Out of the Baltic

With some sadness we saw the lock doors at Kiel Holtenau close behind us this morning. It means the entry to the Kiel Canal and therefore we have left the Baltic. But the thought that we'll be back here next year makes it easy to carry on!

We were fortunate in that a group of yachts were allowed into the 'small lock' together with a coaster (a smallish sea going vessel). Usually they don't allow yachts when they use the small lock for 'big ships'.
The ensuing trip to Rendsburg, which - from this side - is one third of the way down the canal was as usual: interesting but uneventful. You see a number of big ships either coming towards you or passing you, but as they go relatively slowly there are few waves and its no hassle.
We stopped at the Rendsburg Sailing Club, a harbour known by most Baltic crews. It has good facilities, reasonable WiFi and a nice restaurant where we treated ourselves to a 'meal ashore'.

From here its about 5 hours to Brunsbüttel where we enter the Elbe. To Otterndorf it is only 9 miles from Brunsbüttel, but a tricky stretch it is: the Elbe is a very tidal river and you have to go to Ottendorf on the outgoing tide. But the prevailing Westerly winds will create a very nasty steep chop against that tide if they are more than about 10 knots. So we need relatively light winds for that stretch and at the moment it looks like that will not happen before Tuesday or Wednesday. And as Rendsburg is a much better place than Brunsbüttel to wait for the weather, we might be here for a few days, which is no problem.

If there is no news tomorrow, there might not be a blog post. But before we start moving again, I'll let you know!

Location:Rendsburg