A chilly 9.5° C overnight. Sunny
with white fluffy clouds. Breezy. Off at 7 a.m. again. Arrived
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| Peaceful Hohenbruch lock - Wikimedia photo by Botaurus |
at Hohenbruch
just after the lock opened at 8.10 a.m. The young man worked the lock for us
again (he’s got a new lock cabin!) I asked if Frau Peterman still worked the
lock, he said “No, she has retired, she just looks after the house and garden
now”. He also added that she was his mother. We said to say hello from us (last
time we saw her she gave us a lovely scented geranium). It was pleasant in the
early morning sunshine running down to Tiergarten. The weather was cooler, so
there were not many bugs flying. The quiet middle-aged chap had got the lock
ready for us with the gates open and we went alongside Rosy to collect Bill’s
washing
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| Ruppiner kanal near Orianenberg - Wikimedia photo by Botaurus |
and Mike put the pins in to run the Markon as we dropped down the lock.
Off through Orianenburg with the washing machine running with two pairs of
jeans in it. A couple of young boys were swimming in the canal, one went closer
to the boat than we thought was prudent. They were not cheeky - just laughing,
full of energy! The first lot of washing finished as we arrived at Pinnow with
a small open speed boat behind us. The stern faced young keeper opened the
gates after we’d waited five minutes. I put a second load in the machine and we
ran down to the Havel-Oder-Wasserstraße tucking in behind a large cruiser as we
turned right, heading downriver for Spandau. The old bloke with
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| Canal bridge at Pinnow - Wikimedia photo by Saxo |
the open speed
boat did a U-turn and went back the way he’d come, heading back to Pinnow lock.
An empty pan, being pushed by a Szczecin (Polish) tug, called Navigar 3, went
past heading uphill. It was followed by a big empty Berlin boat, called
Sachsenhausen, whose crew waved enthusiastically. Soon after that a large hotel
ship, called Fluvius from Zwijndrecht in the Netherlands, went past also
heading uphill with cruisers and yachts following behind each big boat. At 11
a.m. I made a cup of soup - it was chilly - we still had fleeces on, despite
the sunshine. At Hohen Neuendorf we spotted the fire brigade on exercises, a
“victim” was receiving CPR on the bank.
One was performing, one was lecturing and the rest were stood around
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| Aerial view of Niederneuendorfersee Wikimedia photo by Bukk (arrow indicates site of former power plant) |
watching. I said I hoped it was an exercise and not for real. Mike replied that
if it was for real then most of them would have been running round like legless
chickens! We both nearly fell off the back of the boat laughing after that
little gem. As we approached Henningsdorf, the hotel ship Astor went by, also
heading uphill in amongst a crowd of little boats, coming and going. After the
peace and tranquility of Fehrbellin this was welcome to the zoo! Two overhead
cranes on rails were unloading scrap from a series of pans at the quay
belonging to a large steelworks between KPs 15 and 14. The washing finished at
midday and, as we were in a lull in the traffic, Mike stopped the engine and
took the pins out.
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| Spandau citadel - my photo from 2013 |
There were a few sail boats moving and several cruisers
anchored for lunch as we turned into the Niederneuendorfersee. Several rowing
skiffs and canoes went past as we ate our lunch. As we wound our way down the
Havel lake the sail boats were being blown in same direction. A police launch
followed behind us and a tripper was overtaking us as we were fast approaching
the narrows and the ferry, when two sailing yachts approached from our left.
The first one crossed our bows, decided to tack and crossed our bows once more.
The second one followed the first, crossed our bows then tacked, indicating
with a wave of the hand that he was going to recross in front of us. There
wasn’t enough time, nor space, for him to complete the manoeuvre, Mike had to
go into hard into reverse. The boat would not have turned quickly
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| New lock at Spandau - Wikimedia photo by Axel Mauruszat |
enough to
miss him, we would have hit him with either the bow or the stern. Mike was
definitely not happy, he loudly shouted his disapproval at the crew as we
stopped inches from their hull as it slid past our bow fender. They just
grinned. How we managed to stop, I don’t know. There was plenty of space to our
right, he could have delayed his tack for a few seconds, turned and crossed
behind us, or tacked early and not crossed our bows at all. The police launch’s
crew must have had a good view of the incident, but took no notice as we didn’t
actually hit the yacht. They overtook us a few minutes later with hardly a
glance and turned into the Tegelersee. Moby
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| Moby Dick - my photo from 2013 |
Dick (the famous Berlin restaurant
boat, shaped like a great silver whale) went past loaded with passengers.
Another sail boat came across from our left, altered course slightly and turned
behind us - he’d seen the police boat. There was traffic everywhere. New
moorings had been built next to some new flats before the islands. We took the
channel leading past the citadel into the rebuilt lock at Spandau. A cruiser overtook
us, we’d seen them before, a stretched cruiser called Atlantik. They went for
the mooring to wait for the lock and tied on the quay behind the boat that
tried to rip us of the quay with its wash the previous evening at Kremmen. We
hovered. A tripper was also hovering. He had a green light first. There was a
separate light for sport boats! We got a green and followed the tripper and the
two large cruisers into the new lock. We took the right hand wall and Bill
brought Rosy alongside us
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| Boats in Spandau lock - Wikimedia photo by Stephen Craven |
. Dropped down two metres and went out of the lock
heading for the mooring. Atlantik beat us to the end mooring. I tried to ask if
they’d have a mooring a bit further down, as we needed the very end to get a
tanker load of diesel next day (if we’re lucky!). Mike had better luck with
conveying what we wanted. The couple were very nice and Mike gave them a hand
to tie up beyond a large square cruiser from Prague (Czech, wow, that’s a
rarity!). We slotted into the end space between two dolphins and Rosy came alongside.
Our new friends off Atlantik came with some little bottles of clear spirit,
straight out of their fridge, to say “Proust” which was very nice of them and
we showed them some ‘photos of boating in the UK, which they found fascinating.
Mike went to see if the parking was OK, then he got the moped off the roof on to the cabin-high quay and I
helped get the gate open (at the far end of the mooring - we had to walk past
all the moored boats, so we had an audience). Handed up all his gear and he went to get the car from
Liebenwalde. Later Mike and I went for a walk into the old town to find the tourist
information office.
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