Life on board a sailing yacht and in the harbours offers many a bizarre encounter. Author Steffi von Wolff tells us in her commentary"Wolff's territory" regularly talks about her experiences as an on-board woman. Not always meant seriously, often satirically exaggerated, but always with a lot of heart and a wink.
The persistent complainer
There are various ways of sailing or spending time on a boat. Some do it alone, some as a couple, with family, with friends or colleagues or whatever. And most of the time you see relaxed, happy faces while sailing or in the harbour, unless the boat has almost been wrecked in a storm and you briefly felt like George Clooney in "The Storm".
But then, as I like to find out from time to time in my personal harbour cinema, there are water people who are never satisfied with anything, not even when they are on their boat. The constant complainers.
You can often hear them grumbling as soon as they enter the harbour.
"That's crap, everything here is red, they're definitely not coming back today, that's the very last thing."
"There are still seats available," says a now probably jaded fellow sailor.
The persistent grumbler grumbles: "It's not deep enough."
"I see. And there?"
"Look at these people, they're already drunk. They'll probably be throwing dice tonight and then bawling like idiots."
Sometimes the wife intervenes. "Holger, please. People are already looking."
"Mpf, mpf, let them look. I'm driving out of here again."
Sometimes we are lucky enough to have persistent complainers lying next to us. That's always entertaining.
Mooring becomes the centre of attention, nothing is good enough and right for him, and everything is shrunken brains and idiots. Sometimes people stand on the jetty and watch, and the persistent moaner likes to greet them with a barked "Get away from there!".
The persistent moaner doesn't greet us, of course, but kills us neighbours with glances and only looks to see if our fenders are sufficient. I almost think he hopes that's not the case.
Everyone scurries around him to make sure he doesn't freak out.
This also creates beautiful dialogues:
"Now sit down, Holger. I'll get the lines open."
"But right."
"Yeah, right."
"No, not like that. Different. Do it differently. Different."
"How?"
"Just different."
"Like this?"
"No."
"Like this?"
"No. Different. That's what I said."
He then gets himself a beer.
Woman: "Isn't that too early for beer?"
He: "We're not at a Waldorf school here."
Then he drinks beer and grumbles about the weather, the harbour and the seagulls ("There's another one perched on the pole, I wish I had a slingshot").
Sometimes he shuffles off to pay the harbour fee and take a shower, which is of course announced in advance.
"They're probably collective showers."
"I'm telling you, they don't have wifi here."
"There's definitely no bratwurst in the kiosk."
Every now and then, a fellow sailor mobilises his remaining motivation: "Oh, Holger, don't make everything so bad," and Holger grumbles off.
When he comes back, of course, it will continue.
"There was hardly any hot water, they're crazy, and the harbour fee has become more expensive, morons, but there's no Wi-Fi, didn't I tell you?"
At least it wasn't bratwurst, but currywurst, but that "isn't really done, and in a currywurst there has to be curry in the sausage and not just in the sauce, will they ever learn?"
Once a persistent complainer said to me when I nodded to him in a friendly manner: "What are you staring at?"
What I find so unfortunate is that the constant complainers make life unnecessarily difficult for themselves. You're sitting on your boat, the sun is shining, you've had a great day and are looking forward to a nice evening, but the grumbler only sees the bad in almost everything.
"Someone's playing 'Biscaya' on a harmonica, I'm going crazy. What kind of Horst is that!"
"They're having a barbecue and the stench is drifting over here, thank you very much."
"I think it should be forbidden for tourists to walk on the jetty."
If someone says: "Look at that beautiful sunset", you get an annoyed "It's just a red sky. You don't have to make such a fuss about it."
I actually feel sorry for him, the grumpy chap. He misses out on so much beauty. What's the point of being so negative about everything?
I have no idea. But does he see himself that way?
Another boat wanted to moor next to a mufflehead, the wife stood in front and shouted to her husband: "Nah, Jens, go somewhere else, this man here looks like a poisonous bone, he's probably just complaining."
"Well, well," said the persistent grumbler. "How can you be so negative about everything in advance? Morons."
Happy holidays!
