Enough is enough

I thought I had written everything I needed to about war and dehumanisation. Shortly after the start of the Gaza war a year ago, I tried to write down my thoughts. Even longer ago I wrote about the Ukraine war, which is now in its third year. And I have not yet mentioned the forgotten wars in Sudan and eastern Congo, which may well be worse than the other two combined. But it just goes on and on.

Putin

Vladimir Putin, obsessed with the delusion of a Greater Russian Empire, stops at nothing and has hundreds of thousands of deaths on his conscience. Not only in Ukraine, but also on the Russian side, where a new mobilisation order is imminent. This ice-cold ex-spy and mafia boss learned his tricks during his KGB years, in the St. Petersburg mafia and in the partly or entirely Russian-orchestrated wars in Syria, Chechnya and Georgia (read up on Putin with Catherine Belton). His specialty is poisoning his opponents (which he learned in the KGB) and bombing schools, busy markets, residential areas and hospitals. No war crime is too horrible for him to commit. Russia with its rich culture, the country of Chekhov, Tolstoy, Borodin and Tchaikovsky, has become a rogue state thanks to him.

Although Ukraine still defends itself bravely and hopefully will turn the tide, other former Soviet republics are holding their breath. The war front is sometimes described as a meat grinder, which applies to both sides. I still hope, perhaps against my better judgment, that the Russian people will finally turn upon the warmonger in Moscow and his acolytes as soon as another mobilisation is declared and more thousands of young men are sent to the front as cannon fodder. Change only comes from within, but when comes the breaking point?

Netanyahu

Then there is Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing a criminal trial for corruption if he has to resign, and is therefore trying to prolong his existence as the figurehead of the state of Israel as long as possible, now with a new war front in Lebanon. You’d expect Israel to remember what was done to the Jews during the Holocaust and not commit genocide itself. It isn’t for nothing that an international arrest warrant is to be  issued against Netanyahu and his Minister of Defense Gallant. But they and their ultra-right-wing allies Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have conveniently forgotten the horrors of the Holocaust. That is, unless they are criticised, when they suddenly assume the victim role. 

A Palestinian farmer on the occupied West Bank, whose olive trees are cut down and whose house is torched by the colonist scum supported by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, will feel the same as a Jewish shopkeeper, whose windows were smashed and whose merchandise was destroyed in 1938. Kristallnacht seems to be repeated on the West Bank, only the descendants of the victims of 1938 have now become perpetrators themselves. I am sure some people will object to my saying this, but I will do so anyway: as a human being and as an author, I have a duty to speak out and I see no difference between one gang of criminals and another.

Under Netanyahu, Israel has become a rogue state that is constantly at odds with the international legal order and the United Nations. In Israel itself there is enough protest against this man, who only stays in the saddle by stoking the fires of war. He has the blood on his hands of tens of thousands of men, women and children, ‘collateral damage’ in the extermination of Palestinian rebels. Israel uses criteria for the number of innocents that may be slaughtered when killing one suspected terrorist. Is it 50 to 1, or 100 to 1? I forgot. When four Israeli hostages were liberated some time ago, hundreds of innocent Gazans were slaughtered. Palestinian lives matter, to coin a well-known phrase. Any self-reflection on this is lacking.

The Norwegian cartoonist Morten Morland drew this appropriate image of Netanyahu
hitting Gaza, as ayatollah Khamenei blows out the match he used to light the fire. 

Khamenei

The ‘freedom fighters’ of Hamas and Hezbollah aren’t nice people either - the horrors of the massacre of October 7, 2023 speak for themselves. The militants are supported by or even controlled from Tehran, where another hateful old man is in absolute power, a man in his eighties who has never tolerated contradiction and executes women’s rights activists. The Axis of Resistance, that is what he calls himself and everyone who opposes the state of Israel. They act out of a vengeful ideology, no less than Netanyahu.

According to Human Rights Watch, about 80% of the population in Gaza is of Palestinian origin. In Lebanon there are about half a million, and the same number are in Syria. Most (2 million) live in Jordan. Lebanon in particular is a patchwork of cultures and religions, although they usually live in separate towns and districts.

The usual tactic of Hamas and Hezbollah is to hide among the civilian population, who serve as human shields, potential ‘martyrs’ in their warped jargon. It is difficult to determine how much support there actually is for Hamas and Hezbollah among the Palestinian refugees and their descendants and whether they are happy for these fighting groups to hide in their midst. But perhaps they are given no choice. In some parts of Beirut, as we can read in the news, support for Hezbollah is high, but the line between militants and civilians is not always easy to draw. But all those women and children slaughtered by Israel, are they also militants?

Let me be clear: both parties have enough reason to hate their opponent as a result of all the injustice and cruelties committed. But the spiral of violence can only be broken by a ceasefire and negotiation.

The US and Trump

In the Middle East, effectively a proxy war between the US and Iran is enacted. The United States preaches peace, but meanwhile supplies Israel with billions in military aid. Netanyahu consistently sabotages every peace initiative, under pressure from his extremist friends. The only way to force him to a ceasefire is to immediately stop American arms supplies to Israel. Only then can a peaceful solution be found. But with a faltering president in the White House and risky elections in prospect, US policy is frozen and Netanyahu can do as he pleases. If Trump is elected president - yet another offensive old man who plays the public - all hell will break loose. Not only in the Middle East, but also in Ukraine. 

Conclusion

Who will rid the world of all these hateful old men? Democracy, the legacy of the 20th century that we should actually cherish, is under pressure everywhere. Also in the Netherlands, where attempts are now being made to undermine constitutional law by calling an emergency, portraying every refugee as an enemy. An asylum crisis? Nonsense. It is the consequence of decades of deliberate neglect, which is now being exploited to push through a populist agenda.

I am no longer young, an old man if you will, and I fear for the future of my children and grandchildren. Will they live in an authoritarian state? A banana republic on the North Sea? Where are the statesmen, wise women and men who we need to turn the undemocratic tide? Those vacancies are still open. 

As James Freeman Clarke wrote long ago: the difference between a politician and a statesman is that a politician thinks about the next election while a statesman thinks about the next generation.

Another cruise to Vlieland

Time for a more lighthearted message after all the serious subjects of the past months. We left the turbulent world for what it was and sailed to the isle of Vlieland once again.

After the rain and wind of the past months, a period of better weather was predicted for the second half of June. And certainly, after all the obligations of the first months of 2024, it was now time to take a break. We had cleaned our boat Manokwari earlier on and I had done a lot of work following battery trouble - they turned out to be life-expired. The boat now has a solar panel and two new batteries, a combination that appears to handle even the consumption of the fridge in warm weather.

On our way

We packed our luggage and groceries and stepped on board planning to go to the Wadden Sea, an area of mudflats and creeks inside the chain of islands in the north. As usual it takes some getting used to the small space and the unyielding mattresses, and the first nights were a bit cold. The day after stepping aboard we left for Kornwerderzand and Harlingen, against a weak northeast wind. Unfortunately that meant using the engine - this trip we had a lot of headwind.

sunset after a rainy day in Harlingen

In the lock near Kornwerderzand I heard a heart-rending squeaking emanating from the engine compartment, of which I soon found the cause: a stretched V-belt. Since we were to be in Harlingen for an extra day, I was able to remedy the problem. The weather was a bit wet that day... Unfortunately, the engine dynamo was stuck in its bolts and I had to buy extra tools to unstick it, but that was soon solved. A car materials store turned out to have a V-belt of the right size and the problem was a thing of the past.

route to Vlieland, Harlingen-Blauwe Slenk

route to Vlieland through the sea entrance

On Saturday we departed to Vlieland on the ebb. Unfortunately, there was another contrary wind: northwest, in rough wind against tide conditions. We were particularly bothered by conditions in the Blauwe Slenk (an important stretch of fairway that runs west, see chart #1), with a fairly stubborn sea slamming us about. We motored slowly with the tide, and soon it became quieter, although the wind had increased to a force 5. We set sail and went quietly with the tide into the sea entrance. 

image taken in the sea entrance on a previous trip to Vlieland

When you approach Vlieland, you always have to go around the uninhabited isle of Richel to open sea, where it can become pretty rough. Not this time, however, and soon we entered the channel along the beach towards the roadstead and the harbour.

Vlieland

The harbour turned out to be well filled up. It was unexpectedly busy, perhaps because of the nice weather, but nevertheless we found a good place somewhere in the back, where we'd stay for three days whilst the weather suddenly turned into summer. Those days were spent walking, cycling and thoroughly cleaning the deck, which was covered with detritus of spiders and birds. That is because our home port on the IJsselmeer is ridden with insects. Wild nature, we might say, or free-flying bird and spider food...

shooting exercise by NL air force

During a walk in our favorite nature reserve on the west side of the island, peace was disturbed by fighter-bombers having target practice on the Vliehors shooting range. This is suddenly busy with exercising activity due to all tension in the world and the noise is terrific. The peace dividend of past decades is apparently now gone after Putin's brutal assault on Ukraine, two years ago. If you want peace, prepare for war, as the saying goes.

fresh water pond on Vlieland

someone built a sand castle on the beach, complete with a moat

The walks on Vlieland also took us to a wooded area near the harbour where we had never been before. Here you will still find quiet forest trails with - in the increasing summer heat - the smell of resin from the pines. On the bike we also went further away on the island, finding quiet ponds in the dune area where water fowl rest.

The Witches' House

Not a place we visited, but the title of a book. Before we left I ordered a book from a fellow author in the Leiden region, to take with me as reading material. Jacqueline Zirkzee, another member of an author's association I am a member of, has several historical novels to her name. The Witches' House (regrettably still only available in Dutch as Het Heksenhuis) is about the witch hunt in Bamberg, Germany, which has cost the lives of hundreds of people suspected of witchcraft.

An accusation of witchcraft was the prelude to terrible persecution. Refusing to confess was seen as suspicious and led to torture, and confessing under the most terrible torment meant that the torture stopped, but still you were burned at the stake. The logic of this escapes us nowadays, but the witch hunters apparently saw it differently.

The author describes the chilling persecution not only with a great deal of historical accuracy, but she also manages to convey the sense of the uncertainty of people who directly or indirectly experienced the consequences of the witch hunt. The second part of the story is about the flight of the main characters to escape the witch hunters, and all the obstacles and dangers of traveling in the 17th century. It is a fascinating story that I could not put away - you are, as it were, immersed in the lives of ordinary people in times long past. Recommended if you understand Dutch.

She has one title in English, which is available as an e-book: The Book of Isolde, under her pseudonym J.J.Circe.

Homeward bound

At the start of the home journey I saw a small boat in the distance at the fairway approach buoy of Vlieland. On approach it turned out to be a small open boat with a single occupant. So I went to take a look, after all you are in the open sea. But soon it turned out to be a false alarm: it was a fisherman who had tied his boat with a line on the buoy (which is actually forbidden). He appreciated my coming to have a look and said he was was fine.

During the trip to Kornwerderzand we had to dodge the ferries to Vlieland and Terschelling. The boat to Terschelling now to my surprise is sailing once again through a narrow fairway that was totally silted up a few years ago. Things often change on the Wadden Sea, something I described in two of my earlier books: The Cargo and Two Fathoms Deep.

We sailed quite well on the route to Harlingen, but for the last part through the narrow fairway from Harlingen to Kornwerderzand I doused the sails. It is actually too narrow there and with the wind right astern you are constantly required to trim your sails, because the channel weaves around a bit, distracting your attention from the other shipping.

Kornwerderzand

After locking inside at Kornwerderzand we tied up to a jetty on the inside to spend the night. That has its advantages and disadvantages, because the dense vegetation behind the jetty is a breeding ground for tiny flies and midges, which are floating in thick clouds above the breakwater and also come on board. Moreover, it was very hot that day. Nevertheless, we spent the evening and night in peace, as the only vessel at the jetty. In the morning there was a cormorant on the concrete frame of the spare lock doors, which was extensively scratching and preening itself. Apparently it had unwanted stowaways in its feathers...

Manokwari tied up at Kornwerderzand

The last day trip home started quietly. There was a weak southwest wind, which we again motored straight into. Peacefully having your coffee on the water also has its advantages! I decided to change course west to the opposite shore 10 miles off, because the wind was forecast to increase and possibly veer west. This would offer us some lee and a course advantage (call it tactical sailing!). And the forecast was right: at some stage I could set sail, turning south an hour later. Shortly afterwards it really started to blow and I even had to reef down to keep the boat in hand. After a few hours our home port of Andijk came into view and we could find our berth again.

A Surinamese doctor during the Occupation

A Surinamese scientist in German-occupied Holland

Sources: Leiden University website and an article by Audry Wajwakana in De Ware Tijd.

A road, a school and the Medical Science Institute of Paramaribo were named after Professor Paul Christiaan Flu (1884-1945). His name and life story will not be familiar. He was a brilliant Surinamese scientist, who made great contributions to tropical medicine.

Mariska de Jong of the Ma Jong Foundation wants to change this. “Paul Flu was a great man, who we may have let inadvertently slip into obscurity. He deserves better,” she says to the Surinamese newspaper De Ware Tijd, and: “It has taken far too long before it was realised. In 2024 we find that the development of the water supply which he initiated hasn’t kept pace with the growth of the city of Paramaribo and its population. That’s a great pity.”

Paul Christiaan Flu, who came from a prosperous Surinamese family, in his sixteenth year attended Medical School in Paramaribo, and later when he was 22, received his doctor’s degree at the Utrecht University in the Netherlands before continuing his studies in Paris and Hamburg. Subsequently, he returned to his homeland, then the Colony of Suriname, for three years as its Medical Officer. He became head of the recently established Laboratory of Bacteriology and Pathology, where he himself conducted research and taught his profession. In those days he also researched the Surinamese populace which was plagued by tropical disease.

Paul Christiaan Flu

Doctor Flu was one of the organisers of an expedition to the Surinamese district of Groningen, where a clinic was established for people suffering of framboesia, a tropical infection that often results in raspberry-like skin ulcerations. The well educated Dr Flu had a hunch that this disease should be easily curable and tried an experimental treatment with salvarsan, a predecessor of antibiotics. Within three weeks, all his patients were cured and the clinic could close its doors.

In the towns, rubber plantations and gold mines of Suriname, living conditions for working people were extremely bad. Dominant and often lethal diseases at the time were yellow fever, malaria, bilharzia, filaria and leishmaniasis. Dr Flu quickly realised the solution went two ways: prevention and treatment.

Due to his knowledge of bacteria and parasites he knew the cause must be stagnant water, which was a source of many diseases contributing to the high death rate in Paramaribo. Dr Flu not only looked into medication, but also into the causes, and accordingly advised the Colonial authorities. One of his suggestions was to create a public water supply in Paramaribo, to enable the great number of open water cisterns to be removed from the contamination chain. Eventually it would take until 1933 before a mains water supply was created from the Para River to Paramaribo.

The ground breaking work of Dr Flu wasn’t just noted in Paramaribo, but also in the Netherlands. In 1911 he was knighted at age 27. Shortly afterwards he left for the (then) Netherlands Indies, to continue his work of tropical medicine there.

In 1921, the Leiden University recalled Dr Flu home, to become a lecturer in Tropical Medicine and the Director of the newly created Institute associated with the University. The peak of his career came in the second half of the 1930s. In 1936 he received a honorary doctorate from his ‘alma mater’, the University of Utrecht. Two years on, he was made the Rector of the University of Leiden, a function he would fill for a year, as was the custom in those days.

The war years 1940-1945

At the start of the German occupation of Holland in 1940, several colleagues of Professor Flu in Leiden openly refuted German meddling with the university. Well-known is Professor Cleveringa’s protest oration of November 1940, after his Jewish colleagues had been sacked. This didn’t leave Professor Flu unmoved, as can be read in his memoirs. The breaking point came in 1942, when the Law professor Roelof Kranenburg was sacked by the Germans. That caused 58 out of 93 of the professors in Leiden to resign, including Paul Flu.

Professor Flu and other prominent academicians were arrested and interned in the hostage camp of Sint-Michielsgestel. Flu was sent home after a while due to his weak health – just before the war he had contracted a progressive heart condition due to a laboratory accident. His freedom would be short-lived though, as he was arrested again in January 1944. Unknown to him was the fact that his son Dr Hans Flu, a young GP in Leiden, had just been foully shot by the German Sicherheitsdienst. At the time, Paul Flu was detained in the crowded Ortskommandantur in Leiden, with 34 other detainees before being carted off to the concentration camp at Vught in the south of the country.

Camp Vught

The reason for all this was the shooting by the Resistance of a Dutch collaborator in the centre of Leiden, the previous day. The Germans had the nasty habit of taking reprisals – they habitually shot three prominent Dutchmen in retaliation of every Nazi shot by the Resistance, and taking dozens of hostages.

Camp Vught

After a month, Professor Flu was released from Camp Vught and returned to Leiden. But more than the physical hardship he had to endure, Flu was broken by the death of his son. He became depressed and lost the will to live. About his time in Vught he wrote that the hardship he had endured left him completely indifferent. And after his release, he only lived for his grandchildren, who had lost their father.

On September 17th, 1945, the University of Leiden celebrated its re-opening. Paul Christiaan Flu probably couldn’t take part because he was too weak. Three months later he passed away, only 61 years old. The Academy may have survived the violence of the occupying forces, but had lost one of its most prominent scientists.

Posthumous honour

The story of Paul Flu deserves more attention, as he is an example to every student of the University. On Remembrance Day, May 4th 2024, he was remembered in the central Academy Hall of the University. One of the speakers was Gin Sanches, who has researched the life of Paul Flu.

It isn’t just Mariska de Jong and Gin Sanches who are trying to revive the memory of Paul Flu. There are historians such as Wilfred Lionarons, andover 10 years ago, Luciën Karg made a documentary film about the scientific achievement of Paul Flu, which can be seen on Youtube. 

Another historian, Eric Kastelein, together with the Directors of the Paramaribo University Hospital, in 2022 realised a memorial inscription next to the bust of Paul Flu in the entrance of the hospital. “There has already been done some preliminary work,” Mariska de Jong says. She adds that the Ma Jong Foundation and a local Surinamese foundation In Leiden have obtained permission from the descendants of Paul Flu to tell his story. She plans to do this together with other organisations in the Netherlands and in Suriname and calls upon everyone who can contribute to contact her to realise a great remembrance ceremony next year. “At any rate I am happy that the University has cooperated in allowing my colleague Gin Sanches to tell his story during Remembrance Day,” she says.

Recently she has set up a new training for funeral attendants in Suriname, where part of the training refers to cultural history of the country’s population. Recently her students were given an excursion to the University Hospital and the Medical Science Institute of Paramaribo to tell the story of the Surinamese professor who made such an impact upon tropical medicine. His name is only mentioned on a small plaque in the entrance of the Institute, but she feels it should be more prominent. “If we realise the contribution made to Leiden by Paul Flu, perhaps Leiden should do something for Suriname in return,” she says. Perhaps by creating a remembrance corner in the Institute, and an exchange program between the University of Leiden and the Medical Science Institute in Paramaribo.

Remembrance Day and the follow-up

May 4th is the Dutch Remembrance Day for WW2 victims. On that day we also honoured the memory of Paul Christiaan Flu, both in Leiden and in Paramaribo. I was privileged to attend the remembrance ceremony of Paul Flu at the University, and being present at laying a wreath in his honour at the War Memorial in central Leiden by Edwina Watson, another Surinamese friend.

laying a wreath

The next Saturday (May 11th) I gave a lecture about Paul Christiaan Flu and wartime Holland, speaking to a small company of mainly Surinamese people, most of whose forebears haven’t experienced WW2 and the German occupation. Here is a summary.

Until recently, like many Dutch people, I didn’t know the name of Paul Christiaan Flu. It was only due to my recent involvement with the Surinamese community, following publication of my latest book. Paul Flu and his son Hans were both victims of the German occupation between 1940 and 1945. During the war years there were only a few Surinamese in Holland. One of them was author Anton de Kom, who died in a concentration camp. But there were more Surinamese war victims, most of them servicemen or sailors who perished during enemy action. On the monument on the river bank in Paramaribo they are also honoured.

What is my connection with WW2 and the German occupation? I am the son of a Resistance man, Theo Polet, who at a young age started collecting intelligence which through a teacher at his school he passed on to the Allies. After he moved to Amsterdam in 1943, he joined the Resistance and experienced the horrors of the Occupation at close quarters: the persecution and the razzias claiming the lives of fellow Resistance men and also, some of his Jewish friends.

I took a leaf or two out of my father’s war diary to give the audience an idea what life was like in occupied Holland, putting the dismal fate of the Flu family into perspective. My father was a Resistance man concerned with subversive action against the Germans such as spying and sabotage. But he was very much opposed to the liquidation actions of some Resistance groups against prominent Nazis and collaborators, more so because they resulted in reprisals by the Nazis against innocent civilians. Reprisals that also made Paul Flu and his son Hans a victim.

A short story

Short stories aren't quite my thing, but some time ago I had a request for one. The Andijk marina, where I keep my boat, asked for a short story to put into their 2024 magazine. Since they sell quite a number of my books in their yachting shop, I could hardly refuse. Several of their people play a role in the (fictitious) tale. The story was translated into German as well, by someone who does the translation every year.

The IJsselmeer is the huge inland sea created by the sea barrier between the provinces of North Holland and Friesland. It is about 20 miles across and looks deceptively like a large lake, but in a wind, a short vicious four foot sea is whipped up in no time. Anything can happen in such conditions. It should be added that Jan and Bas, who work at the marina, are volunteers on the Andijk lifeboat, which isn't there for nothing.

***

 

A LEE SHORE

The man who walked his dog along the windsurfing beach on the western IJsselmeer shore, near the nature reserve between Andijk and Medemblik early on Saturday morning, saw a white and red object lying on the beach. It turned out to be a lifebuoy, an old-fashioned white and red one, a length of faded and frayed line attached, marked with the words Driftwood - Hindeloopen. Probably blown off a boat, he thought. He whistled to call his dog and didn’t pay further attention to it, until after returning home he turned on the news and heard that a small sailboat was missing with the name Driftwood, with Hindeloopen as its home port. He decided to retrieve the buoy and take to the nearby marina of Andijk. They might know what to do with it.

The harbour shop was open and Corine, who was busy unpacking the boxes with spares delivered the day before, took the buoy. ‘At the windsurfing beach? Funny there should be a buoy out there. It must have washed up last night, it has blown quite a bit. But thanks for the effort, I will ask our boys if they can shed any light upon it.’

Over coffee that morning she showed the buoy to Jan and Bas, the marina attendants. ‘A passer-by brought this in. He said he found it at the windsurfing beach.’

the picturesque little town of Hindeloopen, Friesland

 

They were yawning a bit, bleary-eyed after the lifeboat call the previous night. They had been out until well after midnight following a sailboat being reported missing, together with the Hindeloopen and Enkhuizen lifeboats. ‘Driftwood? I think it must be off that boat we searched for,’ Jan said. ‘They sent a helicopter this morning to take another look, but because of the rain they can't see much now.’ 

The missing boat had set off the previous afternoon in good weather, an old red daysailer about six or seven metres in length. By evening the northeast wind had increased to a force six, followed by rain showers from the south. The owner of the boat had not come home. He did not answer his phone and being worried, his wife had called the harbourmaster in Hindeloopen. The harbourmaster finally called in the Coast Guard, who alarmed the lifeboat service. The lifeboats had been searching in the rain all evening, and finally after dark had continued using radar and searchlights, but to no avail.

The rain drew away during the day. A weak sun came out and the search was continued with the helicopter, but still without any luck. The boat was and remained missing. On VHF channel 1, all pleasure craft were asked to look for red wreckage, or perhaps a mast protruding from the water. 

rough conditions on the IJsselmeer

 

That afternoon, children walked to the watch tower over the muddy forest path skirting the nature reserve next to the windsurfing beach. Half hidden between the trees across the shallow creek next to the path something red was visible. Something was pointing up from the bushes that looked like a mast with white tatters attached.

Shortly afterwards, the harbour office was called by the police asking if they were missing a boat. A red wreck had been spotted in the bird reserve next to the windsurfing beach, but they could not reach it.

‘A red wreck?’ asked Carola, the manager, who took the call from the police. ‘Last night a red boat went missing from Hindeloopen, but that is faraway across the water, twenty miles from here. I will ask our people to take a look.’ She called Bas, who was busy with the crane, launching a boat. ‘Bas, the police called saying that a red boat was sighted in the nature reserve next to the windsurfing beach. Is there a red boat missing from the harbour?’

‘I think everyone is accounted for. A red boat, you said? Maybe it's that boat we searched for yesterday.’

‘Isn't that miles away in Friesland? But you can never know, and the boat seems to have quite a bit of damage. The police can't get there. Can you take a look, because it doesn't belong there anyway.’

‘Is there nobody on board?’

‘They didn't think so.’ 

The windsurfing beach and approximate position of the wreck in the nature reserve. The marina is about a mile away to the southeast. Photo edited from a source on the marina website.

 

Bas and Jan took the harbour launch and motored past the windsurfing beach to the nature reserve. With some difficulty they crossed the shallows partly blocking the entrance, and after some cruising back and forth among the loudly protesting geese, they found a red boat with torn sails entangled in the branches of the willows standing halfway in the water there. On the stern was the name Driftwood. The cabin entrance was open and inside they saw a man lying on his stomach, on the cabin floor.

They looked at each other hollow-eyed. ‘That doesn't look good.’

‘I will bring the boat alongside so you can step on board.’

Jan stepped into the gangway of the damaged boat and dived inside. He checked the man and felt a weak pulse. He was unconscious and icy cold to the touch, apparently hypothermic. He put his head out the companionway. ‘Bas, he is still alive. Will you call 112 for an ambulance at the windsurfing beach? Then we will see if we can get him out.’

After the phone call, Bas tied up the boat alongside and got on board. Apart from a bad head wound, the man seemed to have no other injuries, so joining forces they turned him on his back and moved him outside to the cockpit floor. They had quite a job to lift him from there into the launch, but in the end they succeeded and took the patient to the windsurfing beach, where the police and an ambulance were waiting. 

the 'Vooroever' nature reserve seen from the IJsselmeer

 

Two weeks later a tall lean man with a bandage around his head appeared in the harbour shop, with a bunch of flowers and a large cream cake. He was the owner of the boat that had been found in the nature reserve, and now had been salvaged and put on shore behind the harbour office.

Over coffee, he told that he had been caught by the strong wind and received a blow from the boom while reefing the mainsail. He could not explain how he had ended up in the nature reserve on the lee shore, right across a twenty mile stretch of open water. Apparently the boat had found its own way in the darkness. The centreboard must have been pushed up, allowing the boat to be set over the shallows and finish up between the trees lining the creek.

Remarkable things can happen on the IJsselmeer.

Ted Polet 2023