A day in Kappeln

As mentioned in the previous post, the weather 'out there' is not all that attractive, but much more promising for a few days from tomorrow. But Maasholm, although not unpleasant, has not a great deal to offer, so we moved back up the Schlei just for a couple of miles, back to Kappeln where we also stopped a few days ago.
Kappeln is nice, the local harbour consists of 32 berths where you moor in boxes, bow to the quayside and tie onto two poles at the back. This is it, seen from the water:





And from the shore:





Looks simple, but it isn't! The water is the Schlei, a 40KM long fjord. When the winds are westerly, the water blows out of the fjord, into the Baltic. When it's an easterly, obviously the other way around. The difference in level can easily be 30cm up or down, as can be seen from the barnacles on the mooring post behind Onbekommerd:





The problem is, that all of this brings with it a pretty significant current of sometimes a knot or more (for landlubbers: a knot is a nautical mile per hour, a nautical mile is 1852m). The effect when you try to enter a box is that you are pushed sideways by say 0.5 m/sec. So you aim for the middle of the box and there is no way of avoiding being pushed onto the pole! And the slower you move forward, the worse the sideways component of your combined movement becomes..... All of this produces the "Kappeln harbour entertainment". The tourists along the boulevard stand and watch how yachts have several tries to get into the box and the boat tied up. And the successful yachtsmen run around to help others. One is only at ease when both boxes next door are occupied and there is no more risk that an unsuspecting prospective neighbour will charge into you. Fortunately, the boxes are separated by ropes to reduce the chance of damage. When we first arrived here a few days ago, we helped to provide the entertainment quite well, yesterday was a bit better, but there is no way avoiding touching the poles. Everyone does and laughs about it. Fortunately, you see little or no damage and also Onbekommerd is unscathed.

Once tied up, you can walk the old stairs into the town itself:





There is good shopping, and you also see this:





A large fish smoking outfit. We treated ourselves for lunch:





A beautiful, fat, smoked eel. Once it had been cleaned, it tasted wonderful on fresh rolls:





Now Lyn is playing the piano in the 'studio':





And I am about to clean the bilge.....

Finally, these days with on-board Internet via the iPad, communications are so easy! Apart from blog posts and emails, yesterday we communicated with Sean in London via Skype IM and with Greg in Cape Town via iMessage. It all goes over the mobile phone network, many yacht harbours advertise that they have wifi, but so far we have found that few of those work well enough to use them on board. So the iPad with the German 3G card is a blessing, it works everywhere. We get 3Gigabyte for a month for €25, I have only used 1GB so far with heavy iPad usage. The only drawback is that it won't allow VOIP (that's voice over Internet), so normal Skype does not work, only the message facility. And then there is the Kindle to read books. Yesterday, before we left Maasholm (where the wifi was good), We quickly downloaded a few books as Lyn had run out of reading material. Many books (all of Dickens' works for instance) are even free!
Modern communication devices make our way of living a lot easier.

We'll have to get a Danish card for the iPad when we get to Sönderborg tomorrow. That will be the fifth one.....

Still Maasholm

We are still in Maasholm. The plan was to go to Sönderborg today, but at 7 this morning it was already raining and the visibility was poor. In better known waters we would have made the trip, but the Baltic is a 'real sea' and we don't know it enough at this stage to take any risks. So we stayed put. It rained all day and it was cold as well. Comfortable inside, so no worries. And the bakery was open on Sunday, so we had fresh rolls for lunch. The only slightly bad moment was when the owner of our guest berth came back and demanded his spot. He had forgotten to put up a sign indicating he would return today, as is customary. So we had to start the engine and move the boat to another vacant berth. In the rain, of course.

The weather for tomorrow does not look all that inviting either. Maybe a little less rain, but possibly more wind than we like. We'll see tomorrow morning. If we can't go 'out to sea', we might go back up the Schlei to Kappeln as Maasholm is very small and has extremely limited shopping whilst we need some provisions.

In the meantime, here are a few pictures we took on our walk last night. Note the nice sunshine!

Maasholm.

We are back at the mouth of the Schlei. Well, almost: at the actual mouth, there is a harbour called Schleimünde, which is small and in a bird sanctuary but also very unprotected from strong winds. As we were expecting some bad weather and also needed to to some shopping, we stopped in Maasholm, which is just a mile or two short of the mouth but is well protected and has (as we have discovered) one small 'supermarket'.

At the start of the 20 odd mile trip, we still saw some signs of Vikings:






There is an abundance of jellyfish here in the harbour. The neighbours think they are a pest, but Lyn got this nice shot:





We may leave tomorrow morning, but quite possibly we'll stay another day. The next port is likely to be Sønderborg, our first Danish port. That will require a Danish SIM card for the iPad as well as Danish Kroner (they don't use Euros). Arriving on a Saturday afternoon may not be the best option in respect of that and also the weather on Sunday morning may be a bit better. We'll decide tomorrow morning, but if there is no blogpost for a few days, it may well be because we are without an Internet connection. I must say that the German T Mobile card has served us exceptionally well, we have had excellent connections since Greetsiel on 31 May. The only problem has been that it blocks VOIP, so no Skype. We hope to get a good solution in Denmark as well.

The Vikings at Hedeby

Between 1200 and 1000 years ago, there was a town called Hedeby, at the end of the Schlei, just across from the present day Schleswig. It was a Viking town, built to facilitate the trade between the Baltic and the North Sea. This is because from this place it is only 18 KM to the Treene river which, via the Eider river runs into the North Sea. It is therefore the easiest trade route, bypassing the long and dangerous sea route around Jutland. An ideal place to build a trading post. Between 870 and 1050, Hedeby grew to be the biggest city in North Europe. In 1050, and again in 1066, the town was sacked and eventually totally destroyed. The town of Schleswig was built a few KM North of its site. Rising waters destroyed what remained and the existence was completely forgotten until the 20th century, when archeological excavations unearthed very significant amounts of Viking artefacts, building materials, graves and even a complete Viking ship. There now is a very interesting museum nearby and on the actual site of Hedeby, a number of Viking houses have been reconstructed.







We cycled to Hedeby from our berth at Schleswig, a 6KM ride. It is midsummer's day today, 21 June, and it was sunny and relatively warm (maybe 20C). When we got back, the wind started to get stronger, up to over 20 Knots (6 Bft). We had already planned to stay here. Tomorrow we'll go down the Schlei again, probably to Maasholm and from there see when the weather is suitable to go to our first Danish port.

Schleswig

It took three and a half hours to calmly motor up the Schlei to the 'end', at Scheswig. There has been a settlement here since 840 BC. The best landmark now is the 'Dom', the cathedral. Even the pilot tells you to head for the Dom, once you get to a certain mark (80 / Haddeby 1, to be exact).

From that mark, it looks like this:





And this is the inside of the Dom:





As many of the towns here, Schleswig has a 'pedestrian area', which means a street full of shops. This is useful when you need supplies, but otherwise not very attractive.
On the other hand, there are also streets like this:






We have not seen any Vikings yet (see yesterday's post), but there is a Viking Museum a short cycle ride away, which we'll visit tomorrow.

Location:Am Hafen,Schleswig,Germany

Kappeln

After spending a day in Laboe, we did our first 'Baltic crossing' today. It was a nice quiet day, very little wind and a sea that was for the most part pretty flat. We set course to Schleimünde, the mouth of the Schlei, which is a fjord-like river or a river-like fjord, depending on which pilot you read.
First you pass Kiel lighthouse:





And some 20 miles later, in a NW direction, you get to the Schlei lighthouse:






We motored on to the town of Kappeln, an old fishing town turned quite touristy. You tie up right on the towns quayside:






As you can see, we are quite far North, we were a bit more East yesterday: Laboe is at 10 degrees 14 minutes East.


One of the attractions of Kappeln for the boating fraternity is a shop called Prätorius. If you prove you are on a boat (with your official Certificate of Ownership), you can enter an area where you can buy low cost beer etc. With prices of alcohol sky high in Scandinavia, many boats stock up here. So we joined the trend:






Tomorrow, we plan to move up to the 'head' of the Schlei, the town of Schleswig, which has a Viking history.

Baltic!

This morning, we started (after buying 150 l of diesel) with the second part of the Kiel Canal. The shipping was a bit busier than yesterday, at one time we met a convoy of 4 big ships:





A bit after midday, we got to the lock at Kiel Holtenau. There was a one hour wait and then we finally moved into the Kieler Förde, the entrance (for us) to the Baltic. Immediately, the atmosphere changes, even the colour of the light is a bit different, it seems. This is the first impression:





As it happens, it is Kiel Week, the biggest regatta week in Europe. Not only are there lots of races, for classes from Optimists to 60 foot yachts, it is also a big sailing spectacle with participation of numerous square riggers as a highlight. We had to manoeuvre our way through all sorts of craft (including ocean going vessels on their way to Kiel or the locks).






Although it is very busy in all ports around here, we managed to find a place in our 'first choice' marina in Laboe, a fishing town at the mouth of the Kieler Förde. We went for a walk and found a fruit stall on the market where we bought an entire basket full of fruit for €10 (including the basket itself!). We'll be having lots of 'smoothies' the next few days. We tend to buy fresh food at least every 2 days and live quite healthily as a result.





We will stay here tomorrow and plan to go North thereafter.

Location:Fördewanderweg,Laboe,Germany