12.1° C. Clear blue skies, cool
morning hotting up later. A Simpsons sky again. Continued on
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| Empty moorings by the cafe at Burgwall (photo from 2013) |
our way down the
Havel at 7.15 a.m. following Rosy for the first hour or so. One cruiser went
past us heading uphill at 8.20 p.m. Just after the junction with the
Wentowersee, the moorings by the restaurant at Burgwall were still full when we
went past. I got on with some chores before it got hotter. The theme park that used
to be at the old brick works site, Zieglei park, at Mildenberg seemed to be
gone. There were no signs of the Disney style “railway” engine that hauled the
kids around the park. Bill called on VHF to say he’d like a look around one of
the bigger claypits which was still connected to the Havel, so we motored into
the Prerauer Stich. Three small cruisers were anchored (probably FKKs -
 |
| Footbridge in Zehdenick (photo from 2013) |
nudists)
but they upped and left as soon as they saw us. We went to have a closer look
at the commercial oil dock berths in the top right hand corner of the lake next
to the big brickworks - they looked derelict. The brickworks were still
functioning, but one of the two quays on the Havel for unloading and loading
commercial craft looked as if it hadn’t been used for a few years, the other
looked to be still used, although nothing was there when we passed by heading
downstream for the lock at Zehdenick. The hirebase moorings in the town were
vacant (closed down?) but the yacht harbour was doing good business and the
waiting area
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| Liftbridge below Zehdenick lock - Wikimedia photo by Olaf2 |
for the boats to go down the lock was full. We hovered behind the
queue, luckily there was little breeze and two more cruisers tagged on behind
us. When the uphill lot vacated, three medium sized cruisers went to the end of
the chamber with two yachts and a large Swiss cruiser called Viva Allegra took
the right hand wall, we took the left wall and called Bill to bring Rosy in
between the two of us and I stood ready to throw a rope around his front dolly
as Rosy came alongside. Lock full! All the space in the chamber, 45m x 9.5m (a
wide one), of the automatic lock was full - there might have been space for a
couple of canoes - and we dropped down 3m. Beyond the lock a bascule lift
bridge (two decks like the Tower of London) was open. The lights
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| Vosskanal - Wikimedia photo by Botaurus |
changed to red
as we were the last boats through so we hurried in case the thing started to
close. Needn’t have worried it had just gone to green on the other side to let
the boats through who couldn’t get under the lowered bridge. The lock had two
sets of controls for going uphill, a set either side of the lift bridge. One
set for boats who could get under the liftbridge and another for those who
couldn’t. There was just a couple of little cruisers going uphill. The vast
crowd we’d locked with had all cleared off down the Vosskanal. The link between
Zehdenick and the Oder-Havel-Kanal (OHK) had been built to bypass the winding
river Havel as a deep
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| In Bishofswerder lock (photo from 2013) |
wide ship canal and a more recent upgrading of the locks
had commenced when they had replaced two chambers with a deeper (3.3m) longer
(85m x 10.6m) one at Bischofswerder, alongside the old lock, but they hadn’t
extended the bottom lock at Liebenwalde which remained a short 51.3m with a 2m
drop. The Vosskanal was quiet so I sent Peter a text. The next downhill lockful
passed us. I made some lunch and we ate it en route for Bischofswerder, where
we caught up with the crowd which had overtaken us earlier who were waiting,
moored three deep, on the lock waiting area while one small boat came uphill in
the big lock. The lock keeper on duty was working the lock from a shed on the
lockside, a young man in long shorts with biker’s long hair and beard, he
packed ‘em in until
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| Below Liebenswalde lock (photo from 2013) |
there was no more space and he had to leave just one out.
He managed to get fifteen boats in the chamber. Needless to say they all
whistled off into the distance as soon as the gates were opened. Except for the
last but one boat that came in behind us and he turned left, directly across
the path of the two small cruisers who were heading for the lock, and went in
between the mooring dolphins for the commercials where two bikini clad
teenagers were waiting to be picked up. I made us some long cold drinks on the
way down to the next lock, Liebenwalde. There was just one sailboat waiting to
go
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The mooring place below Liebenwalde lock (photo from 2013)
now overgrown and used by WSA for storing rocks |
down the lock. I threw a rope around a dolphin and we twiddled round that
for a short time while the keeper refilled the lock. The large cruiser, called
Trinity, which had picked up the two girls, stooged past Rosy and when he got
to us he asked Mike if he could go in the lock first, so we said OK. Another
young lad was working the last lock. He also had the job of packing as many
into the chamber as he could, nine altogether in the shorter lock. Alongside
him the officers of the WSP were doing speed checks. Mike said that’s a bit of
a sneaky thing to do when the boats are hurrying to get into the lock. The
limit on the canal was less, at 8 kph, than it had been on the river, which had
been 12 kph (and most of the cruisers were exceeding that!). We dropped down
the 2m slowly, then Rosy followed the two little boats which were first into
the lock, not waiting for big boy Trinity to get untied, so we followed on
behind Rosy and the young keeper started shouting you must go out in the order
you came in! You must let the big cruisers go first! Nuts to that! We had overheard the cheeky so and so
discussing with the lock keeper about mooring on the left below the lock, where
we were planning to stop too. Now we know why he wanted to go first. Bill kept
alongside him, on his left, whilst we kept tight behind Rosy. He couldn’t wind
on the power and cut across in front because the police were watching. We
dodged between the dolphins and Rosy dropped into the space two cruisers had
just left as they set off for the lock. Another cruised moved out from a space
further back, which meant the cruiser also had a slot to drop into - jammy
creep. It was 3 p.m. when we tied up. Mike went to check out the parking before
we unloaded the moped. He had always parked by a house at the end of the lane
by the waterways houses. He didn’t know if anyone was home, but there was a big
black dog there in the garden and so he guessed that the lady with the dogs was
still there. He went off to get the car from Himmelpfort at 4 p.m. The few
spaces that were left on the quay soon filled up. I cleaned the fan blades on
my 240v fan and mended the broken wire on the 12v one in the kitchen, prepared
the ingredients for a stirfry for dinner then I put the satellite dish up and was
just getting it tuned in when Mike returned. We put the moped back on the roof,
with a huge audience - the crews off all the small cruisers were all sitting
out on the grassy bank beside the quay. Printed the letter I’d done to go to the
bank’s head office to get the £55 back that they’d paid in error to WWT and
also to ask for compensation for ‘phone calls. We had a beautiful red sunset
illuminating the low hanging clouds on the horizon, directly across from the
starboard side of the boat. When I looked outside later I could see a flickering
light on the far side of the canal and wondered what it was - then I saw more
of them and realised that the cruisers nearest the main canal were setting
lighted tealights afloat on the canal - crazy.
No map needed - no lakes today just the lovely Havel river and Vosskanal.
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