The Kiel Canal

On 19 June Gordon and I arrived in Kiel at the Baltic end of the Kiel Canal where I wanted to leave the boat to come home for a couple of weeks. We were very lucky to find a berth;  it turned out to be the local race week and Kiel being the Baltic equivalent of our Cowes week was chocker block booked. Happily we did manage to find a berth 10 miles from the city center.

We had an interesting time getting in. It was blowing about 20 knots and I was allocated a berth a little way up an alley of posts. How they do it here is to park between two of a line of posts that run parallel to the pontoon, you then swing the boat between two of the posts and moor with the boats bows to the pontoon and secured at the stern on the posts. Unfortunately they neglected to tell me that the width between the two lines of posts was 15 meters – the length of my boat is 13.5 – a tad tight. It did look tight but doable – right up to the moment when I swung my bows in towards the posts and realised that the strength of the wind against the bow was simply not going to let the boat turn fast enough to get between the boats – I hit the brakes. I now had a problem. I had an umpteen point turn to do with a little under a meter of room at each end of the boat with 20 knots of wind making it quite clear who was in charge! To cut a  long and somewhat stressful story short I did manage to do my u turn and get out of the trot to retire to a much easier berth to access.  The boat was secure and it was time to sample Kiel.

The up side of the lack of parking in race week was that it was party time in Kiel. There were bands playing in every square and stalls selling every food and drink imaginable. This was an interesting smoked fish stand, cooked to order! 

And of course no party would be complete here without a German beer tent and a fellow dressed in his lederhosen and playing the accordion – knees up Mother Brown ( or some German equivalent!)

 After a lovely couple of weeks at home with Melanie I am back on the boat with Chris, an Australian friend. Chris is originally from  Germany but emigrated to Australia 30 odd years ago so with a crew who spoke the lingo perhaps my days of guessing what the milk was and what was in the sausages were over?!

The first part of our trip was going to be through the Kiel Canal. The Canal, built in 1887, is a 50 mile short cut from the North Sea to the Baltic. It is a big canal having been widened to 100 meters just before the first world war to take Dreadnought battleships. There are locks at both ends of the canal to cope with the small tidal differences between the Baltic and the North Sea. Locks I had done before but these were something else – they were huge, but then the canal was built for some serious ocean going traffic! Moored alongside the wall with a container ship towering over us we were lifted the few feet  to the same level as the North Sea and we set off into the canal. 

We found a pretty lay bye for the night, one of those idyllic anchorage surrounded by mill pond calm water and trees – what I hadn’t counted on was the autobahn than ran over our heads just a few hundred yards away – so much for lonely peaceful anchorages!

All along the canal were little ferries carrying people and cars. Here was an interesting piece of German ingenuity using a railway bridge to sling the 'ferry' underneath - neat!

We were against the wind so were motoring - it can be such hard work - Chris chilling at the wheel!

We motored 30 miles on our second day to another anchorage (carefully chosen to avoid the autobahn) then headed ashore on our bikes to explore a little bit of this part of Germany with its inhabitants living in some interesting places - a very regal looking pair of storks had found some prime real estate. 

We came across this wonderful windmill in a builders merchants yard that, although much altered inside, does still work today. The owner allowed the adventurous to clamber up inside the mill and have a look around. Judging by the layers of dust not many people had taken him up on his invitation! What a wonderful machine; huge wooden beams, a gigantic 8’ diameter wooden drive wheel attached to the rotor blades drive shaft and the mechanism to keep the whole shooting match turned into the wind – all still in some sort of working order. An engineers delight! This is the gear at the top of the windmill with the main shaft running through the centre.

The ceilings housed several families of young Swallows. Notice how the nest is  not sat on a ledge but ‘glued’ onto the end of a spar. The mother bird sticks little mud balls together with saliva to make the nest thus avoiding the ravages of  rats hunting in the eaves.

On the way home we met this young bride and groom in front of some farm buildings. I hope Hubby is happy with her, I found her a little prickly.

We are now sat storm bound in Cruxhaven at the mouth of the river Elbe having left the canal yesterday. There is a force 8 blowing outside and enormous cacophony of squeaking ropes and rattling rigging is serenading us! We spent the day exploring Bremerhaven, 20 miles up the Elbe by train. The boys in the RAF gave this whole area a real pasting at the start of the war as this is the only small stretch of German coast on the North Sea (and of course the locks of the canal took a pounding) so there is almost nothing left post war which makes the towns and cities rather characterless.

The wind is forecast to moderate tomorrow so we hope to head for the Frisian island - the land of Erskin Childers 'Riddle of the Sands'.