Secret Escapes Through the Ghost Stations of Divided Berlin
This amusing story recounts the chaotic beginnings of a lifelong passion. What starts as a clumsy attempt at learning to windsurf in Croatia involves the purchase of a heavy HiFly 343 “tank,” a sketchy transport in an open Chevrolet Camaro, and a turbulent, unforgettable dry run in a tiny 3rd-floor living room.
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CHAPTER 1: How the “Idiot with the Bedsheet” Became a Pro (Hvar, 1981)
The Spark on the Roof and the “Idiot with the Bedsheet”
It all began in the summer of 1981 on a roof. We were working as roofers when a new colleague from Kiel joined our crew. He raved to me constantly about windsurfing. At first, I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about—until something suddenly clicked in my head!
The year before, in 1980, my wife and I had vacationed in Yugoslavia. There, we had watched a man on the water and absolutely laughed ourselves to death: “Look at that idiot! He’s standing there on a board with a bedsheet attached to a stick, falling into the water every two meters!” I had told my Mischko (Honey) back then: “I would never in my life do such a stupid thing just to let others make fun of me! No, Honey, count me out!”
I eagerly told this story to my new colleague. But he wasn’t deterred. He desperately wanted to get me interested in the sport and pulled out the oldest argument in the book: “Man, it’s a brilliant sport! The girls love it. You can have as many women as you want; they all come flocking to you, blah, bla, bla…”
My response was immediate and left no room for negotiation: “I don’t need girls; I have my wife!”
My colleague still wouldn’t give up. The greatest irony of the whole situation was: He didn’t even own a surfboard himself! At the time, he was sleeping in an old company trailer in our yard. Nevertheless, by June, he managed to convince me to buy a board.
However, the timing for this unplanned investment couldn’t have been worse. Just a short time before, in May, I had bought a brand-new, convertible American Chevrolet Camaro Z28 E—my absolute pride and joy, for which I had even taken out a loan.
All my money was tied up in that car. Back then, I didn’t even have enough cash for a ceiling lamp in the living room; a bare lightbulb hung from the ceiling for months!
Living Room Chaos and Heavy Transport
So, I bought a real tank: A HiFly 343—a heavy polyethylene monster over 3.70 meters (12 feet) long! To transport this giant thing home, I took the T-Top glass panels out of the Camaro, strapped the board horizontally across the roof, and drove the 800 meters home at an absolute snail’s pace.
Once home, we first had to haul the monster up to the 3rd floor. Right in the middle of my 6×4-meter living room, my colleague from Kiel wanted to show me how to assemble the thing. He unpacked the 4.70-meter mast and rigged the sail right there in the living room! The room was completely blocked.
Thanks to the missing ceiling lamp, at least no glass was broken, but when he stood on the board and pulled the sail up from the carpet, the tip of the mast pressed directly against the bare lightbulb and hit the ceiling.
Thank God we hardly had any furniture in the apartment back then; otherwise, the board would never have fit. The couch was by the window, two armchairs against the wall, and the TV was exactly where I had just torn out the old stove. If I hadn’t removed that stove, there wouldn’t have been any space on the floor for the board at all!
Chinese Fairy Tales
While the sail was hovering halfway up, my colleague started explaining: “The wind comes from behind, you pull the sail up. When it’s up, you grab the boom near the mast with one hand and then you reach with the other… Wind here, wind there, always behind your back. If you want to turn, you have to go here…”
I looked at him, nodded, and just said: “Yes, yes, yes…” But I hadn’t understood a single word! He really thought he had taught me something that day. But for me, the whole thing had the effect of a Chinese man from Beijing falling straight from the sky into my living room and starting to tell me a beautiful fairy tale in Chinese—pure gibberish!
I later observed this often with foreigners who don’t know the language well yet: You explain something to them for hours, they grin, nod, and just keep saying “Yes, yes, yes,” and in the end, they ask exactly the same question again. That’s exactly how I felt that day in my living room.
The New “Bed” in the Living Room and the Cat from Mars
After this lesson, my colleague said goodbye, and I had to pick up my wife from work. When she entered the apartment, she stopped, stunned, and asked: “What is that?!”
I grinned and replied: “This is my new home. I will sleep on this from now on, and you’ll be alone in bed!”
When she asked again in disbelief what the meaning of this was, I enlightened her: “This is the bedsheet we watched from the rocks on vacation when we laughed ourselves to death at that surfer!”
She just shook her head and asked dryly: “And now? How are you going to bring that giant thing on vacation?” My answer: “I’ll ask my father…”
So there it stood, right in the middle of our living room, exactly on the path between the bedroom and the toilet. Even if I had understood anything of my colleague’s theory—I would have forgotten it all over the next two months anyway. I probably would have even forgotten that I owned a surfboard if I hadn’t had to climb over it every day on my way to work, the kitchen, or the bathroom!
Because it was summer and the windows were open, I invented a practical shortcut: If I had to pee at night, I didn’t walk the 14 meters across the blocked living room to the toilet just to avoid tripping over the board. I simply used the drainpipe on the balcony, which was only four meters from my bed. The watering can was always sitting there full of water for the flowers. When everything was in the drainpipe, I took the bucket and flushed silently.
The drainpipe was my secret, but the real phenomenon in the night was my wife. Mischko moved in the dark like a cat. The only thing about her that was a mystery to me: She simply never turned on the light when it got dark. When I came home, she would be sitting in the dark.
I would always tell her: “Mischko, we are humans! My countryman Nikola Tesla made sure we have electric light at home! Do you guys not have electricity up there on Mars? I really wonder how you built your planet if you don’t have electricity!”
She always laughed heartily, like a child, when I called her an alien—maybe she really was one. Sometimes we walked together on the street; I was freezing cold, and her hands were glowing with warmth. But when I was way too warm, her hand was suddenly ice cold. I would ask her with a smile: “When are you finally going to turn into a human being?” And she would just laugh her wonderful laugh again.
By the way, my roofing colleague was named Dieter. He constantly raved to me about St. Peter-Ording, where his mother had a house—even though he had never actually been there himself. And he talked endlessly about his girlfriend, Sabine. Everything about him was actually great, except his teeth were completely ruined. I always secretly wondered back then how a girl could voluntarily stick her tongue into a mouth where the teeth were all brown and falling out.
In the end, all that dry-run practice in the living room brought us absolutely nothing anyway!
Heavy Transport to Hvar
The Backstory: How I Met Dinko Chapter 1: How to Make Friends Through Fraud
It happened during our very first vacation on Hvar. My wife was a tender fifteen years old at the time, and I was twenty-two—and, well, a chronic hothead.
One evening, hunger drew us into Dinko’s restaurant right on the Riviera. A strategically brilliant spot—exactly where the gigantic passenger ships from Split and Dubrovnik spit out their masses of tourists. The result? The place was absolutely flooded. It felt like ten thousand people were trampling on each other’s feet. After an agonizing hour in line—our stomachs growling in time with the ship engines—we finally snagged a table.
The view? Phenomenal! Sitting up high, you looked right out at the ocean, which was less than ten meters away. You couldn’t ask for more romance. We sat on the far right in the open restaurant area, right at the entrance. We were alone at the table and enjoyed the food, which tasted truly heavenly. And then there was Dinko.
Dinko was our waiter and was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He ran back and forth between the kitchen and the tables at a murderous pace, as if his life depended on it. When we finished, I casually raised my hand. The guy was so stressed that he missed me three times. Eventually, he shot past us. I shouted: “I’d like to pay!”—”Ok, I’ll be right there!” echoed back mid-sprint.
A few minutes later, he slammed the bill down. I paid, he muttered a thank you, and vanished like lightning to the next hungry guests. While I relaxed and counted the yachts in the harbor, my fifteen-year-old girl grabbed the receipt and studied it with the eagle eye of a tax auditor.
Suddenly she nudged me: “Honey, the guy ripped us off!” I grabbed the slip, did the math, and thought: She’s right! So I raised my hand again.
Minutes passed. Finally, the waiter came rushing over, his white shirt soaked with sweat, and asked hurriedly: “What can I do for you?” I hesitated: “Listen, I’m really uncomfortable about this… but you overcharged us.”
He snatched the receipt from my hand, bolted into the kitchen, and returned shortly after with the money. He slapped it on the table, I thanked him, and he threw himself back into the waiting crowd of people who were still lurking outside for hours trying to get a table.
I calmly turned my attention back to the yachts. But the next storm was already brewing at my table. My girl whispered: “Honey… he only gave us half of what he owes us!”
The blood rushed to my head. I suddenly felt hot. Now I had to announce to this frantic waiter for the second time in five minutes that he had ripped us off!
Summoning all my courage, I raised my hand again. When he saw me, he was serving a table and talking to guests. His look expressed pure horror. Finally, he came over, glared at me, and huffed: “What do you want now?!” I swallowed hard: “I am incredibly sorry… but my girl says you still owe us money.”
My God, I was embarrassed! In that moment, his face changed; he was furious and lost his nerve. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a monster of a wallet. A huge, fat, black thing.
He ripped it open—and my heart almost stopped. I had never seen so much cash in one pile in my entire life! I, with my meager salary of just 1,200 German Marks, had to turn every penny three times just to finance those two tickets, the food, and the accommodation. And the guy had a fortune in his pocket that could have booked a triple world tour for me and my best buddy!
My wife coldly told him the missing amount. I saw from Dinko’s expression that he was boiling inside—not because he made a mistake, but because this fifteen-year-old girl had caught him cheating twice in a row!
That marked the end of our first vacation. A memorable start. But we were persistent: the next year, we showed up again. His wife Katja recognized us immediately and welcomed us with open arms. From that day on, we mutated into regular guests and came twice every day—for lunch and dinner.
On the very first day, barely had we sat down when Dinko leaned in and whispered: “Do you guys have German Marks to exchange? I’ll give you thirty percent more than the bank!”
That was the icebreaker. From then on, we grew closer every year. By our third vacation, it became really business-like. He asked me: “Next time, bring me some electronics from Germany. A solar panel! I’ll even pay for your customs.” In the end, I smuggled the thing completely past customs.
The Yugoslavian Border and an Unexpected Privilege The Yugoslavian customs officers looked at our sporty car and the two young, innocent-looking people inside. They never in their lives suspected that two professional smugglers were at work.
As a reward for our annual “delivery services,” Dinko returned the favor in grand style: From then on, he let us use his small boat—for which tourists normally had to pay a fortune—completely for free.
Years later, he also offered us free stays in his bay, Vela Stiniva—not far from Zastražišće on the island of Hvar. In the end, it turned out: the guy was exactly as much of a hothead as I was. And that is exactly why we became best friends!
Chapter 2: The HiFly Tank and the 3-km/h Death Ride
Years later. The long-awaited vacation was finally around the corner, and with it, a medium-heavy logistics problem: My new surfboard. Since the mast measured a proud 4.70 meters, my own car reached its limits. My father had to step in as the rescue squadron. Luckily, he owned a six-meter-long bus.
A whole month before our departure, my father drove the heavy HiFly tank ahead in the bus to Croatia and stored the monster board in the mountain village of Vrisnik—naturally with our friend Dinko, the farmer, restaurant owner, and ex-money exchange king.
After that, my wife and I could do what one should do on vacation: travel behind in style and without annoying baggage in the open Camaro. The wind blew through our hair, Italian music played from a Romina Power cassette, and the sunglasses were perfectly positioned.
But on the first day of our vacation, reality hit us cold. We had to pick up the board. Up in the mountain village, we loaded the monster onto the Camaro. Now it was time to roll down the steep mountain.
A Dangerous Transport And when I say roll, I mean it literally. Mischko held the board with her right hand from the passenger seat, and I held it with my left hand so it wouldn’t slide sideways. I stood continuously on the brakes, and we crept down the steep slope at an absolute snail’s pace of just 3 km/h. Driving any faster would have meant certain death for the board or the car.
The destination of this war of nerves: the beach section near the Bodul and Galeb hotels. It was early in the morning, the air was fresh, but I was sweating blood and water. The path from Bijela Plaža—the White Beach—to Hotel Galeb was so brutally narrow that exactly one single car could fit through. Not an inch more.
If we had encountered oncoming traffic, absolute chaos would have broken out. That would have meant putting the Camaro in reverse and blindly backing up thirty or forty meters with the giant board on top until we hit one of the rare alcoves where locals occasionally squeezed their cars in.
If you walk this route today on foot from Galeb to Bijela Plaža, you only then truly understand the drama: On the left side, merciless concrete walls rise from the scattered properties, and on the right side, there are only bare rocks and the deep sea. One wrong turn of the steering wheel, and the surfboard would have learned to swim—car included!
The Yellow UFO from Mars
When we arrived at Hotel Galeb, the narrow street was already black with people. Tourists were flocking to swim like ants—it looked as if a football stadium was emptying out after a big game. And right in the middle was us: Our Camaro was completely open. While the two parts of the glass roof were packed away in their soft leather bags on the back seats, Romina Power’s music was blasting at full volume. Italian sounds boomed from the brand-new, self-installed speakers.
I felt like I was in heaven! It was as if I had landed somewhere on Venice Beach in Los Angeles. My dream of America back then was as huge as perhaps the desire to fly to the moon is today.
Yet the reality behind the scenes was harsh: My salary on the roof was the smallest in the whole company. After all, I wasn’t a trained roofer, but an auto electrician. I was new to the company and a foreigner to boot—the perfect combination to be exploited. For a full eleven years, I slaved away on the roof for the lowest wage.
But in return, I had something that no money in the world could buy: the most amazing girl by my side and the hottest car on the island!
When we drew attention to ourselves with the open car, the tourists—most of them from Germany—turned around in disbelief. Some stared and almost fell over in astonishment. What a car! A yellow, convertible Camaro Z28 E—something like that hadn’t even been seen on TV back then, let alone in real life. For the people, it was as if we had just landed straight from Mars!
Because we were driving at a walking pace and turned up the music, the crowds gradually made way on the narrow path. Some stumbled from staring so hard and almost fell down the rocks. Their brains simply couldn’t process this sensory overload in that moment: the sound, the bright yellow color, and then the big question: What the hell does he have lying on the roof? Windsurfing was so new back then that it was an absolute shock to 99.9% of the people.
Most only recovered when we were already fifty meters ahead, whispering in disbelief: “What kind of car was that? I’ve never seen anything like it!” Over the next few days, we observed German tourists standing next to our car just to get a picture with it.
How did I feel about it? I was happy for the tourists and for myself. With my small salary, I had bought something on credit that people admired. It’s an incredibly beautiful feeling. But we also worked honestly for it. My Mischko worked at least ten hours every day, and twice a week even twelve hours. And since she didn’t have a driver’s license, I drove her to work first before heading to my construction sites.
I myself was also busy for at least ten hours a day before we drove home together every evening. And yet, I was really just Texan—the poorest bastard with the smallest salary on the roof, but with the most beautiful woman on my arm.
The One-Kilometer Drive in 20 Minutes
Our yellow Camaro looked like a space shuttle. Because we hadn’t tied the board down securely for the short distance, we had to perform real acrobatics: My wife held the board with her right hand from the passenger seat. I steered with my right hand and clung to the board with my left so it wouldn’t fly off at the slightest gust.
After an agonizingly long twenty minutes for a single kilometer, we finally arrived at the surf spot. And there he was: my buddy Miša, who was swimming in the water there and already waiting for us.
Chaos on the Beach and the First Rescue Mission
On the beach, I had absolutely no idea how to set up the sail anymore. Miša said: “Texan, I saw how a German guy does it, I’ll show you.” Barely was the thing ready when Miša grabbed the board. The waves were huge. He got on, immediately slapped into the water, and I laughed myself to death. While he was cursing and trying to surf, he suddenly called out in desperation: “I can’t get back, the current is pulling me away!”
I had to jump into the water immediately, swim out to him, and save the board while he went ashore completely exhausted.
Trapped on the Sea Until Dark
Now ambition seized me. Hvar has absolutely no sandy beach, only rugged rocks. I jumped straight into the sea from the high cliffs. And a miracle happened: Despite the big waves, after just five minutes I was actually standing on the board! I could only surf in one direction and couldn’t turn around, but I was standing. The current caught me and drifted me further and further out toward Dubrovnik.
Since the first jump, I spent the whole day without food and without drinking under the merciless sun rays in the waves. I was trapped. I didn’t actually want to go that far out because I always had to paddle back laboriously. As soon as I was about twenty meters away from the cliffs, I pulled the sail up and surfed about fifty meters out. Then I laid the sail flat on the water on top of the board, lay down on my stomach next to it, and paddled back to the rocks using pure muscle power.
Due to the strong wind, the sail constantly blew back into the water; I cursed and had to laboriously put it back on the board again and again to keep paddling. In retrospect, this constant lying in the water was pure luck: Because I spent most of the day in the wet element, my back stayed cool. Otherwise, I would have been burnt crab-red by the evening! The treacherous current eventually drifted me a good 500 meters away, but with my last ounce of strength, I somehow managed to stay about 50 meters in front of the dangerous cliffs.
After two hours, I saw a small boat coming from a distance. My brother, my buddy Miša, and a boy were in it, yelling: “Texaaaaan, we’re picking you up!” My unbridled pride triumphed over reason: “Get lost, I don’t need any help!” Since Miša had to go to lunch anyway, they turned around and left me alone in the waves.
When we sat down for dinner that evening at the Alga restaurant right by the harbor, where passenger boats usually dock, Miša told me the whole truth. He shook his head and said: “Texan, my brother and I spent fifteen minutes convincing the twelve-year-old boy to come with us and help rescue you. And then when you cursed at us and said: ‘Get lost, I don’t need any help!’, the boy just looked at us like we were stupid. He was completely baffled and speechless! We chugged through the heavy surf for fifteen minutes with that tiny 4-HP motor, almost flipped over because of the massive waves, and you just coldly send us back!”
The Climbing Expedition in the Pitch Black
As the sun slowly set, I finally spotted my wife on the shore. I gathered my strength and yelled over to her as loud as I could: “Get Miša! We have to haul the board 30 meters up the steep rocks and carry it 200 meters to the road later!”
Barely was she on her way when a miracle happened: Out on the water, seemingly out of nowhere, I suddenly managed my very first, real turn! I actually surfed back toward the rocks. When I was only five meters from the cliffs, overconfidence took over: “Ah, you know how to do it now! Just go back out one more time, it’ll take them at least half an hour to get here anyway!” So I decided to head out again.
But when I tried to turn around again, my luck had run out. Despite catching the best waves, I had no idea how I had managed the turn just moments before! I had to jump back into the water, lay the sail on the board, and paddle on my stomach, totally starved and thirsty. Meanwhile, my wife arrived at the shore with Miša.
I thought to myself: “Come on, you can do this!” I desperately tried to turn, managed it once, didn’t know what to do the next time, and fought for forty-five minutes in the fading evening light until it was finally pitch black.
In the end, nothing worked. My wife and Miša had to climb down the steep rocks to me in the dark like mountain goats. We divided the gear: My wife got the two fins, Miša hauled the heavy HiFly board, and I took the sail.
My feet were completely softened and buttery from standing in the water for hours. Every single step on the cliffs was hell—it felt like I was walking barefoot on sharp nails. To make matters worse, the upper path was littered with tiny, razor-sharp stones and prickly branches. After twenty minutes of an absolutely agonizing trek, we finally reached the road.
The Long-Awaited Finale at the Camaro and the Frustration of the First Evening
Arriving at the road, I was pure misery: deeply unhappy from hunger and thirst. When we got to the Camaro, my hands were shaking so extremely from exhaustion that I couldn’t get the key into the lock. I had to use both hands to fumble open the trunk where the cooler with drinks was. After the first huge gulp, I sat in the car, barely managed to unbuckle my seatbelt, put my head on the steering wheel, and passed out completely for five minutes! My battery was absolutely at zero.
After a short nap, I started the car with hands still trembling and drove over to join the other two at Bijela Plaža bay. By the time we had secured my High Fly 343 on top in total darkness, I was so exhausted I told Miša: “Sell this piece of shit, I never want to see it again! Anything you get over 900 Marks is yours!”
Miša and my wife stayed at the spot until we could carry the board, and I had to walk alone to the car. The two were guarding the board like two watchdogs. In the evening, we went to the Riviera of Hvar, where tens of thousands of people were milling about. Miša tried to sell the board to the locals, but they didn’t have any money. So the HiFly tank spent the night in my garage after all.
The One-Minute Lesson from the Austrian
The next morning, I woke up with killer muscle soreness, but my stubbornness conquered the frustration. We drove back to the same spot, the board lying across the Camaro. There, on the rocks, was a small, concreted area barely 3×3 meters in size.
An Austrian man, who was also lying on the rocks and had watched my drama the day before closely, spoke to me: “Man, Texan, you can surf, but you can’t turn!” Still irritated, I snapped back: “I don’t give a shit, I’m never surfing again!” He said calmly: “My son has a small board with a sail at the lake back home, I can show you exactly how to turn.”
Then I yelled at him: “And why the hell didn’t you do that yesterday?!” He answered dryly: “Well, you were always 100 meters out on the sea!”
In that moment, it immediately hammered in my head: He’s right! How was he supposed to explain it to me from a distance? So I paddled back on my stomach, getting very close to the rocks. We walked the 20 meters up to the car, got the board, set it up, and I went into the sea. And indeed: In exactly one single minute, the Austrian explained the trick to me—and I had learned how to turn!
In the 25-Knot Storm with the Pros
Shortly after, the wind picked up massively—brutal 25-knot winds whipped across the water! Full of adrenaline, I rode out, thinking: Wow, what a feeling! But suddenly, the next drama: I turned the board in the direction I came from, toward my wife. Once I had the sail up, I grabbed the boom near the mast with one hand, but the fierce storm mercilessly turned my board back toward the open ocean again and again.
I was positioned at the Pakleni Islands near Palmižana. I simply couldn’t fight against this force of nature anymore. I couldn’t get back to the beach. Two locals on small pro boards were out nearby. After several anxious minutes, one of them spotted me standing on my giant board like a shipwrecked sailor in distress, waving wildly.
He surfed elegantly over to me and asked over the spray: “What’s wrong?” I yelled desperately: “I can’t get back, the wind keeps turning me around!” He asked: “How long have you been surfing?” I shouted: “Today is my second day!”
The guy threw his hands up in disbelief right in the middle of the water: “Are you completely crazy?! This is weather for experienced windsurfers today, absolutely not for beginners!”
Then the real Texan came out again. When it came to my life, I wouldn’t let myself be lectured. I yelled back at him over the whipping wind: “Be quiet, shut your mouth! Just tell me and help me figure out how to get back!”
Fortunately, the pro stayed cool: “Stand on the board, I want to see what you’re doing.” Every time I steered toward the beach toward my wife, the wind dragged me back toward the open ocean. Then the local gave me the all-decisive, golden tip: “You have to pull the boom toward you really fast!”
I didn’t hesitate for a second and executed it immediately—and boom! It worked!
On the second day of my life on a surfboard, I understood the physics of wind in a storm. I tacked, held the course, and surfed—without using a harness—back and forth in the wild storm like a god alongside the pros, making it safely back to the beach!
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Shadows Over the Wall – My secret escapes to the East, the eerie ghost stations, and survival in a divided city.
Nine Hours Through Hell – A merciless race against time and nature that pushed us to our absolute limits.
Breath of Death – A nerve-wracking fight for survival where every second counts and breath stops.
The Storm – When nature unleashes its untamed power: A dramatic experience amidst the storm.
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