We enjoy our freedom. But still, the farewell weighs on our hearts… I accompany Martina to the airport train, which takes her over the almost eight-kilometre-long bridge, across the strait between Malmö and Denmark, directly to Copenhagen Airport.
We make it short, a kiss, the door closes. The train departs.
I go back to my ArgoFram, press the ignition key, and on we go.
It’s rough outside! – The water whips over the windscreen into my face. But I hold my course, go for it, shake myself up. Now I’m on my own again… Take a deep breath, relax…
On my port side comes a Swedish lifeboat, a mixture of RIB and powerboat, about five metres longer than my ArgoFram, with a closed cabin, great machine. I think they are on a practice run, because not a hundred metres behind them follows an associated jet boat. They always work in tandem – the rescue boat goes to the accident site, the jet boat is only then launched. This makes them agile and efficient, and they can work as a team to collect people who have had accidents and lift them out of the waves. – Cool fellows, these guys. They are going out today because they want to be prepared if they have to help in an emergency. No: they want to help if necessary. That’s why they’re practising today. Like our mountain rescue teams. Respect!
Soon I arrive in Helsingborg. In the harbour I see one of these new ‘sailing boats’ with two chimney-like rotor blades. This makes it possible to absorb energy and hold course regardless of the wind direction, which means you can also sail head-on against the wind direction. This boat is probably being overhauled – long overdue for this concept, which works in theory, to be tested in practice. Result open. Hopefully it will work.
The harbour is spacious, not to say huge. One part is available for industry, the other for leisure captains. Modern, unconventional buildings line the harbour facilities – I am looking forward to this city, which has a medieval core and is now expanding enormously. So I head north along the coast to the new neighbourhoods and leisure complexes.
People are also getting up to speed, not letting the cold, wet, windy weather stop them. There are pavilions in the city centre; a cultural festival is starting, Helsingborg wants to be perceived as a city of culture (there is a politically motivated programme running from 2021 to 2024). We know this from Basel – culture is when artists spend money among themselves?
At least here, the activities seem to take place with the involvement of the locals. Everything seems inclusive, familiar, not intrusive. And on the hill near the old fortress tower, open-air concerts take place all day long and well into the night. Festivities in the cool rainy weather. – But does the whole population really take part? Doubts arise: the website of this cultural initiative is written in Swedish, English, Arabic, Bosnian and Kurdish… For good reason. But no one from the Middle Eastern cultural sphere is to be recognised – women with headscarves are to be found sporadically in the city, seemingly open to the host country or shopping. The gentlemen of creation only go ‘out’ in groups (this was clearly visible in Malmö), form herds. Strange – how can they integrate if they isolate themselves like that? Especially as the Swedes are really very open. And confident. For the moment.
Regardless of that: everywhere in the city and along the coast there are recreational sports facilities, trendy things and also power training equipment for free use – I hang in there… Doing good, trying everything out, without ambition.