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Entering the Hook

ENTERING THE HOOK


Along the channel edge
Buoy lights swayed and tossed.
At our hull the surly sea threw a last slap
Like an animal  wild and lost.
Stinging spray stopped driving
Into our faces as we crossed

The Hook bar into the river  - held
‘Tween the  grey breakwaters of the Rhine,
Held   calm as the current allowed  -
And we slowed our creaking struggle in the brine,
Finding our best course in the stream,
Past barges and freighters in line.

Mile upon mile of oil tanks
Steelworks, mills, cables lined our route
And electric power stations spread
Their nets out to tame the briny brute.
Then small ropes thrown to guide
The big hawsers, and the hoot

Of tugs shoving and pulling us alongside
The grey concrete wharf;  ropes now tight;
Sky red with lights; army of men shouting
In the midnight's hour left and right;
Cranes on trains took the strain
As she settled, held  for the night,

Secure in her moorings safe
In the liplapping black Rhine.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

NOTE

One sea trip I took was at night between UK and Hook of Holland (Hoek van Holland). 
A strong wind and storm developed  in the dark and we were glad to reach the 
entrance to the Rhine at Hook.  Despite the grey industrial  nature of the huge 
port, it seemed like heaven after the storm in the sea.

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