Sunday 25th & Monday 26th July 2004 Barkow to Waren.

Sunday 25th July 2004 Barkow.

9.5° C overnight. Grey all day, rain started in the evening. We had the day off for Mike to

Barkow lock - Wikimedia
photo by Andre Steinhauser

watch the German F1 GP from Hockenheim. Mike listened to 20m for an hour, mostly contest stations still. 40m was as bad with fewer gaps. He called Peter on 40m. We could hear his reply very well, 5+9, but he couldn’t hear us. We were 960 kms due west of of his house in Willenhall, with the antenna wire in the worst possible direction, pointing east-west. Gave up and made some lunch. Mike painted the red on the front deck and the hatch lid - at last the non-slip sanding has had a covering coat! He said he would leave doing the pattern on the deck lid until he was sure it wouldn’t rain. (When will that be? we all wondered!). Mike watched the Grand Prix racing. Glad of the day off, I went to lie down and slept all afternoon. It was raining when I got up.

Monday 26th July 2004 Barkow to Waren.

Liftbridge in Plau - Wikimedia photo by niteshift

12.2° C. Grey, overcast, drizzle which became rain showers. We had a rough night, both of us coughing a lot. Mike went to take our rubbish to the bin in the layby where he’d parked the car and was told, quite nastily, by a man who was strimming the grass that he was on private land, he couldn’t park there or deposit his rubbish as the layby was there just for the Imbiss (snack bar) further up the village. Mike said he wished he’d known more of the language to argue - he didn’t believe him, there were no signs to say it was private property. The bloke said there was public parking in the village. Mike went on foot to look and found nothing. He went back to the layby to ask where. Parking, he was told, was at the end of the layby used for a bus stop.

He’d checked this with someone else in the village and it appeared to be the only public

Plau lock - Wikimedia photo by Doris Antony

parking. He moved the car and parked it in the long run in to the bus stop layby. (I felt quite uncomfortable about leaving the car there, in Britain vehicles left in bus stop laybys get towed away and attract large fines. - Comment by Mike). We set off in drizzle just after 9.00 a.m. following Rosy up to the lock. Bill had twisted the blue pole to set it running, it was emptying. There were only the two of us to go up. A man and two students were doing some surveying, measuring things on the lockside. A group of people on their way to go fishing crossed the lock gates. We had tea en route for Plau and the last lock before the lake. A downhill cruiser went by five minutes before we got to the lock.

Lift bridge in Plau - Wikimedia photo by Doris Antony

The gates were closed until the keeper saw us coming and reopened them for us. Again, just us two going uphill. Mike put the pins in, Bill sorted out his washing and I held the string from our bows while we came up in the lock. Plau was very busy with pedestrian tourists, lots of them (on guided tours?) were on the footbridge crossing the lock chamber. Lots and lots of boats were now moored from the lock all the way through the town to the shores of the lake. Just before we left the canal for the lake we passed a very shiny, very new, replica Dutch 10m tjalk which looked like it had been built by someone who had seen lots of pictures of tjalks - but had never seen one for real! A very smart looking boat nonetheless.

 

Viewing tower & promenade Plau
Wikimedia by Gunther M Apsel

Trip boats from Plau were doing a roaring trade and a cruiser pulled out between us and Rosy, but was away as soon as we reached the lake. It was 11.00 a.m. the rain had stopped and I’d got the washing going as we set off across Plauersee. A few cruisers were milling about and one or two sailboats went in between the trippers. The sky was filled with grey clouds and it was quite breezy as we entered the narrow channel of the Petersdorfersee, where there were only a couple of cruisers moving. We arrived at Malchow at 12.30 p.m. to wait for the swing bridge (which had limited Hugh McKnight’s cruise of the lakes in ‘92 when it was out of action). It opened on the hour, every hour, from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. There was a crowd of waiting boats, milling about in the lake as there was nowhere to tie up and wait. We threw ropes round stumps at the end of the tripper boat quay and I made lunch while we waited. The boats came through from the other side first at 1 p.m. - more than twenty came through, including a tripper, called Sonnenschine, which hooted and winded to moor and drop off passengers just in front of where we’d moored. We untied and got ready to move. The bridge keeper leaned out of his cabin window with a small fishing net. There were no signs stating how much, so Mike

Bridge at Malchow - Wikimedia photo by Steven Isaacson

donated one Euro. We got a small card, which was a thank you for the contribution for the upkeep of the bridge. A familiar boat went past, we’d seen it a lot when we were around Berlin last time - a large cruiser with a distinctive striped splash guard around the cabin top deck steering position, called Hevellert from Berlin. We waved to the crew as they overtook us - had a feeling it was some kind of small hotel boat - as we went into the wider Fleesensee. All the boats which came through the bridge at the same time as us were now gone - we were last as usual as we went through the narrows into Kölpinsee. We tried to find somewhere to tie up at the back of some metal dolphins by some wooden piling in Eldenburger, but it was too shallow and there was no path to get to the road with the moped. We went on down the Rekkanal into the Binnen Müritz and headed for a low looking wall by a park. Again the lake

Waren - Wikimedia photo by darkone

edge shelved and was covered this time with rocks. We backed off, gave up and headed for the yacht haven. Pay up and look pleasant, there was nowhere else to moor. Into the harbour, we couldn’t see anywhere to tie as all the berths were full. The harbour master came down the outer harbour wall and told us we could moor on the outside. Mike asked him 

Waren - town moorings - Wikimedia photos by Thomas Kohler

about the signs that said mooring Verboten (forbidden) - he said they were his signs and he could override them! It was 4.35 p.m. Bill and I went to pay. 13 Euros. That’s just to tie up, no water or electricity - that’s extra and too far away from where we were moored anyway. Called in the chandlery and I bought us a new German courtesy flag (except I bought the wrong size and had to take it back and exchange it for a smaller size) Bill gave us a hand to get the moped off, balanced on the plank over the handrailing along the harbour wall and “see-sawed” the bike over. We’d seen a large Dutch sailing tjalk moored by a hotel ship on the town quay to the left of the harbour when we were trying to find somewhere to tie up. Now the owner, a Canadian chap, came over to tell us he would have offered us mooring alongside him but the harbour master got to us first. The Dutch hotel boat, Greta von Holland, had let him moor alongside them and have electricity. The skipper invited us over for a drink later. (Bill went, but we didn’t think it fair to take our germs and asked Bill to send our apologies - our paths will no doubt cross again - we’d seen him before in Chauny, France, earlier in the year). Mike went off to get the car from Barkow at 5.30 p.m. I made sweet and sour pork with rice for dinner when Mike returned. It was after 8 p.m. when he got back as he’d been stopped by the Polizei again - no visible insurance plate - for the second time, they had stopped him on the 19^th. (After that we had the brainstorming idea of putting “F” nationality stickers on the back of his crash helmet and the mudguard on the bike – he was never stopped again!)