Part 7

I was very kindly treated at Aalborg, particularly by the Harbour Master, Captain Plougheld, and others I would like to name. On this account, though I now found myself trapped again by the weather, my stay in this fine port was to prove rewarding, if almost unbearably frustrating.

The night of my arrival saw the wind increase with determination and stubborn vigour from E.N.E. It brought the first snows of Winter and the temperature got firmly stuck below zero.

The short hop of seventy-six miles, past Hals at the Eastern entrance to Lim Fiord, and across the Kattegat to Sweden began to look impractical. Strong headwinds, icy conditions and a tired little outboard motor represented to me the near approach of defeat. Eventually I telephoned my good friend the Swedish Captain and explained my predicament. That same evening he was travelling to Goteborg to catch the ship to N. Denmark to join me the following day.

There was only one way to get the boat across the Kattegat. Buy a more powerful outboard motor. To my amazement and joy, he did just that! A 6 h.p. Swedish twin cylinder "Archimedes".

Monday, the 15th, the Captain and I started our busy day of preparations for the final stage of the journey at 0630. All day trudging about in the snow, back and forth, while engineers overhauled the old pre-war Seagull 1 had been using. We organised the bringing into town of a number Of motors from the surrounding countryside which might suit our purpose. We bought petrol, plugs, spanners (mine were lost at Hvide Sande) and attended to numerous now-forgotten details.

At 20:00 hours we finally got under way from the snug little yacht harbor where I had moored the boat, scraped under the low railway bridge with inches to spare above the mast, past the cheerful lights of Aalborg and into the darkness and biting cold of the empty fjord. At midnight we moored past Hals out onto the bitter Kattegat.

Wind Force 3 - 4, E.N.E. dead ahead, a short, choppy wet sea for our further discomfort. Temperature 10° C (we learned later). A multitude of brilliant stars, and frequents silent explosions of light from the brightest display of meteors I have ever seen, for our entertainment. Only sixty shuddering, shivering miles to go!

The late sunrise, shortly blotted out by thickening banks of snow clouds found us out of sight of land. Thirsty, our can of water frozen solid; hungry, we had, in our anxiety to get away, forgotten to put aboard the food we had ordered, and paid for! Wet from the wind-driven spray. Astonished, I at least, to see the fore-part of the cabin-top covered with a beautiful quarter-inch coat of the smoothest, most slippery ice I have ever seen.

On and on we crashed our way through those infuriating short seas. Unable even to tolerate spells in the shelter of the cabin. We had tried this during the night, and on emerging to face the wind and spray again found we could hardly bear the misery of our comfortless situation. In any case the bunk cushions were board stiff now, having frozen solid!

We had with us a small half-pint bottle of Carlsberg "Elephant" ale, left over from the evening of our meeting in Aalborg. We had agreed to drink this on sighting the Swedish coast. All the afternoon we competed for the pleasure of shouting " time to kill the elephant", hut the horizon was still empty when the sun closed down toward the sea astern.

The Captain now suddenly remembered something he had in the cabin. In a few minutes he came out with a vast brown sausage. He cut off two large chunks and handed me one. It proved to be a thick smoke-darkened skin packed with salt; mingled with the salt was minced raw bacon. We ate several lumps of this and quickly developed a raging thirst to add to our collection of unhappy things to think about.

It became rapidly even colder and the wind began to rise a bit. The ice started to build a little thicker and the Captain soon transmitted his growing anxiety to me by his tales of "the black death", as he called it, which murdered fishing vessels off Iceland by building ice faster than it could be cleared, until the ships became unstable with the weight and rolled over. He had seen the death of more than one ship from this cause when he had been a fisherman in that area.

I did not know he had lived in Iceland. To pass the time he told me more of his fantastic past How, once, he had spent three years alone with a tent in the mountains of that forbidding country. This explained, to the comfort of my ego, how it was that he could stand the intense cold without (much) complaint, while I ached with long continued shivering and felt almost paralysed.

The Captain saw something ahead. We thought it was a lightship and agreed, in view of our thirst, that we should call this our first sight of Sweden. We enjoyed that ale! The "light-vessel" proved to be a fishing boat and we found this very depressing. I was very unhappy at the prospect of yet another long cool night in the open.

Not long afterwards, when it had become properly dark, the Captain saw and recognised the loom of the lights of Varberg on our starboard bow. Shortly afterwards the faint loom of Kloster village, dead ahead. Our course had been a good one, even if our estimate of progress had been optimistic.

With the wind increasing, our fuel getting dangerously low, and our destination still a long way ahead to windward, we still had our worries. Then our motor stopped and could not be re-started. With grim pessimism we shipped the poor little Seagull. Our hopes were low because we had not gained great confidence in the engineer who had overhauled it the day before. We were mistaken, and I apologise sincerely to that young fellow. The motor showed all the old vigour and, though not so powerful as the other motor, it got us into Kloster Fjord with less than an egg-cupful of fuel left in the tank! We found a small harbour, partially frozen over, and moored up as well as circumstances would allow.

I stepped on to Swedish soil for the first time at 0015 hours, Wednesday 17/11/65. We then had a mere four-mile stagger through the snow to the Captain's home at the head of the fjord! We arrived there at about 0145 hours. I was astonished at the delighted welcome we received from the Captain's very charming wife. I had a hot bath, a change of clothing, a large hot meal. Then we had a few drinks of something new to me, a cross between vodka and nectar, and went to bed.

Our first sleep for forty-five hours.