the left.

The island almost totally lives from day tourism . Thousands of tourists come every day with ferries and are disembarked with small so-called Börteboats from the anchored ferries. This is in fact an old legal right from the islanders which is why the ferries normaly are not allowed to moor on to the quays. Only one fast cat ferry may moor because it cannot be safely anchored and disembarked.


One of the ships being disembarked


Börteboat running for a good job.


Boarding may be a tricky job in a choppy sea!


Normally only the fast cat ferry is allowed to moor on the quay.



The tourists stay on the island for a few hours and buy taxfree goods ( mainly alcohol, perfume and cigarettes which are very cheap because Helgoland is totally taxfree) and then go back to the mainland again.They are travelling up to five hours to spend 2 or three at the island! After about 3 o'clock in the afternoon everybody leaves again and the island is back to its own inhabitants and the maximum of a few hundred hotel guests .
Surely an interesting phenomenon !

The tour itself was a bit boring because again the wind was almost absent. So the vetus had to do its duty again.
When we arrived the harbour appeared quite empty .



We are used otherwise! Normally the boats are rafted up to 15 deep , up to the yellow buoys! But its early in the season and most Germans don't have their holidays yet.
We use this occasion to spend a harbour day.


Dutch square rigger at helgoland.



This huge Sar resque vesssel takes care of the German bight and adjacent North sea .So you have nothing to fear!


To be continued!