A short trip along the Kieler Forde

Today, Jo speaks.

Some may say that I have been silent for too long, others may say 'shut up already' (Rob)!

The weather forecasts have been suggesting high winds so we decided to stay almost put. Kiel itself is a big sprawling port city, and whilst the marina we were in was perfectly pleasant we decided a move to somewhere a little further on and away from the big city would suit us better, so on Tuesday we set off for the 5 mile trip to Laboe,  

After tying up to a convenient finger pontoon (yes really) we took a stroll around this pleasant seaside town with its sandy beach, waterfront cafes and U-boat!

The photos below are of U-995, built in 1943 in Hamburg she operated from Norway against allied convoys supplying the Soviet Union.  She was surrendered to the British after 8 May 1945, transferred to the Norwegian navy and finally returned to Germany when decommissioned in 1962.

U-995

Specifications

U-995 and  the 72 metre Mariners Memorial

Torpedo chambers

                                                                                                       

The memorial has 341 steps to reach the upper viewing platform. Lifts are also available...

View from the top looking towards the marina

The monument has had a number of different dedications since it was completed in 1936. The current, and I hope enduring one simply says:

'Memorial for all those who died at sea and for peaceful navigation in free waters.'

                                                   

We have statyed here a little longer than we intended as we are waiting for charts to be delivered for the next leg of our trip, but that's no great hardship!  The town is pleasant with cafes, bars and a good supermarket.  Thursday 14th was a holiday in Germany and we found the marina quite busy with a lot more boats out and about on the water too..   The town was also busy with groups of young guys pushing around trolleys containing music systems and beer!  Hmmm!

We finished the day with drinks and supper on Cyclone with Mike and Kate, a couple we met along the pontoon. A very pleasant evening! 

We're in the Baltic!!

Oh yes.

We're in the Baltic.

That's the Baltic Sea.

B-A-L-T-I-C.

Not the English Channel (La Manche! Tssk - the French! Such wags!) but the one bordered by Denmark, Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden and Norway (remember that lot Abigail and you're sure to impress your teacher!).

The Baltic (thanks Imray!)

We're in it and we got here in our own boat.

Pleased with ourselves? Nah!! (Well maybe a little...).

We're now in Dusternbrook marina in the Kieler Forde, having motored (you have to) through the Kiel Canal in two stages - Brunsbuttel to Rendsburg (37 miles) and then Rendsberg to Holtenau (17 miles). 

The canal itself is quite boring with few significant landmarks. The pictures below are typical.

Kiel Canal. The only ship to pass us.

We did see a few coming the other way though

Some of the bridges were quite impressive

A typical view of the canal

3 long, loud and very deep blasts and then this appeared! 

Poor souls, missing out on so much in their air conditioned luxury....

Transporter bridge near Rendsberg. Trains go over the top and cars swing from the white cradle slung underneath it.

The white cradle is pictured bottom right

Because there are no tides in the Baltic or the Kiel canal, boats don't need to tie up to pontoons that float up and down with the water. Instead, they commonly tie up in box moorings. The "box" is made up of two posts to which you tie the stern of your boat and a pontoon that you approach with your bow.

"All" you have to do is pass a line from your stern cleat over the windward post (the post that is upwind from you ) as you pass it; kick fenders over once past the posts (there's not usually room between them for your fenders to be hanging down as you pass); and then stop before you T-bone the pontoon. Your crew then deftly leaps ashore and secures a line from the windward side of the bow to a post (or other type of fitting). Then you just shuffle the boat backwards to put a line from the other side of your stern over the second post, before taking a further line to the pontoon from the other side of the bow.

Simples? Yeh, right! Hard enough for us box mooring novices at the best of times - even without the 22 knot crosswind gust that materialised just as we attempted our first box mooring at Rendsburg! Perhaps more by luck than judgement (and with a bit of help from a little old lady on the pontoon - a tough old bird as it happened!) we tied up ok.

The line of empty box moorings alongside our own at Rendsburg

You just tie to the posts...

.... and then to the pontoon.

Rendsburg has some very old buildings and a convenient shopping centre but didn't really inspire us. This is the only picture we took:

An inn dating from the 16th century

Leaving the mooring at Rendsburg wasn't much easier than tying up, but we were soon back in the canal and heading for the locks at Holtenau. As it was a Sunday, there was quite a bit of small boat traffic and they put us in the big lock this time.

Approaching the lock at Holtenau

Once again, the pontoons in the locks were at almost water level, making fending off (and getting on and off for the more vertically challenged!) really quite difficult. Jo got a round of applause from onlookers after she finally managed to climb back on board!

Put your back into it girl! Keep that boat away from the pontoon!!

Looking back towards the lock gate

Our first view of the Baltic - to the left of the sliding lock gate

Kielder Forde. The Baltic Sea!

Cyclone tied up in her second box mooring. The tranquility of the picture belies the shouting, cursing and general pandemonium associated with our arrival!

So our task today is to get a new electronic chart for the boat's plotter and a couple of other bits before we head off towards Aero, an island off the coast of Denmark.

Unless we change our minds, of course!

We've made it to the Kiel Canal!!

Yes, we're finally in the Kiel Canal - or more correctly, the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal - which links the River Elbe to the Baltic Sea. In just 54 miles we'll be in the Baltic!!

If that doesn't sound exciting to you, it is to us. It's a landmark in itself, but it also means goodbye to tides for a few months! Theoretically at least, that also means goodbye to 0430 alarm calls!!

We left Helgoland at, er, 0515 after our (last for a while we hope!) 0430 alarm call. After our experience on the last trip, we made sure that we would have loads of tide in hand to sweep us up the Elbe to Brunsbuttel at the western end of the canal. It was a lumpy trip as far as the entrance to the Elbe - we had a F6 behind us - but it soon smoothed out once we entered the river. With the tide behind us we topped 9 knots over the ground at times, reaching the locks at the entry to the canal by about 1315.

I can have him...... (OK, so he got past eventually - but he had his engine on!!)

Now the locks at Brunsbuttel are a bit bigger than those at Port Solent or Chichester Marinas and I don't mind admitting to a little pre-lock nerves! In practice, apart from the issue of the very low pontoons, it was all drama free. There was no turbulence and we didn't even notice the water level changing.

Some of our lock-mates were a bit bigger than us!

Check out the height of those pontoons!

Once through the lock ,we just had to turn hard left to find our harbour for the next 3 nights. It was only going to be 2, but at 8 euros per night (yes really! And that included electricity) I just had to stay longer!

Our mooring gave us excellent views of the comings and goings at the lock. The 2 pictures below were actually taken from our boat (as you can tell by the guard rails across them!).

A ship entering the lock at Brunsbuttel...

..... and another leaving

The ships using the canal are massive compared to the yachts. The rules say we are to keep out of their way. Like we wouldn't?!!

Most of the time we've been really lucky with the weather and our photos often feature blue skys. Yesterday, however, we experienced the most violent thunderstorm I've ever known, with very strong wind and lightening flashes only seconds apart. Fortunately the centre of it was some way off and we were safely tied up in Brunsbuttel. We really felt for anyone out at sea in that. Even in the canal, the rain and hail was so intense that visibility was no more than 50m.

We were glad to be on board when this lot came through. 

Clearly Brunsbuttel's main claim to fame is its location at the entrance to the canal. There are viewing platforms that enable you to get really close to the ships in the locks and the Schleusenmuseum provides technical details of the locks as well as historical information.

Unfortunately a ship had rammed the lock nearest to the viewing platforms prior to our visit (there are 4 in total) and it's still out of action. We can still see plently from our berth though - including the repaired lock gate being towed between two huge tugs into the lock itself.

Cyclone on her berth, taken from the lock viewing platform.

The lock from the same platform. The large black rectangular things mid picture are the lock gates

The next customers lining up for the lock...

... and going in

Brunsbuttel has an old town centre which is actually set a little away from the current one. This boasts an 18th century church set on a green and surrounded by houses of a similar age - and a pub known as the Lord Nelson!

The Lord Nelson

An Irish Pub!

Brunsbuttel  has a Civil Servants' Quarter which was erected for civil servants and canal pilots during the construction of the Kiel Canal. The houses were built in the style of English Garden Cities (hurrah!) with gardens for the cultivation of fruit and vegetables. It's a really pleasant residential area as it turns out.

Anyway, 8 euros a night or not, tomorrow we need to make progress. We intend to head up to Rendsburg which is about 37 miles east of here and will probably stay there a couple of nights before venturing out into the Baltic Sea itself.

Yeehar!!

Hindsight, hindsight, hindsight.........

If only we'd left at 0200 instead of 0500. If only......

See that thing in the photo below (it marks the end of the training wall at the entrance/exit to the Borkum harbour)? So did we. For a couple of hours. Maybe more.

Dolphin at the entrance to Borkum Harbour

You see, I knew the tide would be against us for the first 10 miles as we left Borkum. And I knew it would be about 2 knots against us. I also knew there was a fair chance that the wind would be coming from the direction we needed to go. And that it can get pretty choppy in the approach to Borkum.

But getting up at 0430 is bad enough. Getting up at 0130 doesn't sound very attractive at all!

Maybe the wind will be favourable after all. Forecasts aren't always accurate. And even if we have to motor we should make 5 knots through the water so, with an adverse tide of 2 knots, that's 3 knots over the ground - not too bad, And maybe the tide won't be that strong anyway? It's not that long after low water...

Well the wind was against us. And it was choppy (very!). And the tide was actually more than 2 knots against us!

So how long did it take to cover those first 10 miles? 2 hours? 3 hours? Make that about 5 hours!! And by the time we'd tacked backwards and forwards and done our best to motorsail, it was more like 20 miles through the water!

To cap it all, we were so long reaching the point where we were due to turn east towards Helgoland that the tide was against us when we did!

The result? A journey that should have been 80 miles ended up being 96 through the water (about 110 land miles) and took 17 hours.

We arrived in Helgoland well after dark to be greated by a busy harbour and a requirement to raft to another boat. Having made fast to one boat, a head popped up through the hatch to announce that we were welcome to stay but they were leaving at 0600 - so we'd have to be up by then to move our boat. We elected to raft to another boat instead and turned in exhausted.

You've guessed it!! At 0515 there was a loud knock on our boat as the inside boat wanted to leave (there were 4 in our raft). Arrgghhh!!!

Next time we're getting up at 0130! Or maybe we just shouldn't have set off on a Friday?!

Is he reading that or asleep? The sailing once we'd escaped Borkum was actually very pleasant.

You lot don't scare us. We're sailing across right in front of you (so long as you keep your anchors down!)

So, rant over, what of Helgoland itself? Well, it's described as Germany's only high-sea island. It's a huge red sandstone rock that towers 61m above the waves some 70km off the German mainland. "... an oasis of peace and tranquility...... an exceptional nature reserve shaped by the mighty sea, by its unique flora and fauna and by its mild Gulf Stream climate."

It actually comprises of 2 islands - the 1km sandstone island and a 0.7km island known as Dune. In 1720 a storm surge swept away the stretch of land between them.

It apparently has air that is richer in iodine and oxygen than anywhere else in Germany - even right at the top of the Alps the air contains more dust particles than on Helgoland. So it's a popular health spa. There are no cars (only a few small electric commercial vehicles) and, best of all, no bicycles allowed! So far so good.

The harbour with the colourful fisherman's workshops - many of which are now shops

But it's also a duty free island that gets swamped by day trippers seeking cheap alcohol, perfume and cigarettes.

Day tripper boat in Helgoland. Customers were ferried to it in shall open boats.

That wouldn't be so bad if they didn't want to drink it and smoke them in noisy enclaves in the town centre! It seemed like nearly everyone was carrying a can or bottle and smoking a fag whilst wandering about or sitting next to their noisy ghetto blasters (wirelesses, mum!).

So Helgoland is really a place of 2 halves. The town is best avoided if you enjoy a bit of peace and tranquility (or want to buy anything that doesn't fall into the above categories!). The clifftop walk, on the other hand, is stunning.

Looking over towards Dune from the clifftop walk

A tall thing with lots of stuff on it according to Jo, who knows about these things

10,000 sea birds breed here, including Kittiwakes, Razor-bills, Herring gulls, Gannets and Guillemots

Jo at the top. (She's been away a while........)

Gannets....

... which look beautifully white and clean, but boy do they pong!!

"Lange Anna". The only free standing rock column - or stack - in Germany

Despite it's natural beauty, Helgoland was the place we've liked least on the trip so far. The harbour was uncomfortable with the boat rolling; squeaking fenders and jerking on her lines. We weren't sorry to leave it behind.