Thanks to the detailed information from the harbour master of Amble, I schedule my departure so that I arrive at the intended Anstruther in Scotland at a high water level. Because here I can expect a tidal range of up to eight metres! And here, too, it is not possible to enter the harbour at low tide – so the fishermen and other water rats pay scrupulous attention to the corresponding tables. Even the rescue organisation has come up with something special for its lifeboat: A special triple keel that protectively encloses the propellers of the engines and prevents the boat from scraping the bottom at low tide. On the contrary, it can operate at practically any water level – and is lowered into the water by a truck or brought back to dry land.
But what surprises me far more are the people here in Anstruther who wear hygiene masks even when working on the boats in the harbour or walking through the little town. Whereas in England everything is ‘free’ with regard to Corona, Scotland goes for drama and insists on countless measures. And the people go along with it.
Once again, the reason for these measures is not clear, but the explanation is simple: Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish head of government (and leader of the SNP, the party with the most voters), desperately wants to get away from Great Britain, back to the EU, and therefore always does exactly the opposite of what Boris Johnson does. Or, on principle, she always does exactly the opposite of what Boris Johnson does, and therefore wants to go back to the EU… Of course, it’s primarily about the oil revenues off the coast of Scotland. And fish. These two key areas could be used to buy autonomy.
I don’t know what was at the beginning of this wrangling; from what I’ve heard, old stories are being very originally cultivated in modern times. Therefore, it does not matter what it is about in detail. The fact is: If Johnson says A, Sturgeon says B – the main thing is to go full steam ahead in the other direction. If Johnson says ‘free’ to Corona as seen, Sturgeon answers with ‘protect more’! And since Ms Strugeon is a gifted campaigner, she can easily win people over to her and her cause. In Scotland they laugh at Boris Johnson, in England they laugh at Nicola Sturgeon. So everybody has something to laugh about.
So if Amble, where I left this morning, is on a very long leash from London, Anstruther lives in the direct sphere of influence of Edinburgh. No way to escape. – I drive from one side of the Bay to the other, and end up in a completely different world. That’s fascinating!
Less pleasant is that the harbour master of Anstruther is nowhere to be found. Everything is closed, no toilets, no showers, and above all no ‘floating’ jetty to moor on. So I come to terms with the fishermen and the people from the sea rescue service, all of them very friendly (and surprised that I came here in a RIB), and hang my ArgoFram on the quay wall – but from now on I have to watch like hell that it neither hangs in the ropes nor rests on the harbour bottom. But I’m lucky, I understand what’s coming with the falling water level, and combine my ropes with those of other boats, so I detach the ArgoFram from the harbour wall again and can largely leave it to its own devices. Like this I can sleep peacefully.
To my greatest surprise, in the evening everyone (!) I ask about a good local restaurant recommends the Anstruther Fish Bar – presumably the pride of the community because of its widely praised and always excellent fish’n’chips… So I try to get a seat, and actually manage it: the people queuing in a long line don’t want to eat in the restaurant at all (too dangerous?), they just want to pick up the fish they ordered. They are crowded in front of the entrance, chatting away, masked of course. Inside, however, everything is done calmly and one thing after the other, no hustle and bustle. So I take a seat, am served in a curious Scottish-English dialect, and watch the take-away spectacle from a completely different perspective. Then it’s my turn; even at the table, the fish is served in the cardboard box, but what a fish – tender and fine, steamed rather than dripping in the beer-batter as in Whitby, draped with carefully fried potato shreds and a small salad – and two slices of toast with butter served on porcelain! That’s the way it has to be, no fish’n’chips without toast! And to drink, there’s Earl Grey with a separate pot of milk, as a matter of course. What a dinner; everything so gnarly, everything so quirky, everything so wonderfully fine.