set off, he
fetched some brown buns for Mike too. Three cruisers came uphill in Wolfsbruch
l
ock first at 7.00 a.m. lock opening time, then we went down. The keeper was an
older man, not our young lad of the previous evening. It was just 7.30 a.m. as
we left the chamber. Mist was rising across the surface of the water as we ran
south down the chain of lakes to Rheinsberg. At 9 a.m. all the marina berths
were still full. We took a photo of the palace with the sun behind it, then
stooged around waiting for the overnight moorers to vacate. It was like
Saturday morning on a Sainsbury's car park. As one boat left, one that had
spent the night anchored out in the lake, came in to take
 |
Aerial view of large new marina below Wolfsbruch,
Wikimedia photo by Robert Grahn
|
 |
| Our photo of Rheinsberg castle in the morning sunlight |
its place. It was
made even more difficult for us as the wooden stagings had no fingers and the
cruisers were mooring stern ends to the staging. Mike spotted a space next to a
big hire cruiser moored bows to the quay wall - it had a very short finger
alongside it to tie to! We moved in and left space between us and the finger
for Rosy, then we breasted up and tied bows to the bank. Bill and I went off to
get some groceries while Mike contended with the ex-Stasi gorilla in overalls
who came and demanded in loud German that he had to go and
 |
| Rheinsberg form the bank Wikimedia photo by Thomas Kohler |
pay at the Haven
master’s office. Mike growled back at him in guttural English that he would pay
before we left. Meanwhile Bill and I had walked into the town centre and found
no shops, so I asked a lady on a bike for directions to the supermarket and she
pointed to a passageway through a new building which lead into an area of open
waste ground covered with sandy pathways. We could see the new supermarket, a
small Plus, and a Schlekker (something like Superdrug, but also selling washing
powders and household cleaners, etc). I bought sausages, bananas, spuds and
some toast bread. Mike was not happy when we got back about having to pay 2
Euros for an hour’s mooring to go shopping. Water was expensive too. We were
down to half
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| Rheinsbergersee and Remus island Wikimedia photo byAlma |
a tank (300 litres) so we fed the coin operated tap and got 100
litres for one Euro (compare that to the 700 litres we bought at Schwerin for
one Euro!). Just shows what a tourist magnet this place is. We left at 11 a.m.
touring round the island in the Rheinsbergersee. All the hireboats and cruisers
were just starting to get moving and traffic was busy going back up the canal.
A miserable old bloke in an open speed boat came head on straight at us, his
face set in a grim stare. He swerved around the bows as Mike also kept going
(bounce off that then!). Everyone else we saw was smiling and waving as we
 |
| Kuhnle hireboats overtaking us on the canal below Wolfsbruch |
passed or they overtook us. We followed a small Kuhnle hireboat through the first
canal bridge and found out why they’d fixed lots of wooden fendering inside the
bridge walls and
why it was so battered and covered in multicoloured paint -
they bounce through it with all hands on deck shoving and heaving on their
plastic-ended boat shafts. What a performance! When we emerged into the next
lake, Schlabornsee, we turned right into a narrow channel under a small bridge
(with a navigation yellow diamond on it and red and white markers for the edges,
(obeying EU regs to the letter) into the Bikowsee, a W-shaped lake we’d not
been in before. The water was brown,
 |
| Rosy on the Dollgowsee |
light tan coloured. I made some lunch on
the way back into Schlabornsee and we went straight across into Dollgowsee,
where the water was khaki green and almost phosphorescent. The sky was deep
blue and full of small puffy white clouds - we dubbed it a “Simpson’s sky”.
While we went to the end of the lake, Bill stopped for a cup of coffee letting
Rosy drift in the middle of the lake by the island whilst he made it. Back into
the Schlabornsee, headed north back up the Hüttenkanal then turned left into
the Zootzensee. Bill said he was tired and would anchor up for an hour and have
a sleep while we went down the rest of the lakes and back. We changed our plans
and both went bows into the reeds at
 |
| Sailing canoe on the Zootzensee |
the top end of the lake, slung anchors and
mud weights out and stopped at 2.30 p.m. Bill went for a nap, so did Mike and I
put the Mac on to try to do some catching up. We set off again just after 5
p.m. after a guy had come over in a outboard powered dinghy to tell us that the
police would fine us if they saw us in the reeds, you’re supposed to anchor at
least 3m away from the bank (that was kind of him, must remember that – just like
in the Netherlands – niet in der riet, or something like that). We went back up
the Schleusenkanal to Wolfsbruch and went up the lock with a family in two
kayaks behind us. The keeper was the same young man from the previous evening
and I asked him if it was OK to stop overnight above his lock again. “Yes, no
problem”. It was 5.55 p.m. when we tied up. I made a chicken chili (cheating with
a bottled sauce and extra red beans) and rice for dinner.
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