North Sea: A mudflat hike to Cormorant Island requires courage – there is no turning back

2024-01-30 10:16:00

We are standing on a cloudy winter morning at the Amrumer Odde, the headland in the north of the island. It is still dusk, a pale light floods over the mudflats. Dark Blome picks up the cell phone. “I’ll now register us with the emergency services and give them the route; This way the people on the rescue cruiser and the fire departments on Föhr and here on Amrum know that we are on the move and no one is lost.” It’s good to know that someone knows.

Our goal is an island that didn’t even exist a few years ago. We have to hike three and a half kilometers through the winter-stiff mudflats to reach it. It is the cormorant island between Amrum, Sylt and Föhr. It is more of a sandbank that rose from the sea and has been defying storms and floods ever since. The Amrum National Park wading guide Dark Blome takes guests there, even in winter.

He has the compass with him, GPS navigation, telephone and first aid kit. We’re covered in waterproof waders up to our armpits and wear warm clothes underneath. Food is a given and also a solid time frame for this trip, because you never know what’s coming out there on the ocean floor. One reason to do this tour in winter is certainly a sense of adventure.

The flood makes it impossible to return to Amrum

Starting to run is a moment of letting go. To move away from the edge in the icy cold and biting breeze, to go out into the infinite unknown, requires a clear will. Yes, it takes a bit of courage for this moment. For some guests, this is a bigger hurdle than the deep creek we find ourselves in after a few minutes.

But we tackle it and soon find ourselves up to our hips in the ice-cold water. With our backpacks in our arms, we carefully move forward step by step and pass a yellow metal buoy that dances in the waves.

When we reach the seabed on the other side of this river, we feel: we have crossed the demarcation line to loneliness. We continue dripping on an extensive mudflat, crossing sandbanks and watercourses. There may be many of them, but we are traveling in an absolutely deserted place. And now there’s no turning back.

Source: Infographic WELT

The hike is a kind of one-way street towards Föhr. The way back to Amrum is only a short time later cut off by tidal creeks, which are filled with the tide behind them. We look around.

The northern tip of Amrum has disappeared into the haze, we are on our own, and the great emptiness in front of us, like a desert, is not exactly promising, and there are no oases in sight. Nevertheless, the cormorant island promises a special stopover.

It’s strangely quiet. So quiet that you can literally feel the silence. No crash of waves, no cry of seagulls, nothing at all other than our footsteps makes any noise. Where else can you get the feeling of actually being outside?

The cormorant island seems to float on the mudflats

A good hour after we crossed the wide tidal creek in our rubber gap, the seabed changed. The sand is now more structured and the washouts are knee deep. They resemble a confusing pattern of equally high sand faults.

The current constantly moves huge amounts of sand and changes the seabed. Something is moving here, perhaps this is what the very first emergence of an island looks like, a disruption in the uniformity. Imaginable.

The sunken Doggerland

It was only about 10,000 years ago when large parts of the North Sea were not yet covered by water. At that time, Doggerland still connected Great Britain to the continent. Researchers are now looking for traces of settlement there.

Mudflat guide Blome now looks more often to the north with his binoculars: the haze is becoming lighter, and a piece of distant seabed shimmers brighter than its surroundings. But is that actually seabed? No.

With every step we get closer, it becomes clear: This must be Cormorant Island, which Blome immediately confirms. You can see it as it approaches, seeming to float on the mudflats. A beautiful illusion.

A fragile structure in the middle of the North Sea

Even the experienced Dark Blome, a quiet man who has been traveling in the region for decades and whose manner takes the worries of his guests away on such a mudflat adventure, is very happy when we reach the island’s more solid ground feel your feet.

The island is tiny, estimated at 120 by 20 meters. Without a compass it would be difficult to find, because it lies in the middle of this immeasurable expanse. Arriving there gives you a feeling that you can rely on yourself, that you can do it. There is also a feeling of freedom, especially in winter with its unpredictable weather.

Conch shells clink under our footsteps. We are standing on a beach that is perhaps four or five meters wide. The sandy ridge of the island stands out from the mudflats by one meter. Every decimeter of height creates distance from destruction.

The sand shines and leads the eye along the curved island out to the sea; That is, where this island once came from and where it will possibly disappear again. There is nothing to fix your gaze on. But it sharpens your awareness of where you are: on a fragile structure in the middle of nowhere, where constant change seems to be the only constant.

The “island” is more of a kind of higher sandbank

Cormorant Island began to rise more than 20 years ago, and since then it has been constantly changing position and size. It was first recorded on nautical charts in 2000. It’s currently downsizing, says Dark Blome. The island was already 500 meters long.

Dunes have not yet formed and plants have not yet settled, but there are a pair of oystercatchers and a few terns. They bred here a few years ago, as Blome remembers. Sometimes seals make themselves comfortable. Otherwise there is nothing to indicate life.

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The term “island” seems inappropriate, or at least chosen somewhat hastily. Strictly speaking, it is a high sand bank, a kind of higher sand bank that is only rarely washed over by the North Sea. Will this piece of new territory last, or will it perish again?

The fact that it exists has not yet gotten around, at least among the cormorants, because they don’t exist here. So there’s a little secret surrounding the naming that even Watt expert Blome can’t solve.

Spotted seals while hiking on the mudflats

We sit down on the sand and look at a surreal sandy landscape. In front of us lies a wide, curved bay: the cormorant island has the shape of a crescent that opens to the northeast, and it is just as narrow.

This new territory inevitably beckons to explore. Even though there’s nothing growing on it or anything else of obvious interest. It’s just sand, traveling in space and time; In fact, studies have shown that most of the grains come from the island of Sylt.

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It brightens up – and this is also what makes a mudflat hike in winter so attractive; everything is fresh and clear. Tang, pieces of wood and shells have washed up, we are looking for amber. As we move on, Blome keeps looking through the binoculars. For what reason? “I’m keeping an eye out for seals, we don’t want to disturb them unnecessarily.”

If we spotted them, we would give them a wide berth. In past summers there was a deep scour, a lagoon, at the eastern end of the sandbar. There they played and sunbathed. Today we see seals further west.

We give ourselves half an hour, then we have to continue towards Föhr. In front of Amrum, where we started in the morning, the North Sea has long been flowing through the channels with enormous force. It floods the seabed, it moves it and rebuilds it.

One last look back at this strange, shimmering sand. Blome takes bearings with the compass; Course 106 degrees east-southeast. Lively birds trip over the mudflats – now they will soon be among themselves again, the few residents of the cormorant island, which is not a cormorant island. Somewhere out there at 54° North 44′ and 8° East 21′ and a few seconds.

But what does that mean exactly? Because today the cormorant island is here, and one morning it may be gone again.

These seals can sing

Researchers at the Scottish University of St. Andrews have created a small sensation. They taught gray seals to sing. And the results are impressive.

Tips and information

Getting there: By car via the A23 from Hamburg via Heide, continue on the federal highway 5 to Dagebüll, where the ferry to Amrum leaves. If you want to take your car with you to the island, you should reserve a ferry seat with the Wyker Dampfschiffsreederei (faehre.de). Dagebüll Mole can also be reached by train (bahn.de). On Amrum, buses commute between the island villages, and there are also many cycling and hiking trails. There is a gas station on the island.

Accommodation: In the Friesendorf Nebel in the center of the island, for example, in the recommended “Hotel Friedrichs” from around 100 euros for an overnight stay in a double room (hotel-friedrichs.com). Beautiful holiday apartments, also in Nebel, can be rented in the thatched house “Rauag Huk” from the Isemann family, from 80 euros in the cold season (rauaghuk.de).

Mudflat hiking: Never go into the mudflats alone! National Park wading guide Dark Blome offers the described mudflat hike in winter from Amrum to Kormoraninsel (and on to Föhr) for individuals or small groups, cost: 27 euros per person (waders are provided). The route of around 13 kilometers takes around four to five hours, including a stay on the cormorant island, so a good level of fitness is required. The return journey from Föhr to Amrum is by ferry, ferry costs and transfers are extra. If this tour seems too difficult for you, you can take part in a shorter mudflat hike, which does not lead to Cormorant Island, duration: 2.5 hours, distance: eight kilometers, registration required (der-insellaufer.de).

Warm up: After the mudflat hike, you can stop off at the “Café Schult” in Norddorf, for example – waffles or homemade Frisian cake await you. Good food is served at the “Hotel Seeblick” in the same town (seeblicker.de). In Wittdün there is the Germany-wide famous whiskey bar “Blue Mouse” (blauemaus-amrum.de).

Information: amrum.de

Participation in the trip was supported by North Sea Tourism Service/Tourism and City Marketing Husum/Amrum Touristik. Our standards of transparency and journalistic independence can be found at axelspringer.de/unabhaengigkeit.

This article was first published in January 2020.