This year I had the greatest possible difficulty in writing anything that even remotely resembled a Christmas wish.
Anyone
who follows the news in this month of December would almost become
depressed. There is nothing but murder, war, commotion, hatred and
polarisation. One cannot close one’s eyes to it, but rarely was bad news
as prominent in the media as it is now. Good news seems to be hard to
find. I have written of it before.
That is why I went looking for anything that gives me hope: memories and current events that move me.
First
of all the joy of my little granddaughters, the eldest of whom is already toddling around
the house and has become a real little person. The youngest, five
months old, who gazes at you with her big blue eyes and is already
trying to roll over onto her stomach.
designed by Henriette
The
Surinamese party in a community centre in Leiden, which I recently
attended. The pleasant, respectful atmosphere among all those present,
whether they were Surinamese, Dutch, Moroccan or something else. During
the preparations we got the sound system working, upon which a
Moroccan-Dutch volunteer searched for Moroccan music on his phone and
played it to the microphone, amidst general laughter.
The
wisdom of a young girl, about nine years old, to whom I told the story
of Anansi, who could not steal wisdom and accidentally dropped it into
the river, so that it spread throughout the world. Why is there a little wisdom in all of us, I asked of her. ‘Because we all drink
water,’ she said.
The
Israelis who out of their compassion stay overnight with Palestinian
families on the West Bank to prevent intimidation and violence by gangs
of settlers.
The
man from Uganda, an immigrant who has been delivering our morning
newspaper for years. He recently came to the door again with his usual
Christmas greeting. Early one morning, a few years back, he found the
key that we had accidentally left in the front door the day before, and
put it in our letterbox so it wouldn't be stolen.
The
New Year's Eve celebration on board my ship that was in the port of Gdansk, fifty
years ago during the communist period in Poland. An armed soldier was on
guard at the gangway. As the Third Mate, I went ashore with a piece of cake to
wish him a happy new year. He didn't want the cake, because he was a
Polish officer. But we did shake hands.
A Moroccan woman and a conservative Jewish man, who one sad day did something important for me that I have never forgotten.
The
people celebrating in the streets of Syria following the dictator’s
expulsion. A people that finally hopes for a better future. And the
cautious rapprochement of the West to the new rulers in the country,
in the hope that they have indeed abandoned their previous radical
ideology. Let us give them the benefit of the doubt.
Long
before our time: the spontaneous Christmas truces in the trenches in
1914 and 1915, when German and British soldiers met in no man's land. I
still have a quiet hope for a speedy end to the slaughter in Gaza, on the
Ukrainian front, in Sudan and Eastern Congo. Or anywhere in the world,
in the hope that leadership and reconciliation will prevail over hatred and
enmity.
source: Wikipedia
Our
blood is all red, whether we are white, black or brown. That is for a
reason, as it is what connects us all. Whether we are Israeli or
Palestinian, Russian or Ukrainian. Whether we are European or an African
immigrant.
Shalom, salam, odi, привет, вітання, greetings, bon bini, გამარჯობა (gamarjoba), saludos, 你好 (ni hao), gegroet, peace be with you and us all.
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.
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 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 haveletinadvertently 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.
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 redone, 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
watchtower 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.
