Not a very 'productive' day

We have decided that we'll continue to write a blogpost every day, even if we don't have a connection to upload them. Then we can post them when we can and the 'story' still continues.

The plan ( of us and a whole lot of Dutch, German and one Swedish boat(s)) was to go through the Brunsbüttel lock at around 2 to pick up the start of the outgoing tide. Most of the yachts want to go to Cuxhaven or even 'out to sea', to Helgoland, Norderney, Vlieland or even Vlissingen. For us the target was less ambitious: Otterndorf before 5pm so that we could still get through the lock into the Geeste. Otterndorf is only 9 miles from Brunsbüttel, so what can be easier? WRONG. In the past one could count on things working in Germany but this is no longer the case: of the 4 lock chambers in Brunsbüttel, 3 are 'out of order'. Not really surprising, the whole setup looks very poorly maintained. The result is that they have to 'load' the lock with a combination of commercial and pleasure traffic every time which causes serious delays for everyone. So the 2pm lockage only finished at 4 and we got to Otterndorf at 5:30. No problem really, the little lock here is planned to operate at 10am. That means that we won't make it to Bremerhaven tomorrow as it is an 8 hour stretch. But we have enough time and the forecast for the 'Bremerhaven to Wilhelmshaven via Fedderwardersiel' trip a day later is also fine! The only slightly frustrating thing is that we messed around for a day with only 10.5 miles 'on the clock' to show for it.

Here are some pictures taken in the lock:








And the Otterndorf light at sunset:

Location:Otterndorf