Wednesday 21st July 2004 Banzkow to Hohen Viecheln.

14.9° C Overcast, chilly and everything was damp. Windy just to add an edge to the

The palace at Schwerin. my photo from 1999

wonderful weather. Someone started work with a grass strimmer at 6.30 a.m. and the dog at the house next door to the old couple’s house (where we were moored opposite to) started barking too. Mike and Bill went off to get some bread then we set off at 8.30 a.m. Where the WSA had done bank stabilisation work, i.e. underwater wooden piling backed with small rocks up to about 30 cms above water to prevent erosion, they had also planted reeds, rushes and water hemlock - the uniform gaps between them indicated that they’d been planted. Took the mast down to get under the 2.1 m headroom without waiting for the bridge at Plate to be lifted (it used to be lifted every two hours, but now there’s a timetable). Made tea as we motored out on to the beginning of

 

Boat houses in the Schwerinersee, my photo from 1999

Schweriner See at 10.00 a.m. I checked the water tank and we’d got over half a tank, did some washing as we steamed north up the lake, past two nature reserve islands which were surrounded by coots and grebe. As we came out from the shelter of the trees on the left and the lake widened out to give a glorious view of the Schloss in Schwerin, the wind which was blowing quite hard from due west caused a bit of rocking. Made us a hot cup of soup, as the weather was more like November than the end of July - we’d got our warm fleeces on. I did the ironing, made some lunch, then did some more ironing and washing. We arrived at Hohen Viecheln at 1.30 p.m. The landing had changed to

Landing stage at Hohe Viechelin, my photo from 1999

just a single wooden pier from the bank and it was occupied by two cruisers, which were moored one on either side of it. There were four posts in the lake bed at right angles to the pier so we moored across two of them, which put us behind the stern end of a moored cruiser from Berlin, called Cesare. The skipper looked out and I asked if he was going soon, he replied yes, in about ten minutes. They were very pleasant people. OK. Bill held off out in the middle of the lake. When the cruiser left (we just swivelled around the pole to let him out) Bill brought Rosy into the space the cruiser had just left and went on the bottom! And I’d just been saying we could put our bows against the grassy bank! Bill backed off the very hard sandy bottom and we tied alongside with our sterns sticking out beyond the end of the pier. Hope no big boats want to moor across the end tonight. Glyn rang to say he’d got Mike’s message and had sent our parcel of post to Templin yesterday. No one called for any money for the overnight mooring this time. I’d got the same bugs Mike picked up a few days earlier, sore throat and felt really rough.