Frederikshavn is on the northeast
coast of Jutland and lies directly across from Goteborg, Sweden. After a short trip by train from Alborg I
decided to stop over for the night before heading for Sweden the following morning. Frederikshavn is a perfect example of a
thriving sea coast town with all kinds of Baltic Sea traffic including cargo
ships, Danish naval vessels, and ferries scurrying in every direction. One, the Destroyer
F346, didn’t make a good picture because it was gray on a day with clouds,
and besides, I felt like a spy photographing it.
I watched from my telephoto lens
two crew members of the DSR Reefer (refrigerated) Service tend their ship, the F. Freiligarth. A man and a
woman were on its bridge swabbing the deck and coiling some ropes on
a life boat. It occurred to me that
maybe these crew members were more than 9-to-5 employees. Perhaps they lived on board even while docked
and maybe they were its captain and first mate – literally. The more I thought about it, the more I
considered what I was seeing was perhaps a way of life typical in the cold and
dismal Baltic. What I witnessed was a seafaring culture that stretched all the way around
the Baltic to Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Copenhagen, and
back.
There was my ferry, the Stena Danica, which passed between Frederikshavn
and Goteborg several times a day.
Fortunately, my hotel room was on a higher floor and the light was temporarily
good enough for some decent photos. The
ferry had slipped into her berth with the assistance of an underwater
propulsion system. In 1977 and even
being in the Marines at the time, I’d never head of bow thrusters. The photo shows their wake. As it drew near to the dock, the tip of the
bow opened up like a parrot’s beak and dropped a ramp for departing passengers
and vehicles. I’d never seen anything
like it. She could take on 2,274 passengers and 550 cars. The cruise ship, Peter Wessel, is docked behind and to her
right.