Fairy-tale-like, yet not invented. "In the middle of his life, in the summer of 1981, the waiter Paul Gompitz from Rostock decides to travel to Syracuse on the island of Sicily. The way to Italy is blocked by the highest and most annoying border in the world, and Gompitz has no idea yet of how to break through it. He only knows that he has to overcome the walls and wires twice because he wants to return to Rostock no matter what, if the adventure should succeed." Thus begins F. C. Delius' chronicle of a modern Schwejkiade. In June 1988, Gompitz manages to sail from Hiddensee to Denmark in a small boat. Delius recounts the hardships of the preparations, the persistence with which Gompitz learned to sail, camouflaged his boat, smuggled money to the West, and how he found clever tricks to outsmart the dangers, always a bit smarter than the state security. Simply asserting his right to do so.