Now however, summer has really struck. The last three days have been sunny and increasingly hot, with 34C today. So we have all windows, the roof and all three sides of the cockpit tent open. And we are in summer wear:
Yesterday, we finished the Elbe - Lübeck Canal and got to Lauenburg, today we went down the Elbe to Hamburg. Now I need to talk a bit about German 'boat drivers', especially motor boats. We get on well with the Germans we speak to on a one-to-one basis. They are friendly, courteous and accept our attempts at their language gracefully. But if you put a few of them behind the wheel of a boat, beware!
First case: you may remember from the previous post that they have a 'convoy system' in place in the Elbe - Lübeck canal. That means that when you get out of the lock, you all calmly move at the maximum speed to the next lock in sort of an orderly fashion, right? WRONG! What you do is when you get out of the lock, try to get to the front of the convoy so that you can get the best place in the next lock. By the way, there is NO 'best place'. The lock is big enough to accommodate all of us comfortably. The result however is that the whole convoy goes FASTER than the maximum speed. The keeper of the next lock knows at what time the convoy is expected (the lock keepers communicate) and he'll keep his lock closed until the appointed time. So now the whole convoy wants to tie up, to wait for the lock.... But wait, there is not a lot of space to tie up in front of the lock and we all want the BEST place (which does not exist). So lots of aggro. Not for us, we move at the maximum speed, get to the lock last, see all the moving for position in front of us, move into the lock last, find a good place and smile at the people. We are 'ONBEKOMMERD'.
Second case: it's a nice, warm, summer Sunday. So all of Hamburg is out on the Elbe. In their big, fast, motorboats. No speed limit (this is after all also the country with no speed limit on lots of motorways). "I'll show you that my boat is faster than yours". Lots of boats going fast nowhere and back. The waves on the river are bigger than on many a crossing in the Baltic.
So the German motorboat skippers as a group have not endeared themselves to us. We'll see how it goes the next week or two on our way back to Holland. But if this is a taste of what's to come, visiting Berlin in the future will be by train.....
As we left Lauenburg early-ish this morning, it was still quiet on the river. We followed the channel, which is indicated by markers on the shore:
When you see one of those, it's time to cross to the other bank.
By 10:30 we got to the big lock at Geesthacht, only to see the lights go to red about 2 minutes before we got there. I quickly called the lock master on the VHF to ask politely if could still join, but he wanted nothing of that. So almost 2 hours later we got into the lock with 3 big commercial ships and another 5 or so pleasure craft (sportboote, they call us):
That seriously messed up our route plan, now we had the tide against us for the last 10 miles or so and could only make 4.5 instead of 7.5 knots over the ground.
When we got to Hamburg, this ship was also there:
But they were worried we had pirates on board:
Anyway, we are tied up in the Hamburg City Marina after a long and hectic day. The marina is ideally situated if you want to visit either the city centre or the red light district (Reeperbahn), neither of which we want to do. Otherwise, up till now, it's noisy and because it's right in the harbour without any protection, the boat is rolling as if we are at sea. Really, we have partly prepared the boat for a crossing whilst we are in port!
The plan is to leave early tomorrow, by 7 at the latest, on the outgoing tide and see if we can make Otterndorf. If not, there is a plan B as well, Glückstadt.
Location:Baumwall,Hamburg,Germany
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