Today we took the ferry from Laboe to Kiel. Its a nice one hour trip, during which the boat stops at about 5 different places. It takes you right from our harbour to the centre of Kiel for 4 Euros. Pretty good we thought!
The purpose of the trip was to see what Kiel looks like but also to buy some stuff for the boat. Quite simple stuff, like prop shaft grease.
According to the Pilot (the book that tells you everything about sailing in the Baltic), there is a 'large and well stocked chandlery in the Kiel city centre'. So we asked the Tourist Information and they told us there was a small shop in town and a big one a few KM away. So we first went to the small one. We asked for what we needed, whereupon the owner tried to sell us winch grease. When I explained that this was way to specialised for what we needed, he started a long diatribe which boiled down to telling us that the reason he was so poorly stocked was not him, the shop owner, but us, the customers who buy things through the internet. Well, with that attitude it is no wonder that there is no 'large and well stocked chandlery' in Kiel anymore for the thousands of yachts that arrive here and cannot even buy things through the internet!
So we went to the big shop instead. It was big indeed, but 75% was clothing and the rest mainly expensive bottles of boat cleaning materials. The prop shaft grease was only available in very small (250g) containers of dubious specification. Again the manager was most unhelpful. When we needed something in Denmark a few months ago, everyone went out of their way to help us. Not here: take it or leave it.
Add to that the queue jumping to get on and off the ferry and we wish we were back in Denmark or Sweden again! Just a different people. See my post about the Elbe - Lübeck canal last year. The Germans (and I dont want to generalise but it feels like it) see everything like a competition that they have to win!
Anyway, the ferry ride was nice, we treated ourselves to lunch in Kiel and still enjoyed the day. Our plan is to enter the Kiel Canal tomorrow and get as far as Rendsburg. From memory there is reasonable WiFi there, so there might be a blog past tomorrow again.
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