Saturday 17th July 2004 Tangermünde to Wittenberge.

Tangermunde - photo by burgerbe

14.5°C Sunny and warm at last. It didn’t stay dry though, we had a thunderstorm and heavy rain at 11 p.m. We were up at seven again to get moving for eight. Bill went into the basin to wind while we untied and winded in the mouth of the harbour before setting off downstream again. Mike had put the pins in to run the Markon so I could do some washing. Sat out briefly for a cup of coffee at 8.50 a.m. Did the ironing and put a second load in the washer. A blue hulled boat heading uphill wasn’t a police boat as we’d thought at first, but a sleek cruiser called Aquarius. Mike called me to look at a bird and I just saw the tail feathers of a

Beautiful white tailed eagle by panda.org

very large bird of prey carrying off a large fish, flying off over the forest (first glimpse of a white-tailed eagle!). A large open cruiser speed boat came roaring up behind us, slowed off and then overtook us on the wrong side! We passed the second tethered ferry of the day at KP 416 Sandau. It was busy carrying cars back and forth across the Elbe. We went past it while it was unloading on the right bank and Bill managed to pass it too, but the cruiser behind him had to stop and go back up river to pass it on the other side as it set off across the river just after Bill had passed it. There were lots of geese all

Eider duck by wiki tony higsett

along the river’s edge and lapwings on the banks. A speed boat called Bora went upstream near KP 418, passing us at over 30 kph - he was the first of quite a few weekend pleasure boaters with very big, very fast boats coming upriver at high speed. At KP 419 I watched an enormous hare lolloping along the water’s edge, taking absolutely no notice at all of the waterborne traffic. Washing finished, Mike took the pins out as a cruiser called Le Clou (the nail in French) overtook us and then stopped midstream to watch the next tethered ferry at KP 422. A small fishing boat went upstream and two fishermen waved. Bill said they were FKK (nudists) but we hadn’t noticed! A small speed boat came upriver on the right hand side and then the ferry set off after he’d gone past, so we took the left hand side of the mooring post in the middle of the river, following the cruiser (who had stopped in mid-river to assess

Sandau ferry by Wiki Ulamm

the situation). The cruiser turned off on to the Havel shortly afterwards. A flock of large black and white birds dropped down on to the river some distance away from us. Bill asked over VHF if they were Eider. I had to get my bird book out to confirm it. Male Eiders do congregate in large groups at this time of year, so they could well have been Eider ducks. A yacht under sail went past heading upriver at KP 427 at the end of a big sweeping left hand bend. Mike asked Bill on VHF if he should have a black cone hoisted as he was motor assisted. Bill said he didn’t know. (I read later that one of the things the WSP are very hot on is sail boats running with sails out and

Panorama of river Elbe nr Wittenberge - Wikimedia nightshift

engines going - they must hoist a black cone to indicate they are motoring) This one was showing a black cone, but he’d not hoisted it very far above his gunwales! We had lunch on

Elbe nr Wittenberge - Wikimedia nightshift

the move. A very fast downhill cruiser caused a lot of wash which sent a wave down our port side gunwale and sploshed through the two open sliding windows - luckily not much went on the TV, Hi-fi or computer! We passed the end of the Havel channel, which is called the Gnevsdorfer Vorfluter, and is navigable in summer. Another fast cruiser came flying upriver Beluga passed us at KP 439, followed by Sonja at KP 444. My turn to spot an interesting bird, another bar headed goose, normally natives of India, there are a few of them about which are escapees from zoos and wildlife parks. A cruiser called Luetje overtook us and turned into the basin at Wittenberge, KP 449, where we were going too. The floating pontoon we’d

Wittenberge haven - wikimedia nightshift

used for free before was now occupied by boats of the Nedwighafen, and had new electricity posts and water taps. We cruised down to the end of the harbour and were told we could moor at the back of the pontoon along the straight edge between the dolphins, which we did and Bill followed us in. It was 2.45 p.m. I gave Mike a hand to unload the moped off the roof using a plank and he went to get the car after I’d helped him shove the bike up a steeply sloping gangway to the top of the bank surrounding the harbour. A new restaurant had been constructed and there were also lots of camper vans parked on the far side of the basin. Bill took the dog for a walk into town. I got on with the chores. Bill had been speaking to one of the other moorers and

And a really superb picture of a hare
from Wikimedia by Hans-Jorg Hellwig

had been told that we should go to the restaurant to pay for the mooring. We went up there only to find that the Harbourmaster wasn’t in - he would come and find us later, which he did. He did us a deal and only charged us for 14m, at 80c a metre, so that cost us 12,20€ plus two 50c tokens for the water metre. I’d found the tank almost empty when I dipped it earlier, there was a minus half inch on the stick - Mike said he was amazed I was still getting water out of the tap! I cooked fish and chips for tea when Mike returned at 7 p.m. He put our other satellite dish up and tried the old analogue system to see what stations remained on it. We’d got lots of German stations and Eurosport was still available. French Telecom still worked OK too, so he would be able to watch TF1 for the rest of the Formula One racing. We put the tokens in to get drinking water and were pleased to find that instead of just giving about 50 litres for 50c we had 375 litres for our two tokens. Later there was a thunderstorm and more very heavy rain.

Sorry no photos from 2004 - thanks to all the authors of the above photos.