Wednesday 8th September 2004 Havelberg - Gnevsdorf - Harvelberg.

10° C. Sun shining from a blue sky, streaked with thin high clouds. Misty and chilly when we

Gnevsdorf lock, just right for two narrowboats!

set off at 7 a.m. following Rosy into the Harvelberg lock, Schleppzugschleuse (the tug boat lock), in which we rose 30cms and exited into a channel full of swirling mist reaching up to a metre and half high. Out on to the Elbe, turning right and heading north, going downstream with the flow (about 4 kph), the mist was still swirling, but it was breezy and the sun was warming the air so by 8 a.m. all the mist had gone. I made tea and cooked some buns in the oven. A work gang was busy strengthening the flood

Leaving Gnevsdorf

protection dyke wall at KP 427, lorries were depositing loads of sand and diggers were spreading it out. Four red kites were circling over a small stand of trees on the left hand bank. Further on we spotted three more large birds of prey perched in a dead tree and a smaller one, looking rather alone, in the same tree. They were too far away for identification. All along the north bank of the river there were masses of greylag geese, sitting on the bank with one or two swimming in the slow water between the stone groynes. Suddenly a white tailed eagle swooped out of nowhere and made a grab for
a

Gnevsdorf lock and barrage

swimming goose, which, to our amazement, squawked loudly and dived underwater to escape the talons of the big raptor. We crossed the river to our right, turned sharply into the Gnevsdofer Vorfluter and followed a winding buoyed course up to the lock. The keeper had just arrived on his moped and dropped his crash helmet, which came hurtling down the grassy bank faster than he did on his bike. We tied to the pontoon below the little lock and Bill kept Rosy out in the middle while the keeper emptied the lock. The chamber

Qutzobel barrage at the end of the Vorfluter kanal,
junction of rivers Havel and Elbe

was 22m long by 5.3m wide. The keeper asked me how wide the boat was, so I told him. He also asked Mike, who also told him. Mike called Bill to bring Rosy into the lock first, as he was in the middle of the channel. Then the keeper asked Bill how wide Rosy was. He was getting very concerned about whether we could get the two boats in side by side until we were actually in the chamber, with bags of room to spare. My best green sausage fender caught in the gate and broke the string, with a loud bang as we went in. I tried a knot in the string after we’d recovered it. Ropes on fore and aft. I was standing on the deck lid holding

Quitzobel lock

the front line while we came up 1.8m in the lock, I’d just been getting rid of lots of spiders and, as I was looking at the ladder alongside me, a large black crab crawled out from behind the side rail and dropped into the water. Boy did that make me jump! King sized spiders they have here!! I took a couple of photos of the boats in the lock before we left. It was 9.50 a.m. as we headed back south again down a channel that was wide and 3m deep, running between flood protection banks, which were covered with well mown

Quitzobel lock and barrage

grass. There was more shelter from the breeze, so it felt much warmer but still cool enough to appreciate a cup of soup for early “elevenses”. A flock of lapwings flew over, circled and landed back in a field out of sight behind the dyke where they just taken off from. At the end of the Vorfluter we came to the next lock, Quitzöbel, set in a series of floodgates in a long flood defence barrier where the very last bit of the Havel joined the Elbe. Rosy was already in the chamber and Bill was having a conversation with the two waterways men and a bunch of fishermen, telling them we were going to EHS (which they looked very

Lock gates at Quitzobel

disapprovingly on for some reason they didn’t share with us) and Poland next year, so he showed them pictures of the Elblag lifts. The fishermen were very keen to throw sticks for Fanny, who thoroughly approved of that. I took photos of the up and over paddles (shades of Salter Hebble) and a slowly ascending guillotine gate (shades of Salter’s Lode!) The keeper gave us a copy of the Berlin WVW mag (we’d already got one, but another copy might be useful as it had a nice map in it) plus it had got opening times for the Havel locks. Back on a level with the Elbe, we turned left heading upstream on the Havel. Mike worked it out that as the locks we had done were all uphill, 30cm at Havelberg, 1.8m at Gnevsdorf and another

Quitzobel lock and barrage

30 cms at Quitzöbel, then that meant the river Elbe ran down a slope of 2.4m over 15 kms! Who needs locks? Had lunch on the move as we headed back to Havelberg on a very quiet placid river. A rough legged buzzard flew over the adjacent meadow which separated us from the Elbe, it hovered every now and then when something caught its attention. We went back into Havelberg via a small channel which lead past the marina by a large hotel with the floating fountain on our right. We arrived back at the place on the public quay by the trip boat at 2.30 p.m. At 3 p.m. the trip boat Jerichowerland set off with a party of tourists on board. They were away for a couple of hours. Mike went for a nap. Bill came over to talk to Mike

Leaving Quitzobel lock

about pegels, just as the ‘phone rang. It was WWTelecom (our American callback system that we used for making calls to the UK), Diana calling Mike back. She said they’d had problems getting money from our account. Alarm bells started ringing in our heads - we’d got new cards that were in the post from Glyn (which were very late coming from the bank) - WWT must have suspended the account until they get payment! That’s why it’s been continuously engaged since 1st Sept and we thought it was their new computer system playing up. It’s our annoying bank again! All for not paying a bill of $14! Bill came in and we had a discussion about Barry Sheffield’s account of how to calculate water depths using pegels. We all came to the conclusion that what he’d written in his book was misleading. 

CLICK Here for a route map of the trip down the Elbe and back up the Vorfluter kanal

Sunday 18th July 2004 Wittenberge to Dörmitz.

15.9° C Sunny start, cool and windy, clouding over shortly after we set off at 8.10 a.m. Sun

Wittenberge on the river Elbe - Wikimedia pic by niteshift

out again after lunch. Thunderstorm after dinner. A cruiser had set off from one of the sandy bays between the stone groynes just after we set off and overtook us shortly after. Several WSA workboats were moored where they were rebuilding groynes at KP 467, they obviously didn’t work at weekends. A fast speedboat, called Kiaora, went upstream at KP 470. I made

Junction of the Elbe and Muritz-Elde-Wasserstrasse,
Photo from Wikimedia by niteshift

us a cup of soup for elevenses as it was chilly. A small yacht went past, battling against the flow at KP 482. At Lenzen, KP 485, there was a new mooring place in a new offline harbour just beyond their motor ferry. A Czech tug and pan went uphill a kilometre further on and three small speedboats, just as we were having lunch on the move. A large speedboat, tanking up river at high velocity at KP 501, went past on the wrong side and caused me to go and close the side doors to keep his wash from washing the kitchen floor. Two cruisers (which had been moored in Wittenberge the night before) overtook us just before the junction with the Müritz-Elde-Wasserstraße (MEW) and turned right, going the same way as us! There were two upriver boats as we arrived at the junction and one of them turned off into the MEW too. It was 1.20 p.m. as we left the Elbe. A tjalk (you certainly don’t see many of those here!) called Bienvenue came out of the lock and we went up Dörmitz lock with the three cruisers plus two canoes. I asked the keeper if there was anywhere above his lock where we could stop overnight, he said the boat haven and I

Domitz lock from below. Photo from Wikimedia by Schiwago 

told him the boats were too long for their moorings so he (reluctantly, I thought) said we could use the very end of the waiting area above his lock. We went as far upstream as possible and Rosy moored alongside us, leaving one and a half landing stages for the small boats to hang on above his lock. It was 2.15 p.m. Helped Mike get the moped down off the roof, the landing was higher than the gunwales so we didn’t need a plank. He said he’d rather have gone for a lie down than fetch the car as he was starting to get flu symptoms. Great! I put the Mac on to do some catching up. It was on for 15 minutes and then switched itself off for no apparent reason, so I turned it all off and went to do some chores instead. Kids from the chalet just upstream from the boat were swimming in the river all afternoon. Late in the afternoon it clouded over again. Mike returned at 5.45 p.m. just as one of the boats we came up the lock with earlier was sitting at the far end of the staging waiting to go back down again. Had they left the gas on? We put the moped back on the roof as a gaggle of uphill cruisers left the lock and turned off left into the boat harbour. Mike went for a lie down while I made a chicken stir fry for dinner. We couldn’t get satellite TV at all as there were trees in the way. Watched the weather forecast on German terrestrial TV. Then the rain started and we had a good old thunderstorm. The TV stations had said the same weather for Monday. Great stuff. The space on the landings above the lock had filled up with small boats during the evening once the lock had closed for the night.

Saturday 17th July 2004 Tangermünde to Wittenberge.

Tangermunde - photo by burgerbe

14.5°C Sunny and warm at last. It didn’t stay dry though, we had a thunderstorm and heavy rain at 11 p.m. We were up at seven again to get moving for eight. Bill went into the basin to wind while we untied and winded in the mouth of the harbour before setting off downstream again. Mike had put the pins in to run the Markon so I could do some washing. Sat out briefly for a cup of coffee at 8.50 a.m. Did the ironing and put a second load in the washer. A blue hulled boat heading uphill wasn’t a police boat as we’d thought at first, but a sleek cruiser called Aquarius. Mike called me to look at a bird and I just saw the tail feathers of a

Beautiful white tailed eagle by panda.org

very large bird of prey carrying off a large fish, flying off over the forest (first glimpse of a white-tailed eagle!). A large open cruiser speed boat came roaring up behind us, slowed off and then overtook us on the wrong side! We passed the second tethered ferry of the day at KP 416 Sandau. It was busy carrying cars back and forth across the Elbe. We went past it while it was unloading on the right bank and Bill managed to pass it too, but the cruiser behind him had to stop and go back up river to pass it on the other side as it set off across the river just after Bill had passed it. There were lots of geese all

Eider duck by wiki tony higsett

along the river’s edge and lapwings on the banks. A speed boat called Bora went upstream near KP 418, passing us at over 30 kph - he was the first of quite a few weekend pleasure boaters with very big, very fast boats coming upriver at high speed. At KP 419 I watched an enormous hare lolloping along the water’s edge, taking absolutely no notice at all of the waterborne traffic. Washing finished, Mike took the pins out as a cruiser called Le Clou (the nail in French) overtook us and then stopped midstream to watch the next tethered ferry at KP 422. A small fishing boat went upstream and two fishermen waved. Bill said they were FKK (nudists) but we hadn’t noticed! A small speed boat came upriver on the right hand side and then the ferry set off after he’d gone past, so we took the left hand side of the mooring post in the middle of the river, following the cruiser (who had stopped in mid-river to assess

Sandau ferry by Wiki Ulamm

the situation). The cruiser turned off on to the Havel shortly afterwards. A flock of large black and white birds dropped down on to the river some distance away from us. Bill asked over VHF if they were Eider. I had to get my bird book out to confirm it. Male Eiders do congregate in large groups at this time of year, so they could well have been Eider ducks. A yacht under sail went past heading upriver at KP 427 at the end of a big sweeping left hand bend. Mike asked Bill on VHF if he should have a black cone hoisted as he was motor assisted. Bill said he didn’t know. (I read later that one of the things the WSP are very hot on is sail boats running with sails out and

Panorama of river Elbe nr Wittenberge - Wikimedia nightshift

engines going - they must hoist a black cone to indicate they are motoring) This one was showing a black cone, but he’d not hoisted it very far above his gunwales! We had lunch on

Elbe nr Wittenberge - Wikimedia nightshift

the move. A very fast downhill cruiser caused a lot of wash which sent a wave down our port side gunwale and sploshed through the two open sliding windows - luckily not much went on the TV, Hi-fi or computer! We passed the end of the Havel channel, which is called the Gnevsdorfer Vorfluter, and is navigable in summer. Another fast cruiser came flying upriver Beluga passed us at KP 439, followed by Sonja at KP 444. My turn to spot an interesting bird, another bar headed goose, normally natives of India, there are a few of them about which are escapees from zoos and wildlife parks. A cruiser called Luetje overtook us and turned into the basin at Wittenberge, KP 449, where we were going too. The floating pontoon we’d

Wittenberge haven - wikimedia nightshift

used for free before was now occupied by boats of the Nedwighafen, and had new electricity posts and water taps. We cruised down to the end of the harbour and were told we could moor at the back of the pontoon along the straight edge between the dolphins, which we did and Bill followed us in. It was 2.45 p.m. I gave Mike a hand to unload the moped off the roof using a plank and he went to get the car after I’d helped him shove the bike up a steeply sloping gangway to the top of the bank surrounding the harbour. A new restaurant had been constructed and there were also lots of camper vans parked on the far side of the basin. Bill took the dog for a walk into town. I got on with the chores. Bill had been speaking to one of the other moorers and

And a really superb picture of a hare
from Wikimedia by Hans-Jorg Hellwig

had been told that we should go to the restaurant to pay for the mooring. We went up there only to find that the Harbourmaster wasn’t in - he would come and find us later, which he did. He did us a deal and only charged us for 14m, at 80c a metre, so that cost us 12,20€ plus two 50c tokens for the water metre. I’d found the tank almost empty when I dipped it earlier, there was a minus half inch on the stick - Mike said he was amazed I was still getting water out of the tap! I cooked fish and chips for tea when Mike returned at 7 p.m. He put our other satellite dish up and tried the old analogue system to see what stations remained on it. We’d got lots of German stations and Eurosport was still available. French Telecom still worked OK too, so he would be able to watch TF1 for the rest of the Formula One racing. We put the tokens in to get drinking water and were pleased to find that instead of just giving about 50 litres for 50c we had 375 litres for our two tokens. Later there was a thunderstorm and more very heavy rain.

Sorry no photos from 2004 - thanks to all the authors of the above photos.

Thursday 15th & Friday 16th July 2004 above Rothensee lift to Tangermünde.

Thursday 15th July 2004 above Rothensee lift to Tangermünde.

Rosy & Temujin in the tank about to descend.
Rothensee ship lift

13.4° C Cold and windy after overnight rain. Sunshine and grey clouds in the morning, clouding over by evening, turning showery. Up early to set off just after 8.00 a.m. Mike had called the lift keeper on VHF and the ship lift was ready for us to descend to the level of the river Elbe. A pair of red kites were hanging on the wind above a stand of trees by the lift, hunting for their breakfast. I took photos as we went down the channel past the docks, wharves and old warehouses to turn left heading downhill on the river. Rosy followed us out

Below the ship lift heading on to the river Elbe

on to the river. A Berliner tug breasted up with two pans came upriver as we headed down to the new aqueduct and flew underneath it at close on 10 kph thanks to the flow of the river. Took photos of the new aqueduct, which Bill said that he thought looked very unimpressive, and the new mooring on the river at Hohenwarthe. I took a picture of Rosy coming under the aqueduct with a helicopter passing overhead, which was well timed. The sun came out briefly as we passed the entrance to the Elbe-Havel Kanal. It was 10.10 a.m. A Police launch passed us heading uphill at KP 345 near Niegripp,

The old and the new, ship lift on the right,
new lock for bigger boats on the left

its wash made us bounce up and down for a few minutes. Mike was carefully tracking the course of the channel from one side of the river to the other using the bank markers, yellow crosses on top of posts, XX’s on the left bank and ++’s on the right, marking their positions on our chart and taking note of the kilometre markers too, which also weren’t marked on our chart. A part loaded 80m boat called “Geeste” passed us heading upriver at KP 349, followed by another police launch. I made us a warming cup of soup at 11 a.m. Another

Rosy exiting the channel from the lock, pushing the flow
heading upstream on the Elbe to turn and
head downstream (to the right of the pic) 

Berliner tug went uphill, pushing two pans in line, near KP 355. The skipper didn’t return our waves, which was unusual - perhaps he was having a bad day. Near Kehnert, KP 358 - 9, the channel crossed the river from side to side on a straight section, so we took careful note of its course. Then into looping bends we followed the yellow crosses which marked a logical course around the outsides of the bends. We ate lunch on the move. A trip boat overtook us at KP 379, just as we were heading 45° across to the left hand bank - the trip boat went across too. At 2.50 p.m. we moored on the piled quay wall at Tangermünde and Bill brought

New aqueduct in distance, new moorings on right. R Elbe 

Rosy alongside us (last time we went into the basin and moored at the boat club, very precariously on their short finger moorings designed for 6m long boats) between yellow painted dolphins next to a moored cruiser from Hamburg. The sign boards indicated that the moorings downriver of where we’d tied up were for hotel ships. The police launch from Tangermünde went in and out of the basin and the crews waved cheerily to us, so the mooring must be OK for us (where else could boats of our length go?). Mike went off on the moped to collect the car. He was back at 6.45 p.m.

The new aqueduct carrying the Mittellandkanal over the Elbe

Friday 16th July 2004 Tangermünde. Heavy rain - day off.

Low grey clouds, heavy rain turning to drizzle until 5.30 p.m. then the sun came out. We were up at 7 a.m. to set off early downriver but it was pouring with rain. Mike knocked the window and suggested to Bill that we hang on a bit to see if it showed any signs of stopping. It didn’t - so we changed our plans and decided to go shopping instead. Mike ‘phoned Glyn. He’d had nothing from our surveyor but we’d got a pile of post, he said he’d ring back when the last bank statement arrived. I totted up the number of dry days

we’d had since setting the start of June -11 dry days in June and only two so far this month.

off to a drizzle we went out in the car. I slipped and banged my left shin bone getting off on the high metal edged piled quay - it went black straight away. Thought we’d try Stendal for

shopping as it looked a large place on the map. (The metal top to the piling had a raised front edge and was just above waist height – OK for the men with longer legs than mine – and there was no ladder) 

Rosy, the aqueduct and a helicopter

The direct route from Tangermünde was blocked off, so we went a different route into Stendal. Drove all around the place and found loads of car showrooms, garages and a Hellweg (large DIY store), even a McDonald’s, but no supermarket except small ones like Aldi and K+K! Amazing. We went back to Tangermünde on the blocked off road, followed the diversion and found a large new shopping complex with a large Edeka called E-Centre. It was pouring with rain again so we said we’d have lunch and go out again after. Dropped Bill off at the bakery so he could get some fresh bread and went back on the boat and had lunch. Set off again at 2.30 p.m. after Mike had had a short nap. It was a reasonable supermarket except for the choice in fresh meat, which was OK if you like pork chops and sausage. I found some frozen chicken in the freezer cabinets and took three packs to restock my freezer. (They were unboned chicken breasts - each pack a chicken minus its wings and legs, not bad value at 2,19€ each for 500g about £3/kg - but messy - I boned them myself when they were defrosted). Vegetable selection was a bit meagre too. Mike bought some more of his favourite wine. We’d had trouble returning a beer crate which wasn’t full of empties,

The ferry at Rogatz. R Elbe

the automatic machine which gives out credit notes for the returns wouldn’t accept it, so we had to find an assistant and she found the man in charge of the returned bottles, etc, who came and put another crate through with six bottles missing - which worked - and gave us the till ticket for our refund. The rain had stopped when we got back to Tangermünde. Unloaded the groceries from the car down the sloping bank across the roof and through the side doors. Mike went out again to get petrol for the genie while I packed stuff away. He went for another nap and I rested my aching bruised leg, soothing it and (hopefully) reducing the bruising with witch-hazel.

 Click here for Information on the construction of the aqueduct