Tuesday 21st June 2005 Kostrzyn Poland to Hohensaaten lock Oder-Havel-Kanal Germany.

Three Polish rafts KP628 R Oder

12.9º C overnight. Hot and sunny. Thunderstorm later in the evening. We left at 8.10 a.m. following Rosy for the first kilometre of the two kilometres before the Odra. Bill had stopped when we overtook, he said the water was flowing at 4.2 kph according to his GPS. Ours said we were doing 9.5 kph with revvs on for 6.5 making the flow about 3 kph. At 8.30 a.m. we could see the trees on the far bank of the Odra. German trees. Nothing about as we left the Warta behind and started the run down the Odra, with Germany on one bank and Poland on the other. Back to chasing bank markers, only these were

Entrance markers to an old loop of the river

different to the Polish ones on the Wisła. The Wisła ones had posts behind or in front of each marker, so you knew immediately whether you were looking at the upstream marker or the downstream one. These had red squares spaced between the yellow Xs on the right bank and green diamonds on the left bank between the yellow + markers. They also had red and green buoys marking the navigation channel in some places. Mike found the two sets of markers were sometimes contradictory and therefore confusing, this made

Fisherman on the German side of the river opposite Czelin

him edgy. At ten to nine we passed a small WSA tug pushing a pan, battling uphill against the current by KP 622. On the German bank new earthworks were being constructed just downstream of KP 627. The very tip of a brightly painted red, yellow and black border marker post could be seen over the top edge of a concrete tube, which had been placed around it to protect it while works went on. A kilometre further on downriver we spied three rafts, moored side by side under the trees on the Polish side at KP 628. Just

Hitch-hiking white wagtail perched on satellite TV mast

beyond that the bank makers were different to what Mike had added to our chart (from Bill’s new one – ours had no marker posts indicated at all!). A loud clanking noise came from an ancient German mowing machine cutting the grass on the dyke on the left bank of the river. Black terns were skimming the water for flies. A wagtail rested on the roof for several minutes before swooping away to the bank, I’m sure they only use the boat as a convenient resting place half way across the river. We passed the arm leading to the town of

Rosy and a loaded Bromberger heading upriver KP608

Klienitz (KP 633) at 10 a.m. Close by the arm there was a fishing boat with nets drying on top of it and a set of marker flags and lights for when the nets were being used out in the river. The quay by the old silos at Groß Neuendorf was full of sculptures, mainly of wooden statues and heads. Our average speed, going with the flow, had increased to 10.2 kph. A yellow and black dragonfly rested on the sunshade then flew inside, right underneath it. It rested on my hand long enough for me to see it was a female carrying a sack of eggs - I didn’t know they did that - I thought they laid their eggs in water like damselflies. Some Germans

Behind a pusher in Hohensaaten east lock, start of the Oder Havel Kanal

had driven their car down on to a flat topped concrete groyne and were fishing from it, right opposite the Polish town of Czelin. Just after we passed the Polish waterways yard at Gozdowice we had some lunch. A loaded Bromberger went upriver at KP 658. I took a photo of the old sunken boat at KP 661 near Stary Kostrzynek, that we used for a mooring overnight when we were there in ’99 with Pensax and Fleur de Segré. Just through the next bridge was a big market on the Polish bank, where there was an old boat turned into a

Following Rosy, leaving Hohensaaten lock

landing for boat crews to stop and shop. A sure sign it was getting hotter, the extractor fan over the engine turned on for the first time this year. The red kites were back too, after their winter in Africa. At Hohensaaten, a commercial was coming out of the canal heading downriver towards Szczecin, as we started to turn across the river at the junction. The lock, east Hohensaaten, had red lights and the up and over guillotine gate was down. As we went towards the dolphins to tie up and wait, the gate went up and the light

German and Polish customs post at Hohensaaten

changed to green. We were going to stop and visit the customs, but we thought there must be a place for boats going down the lock to stop above and visit the customs post too, so we motored on into the lock and tied on the wall behind a Bizon tug pushing two pans loaded with sand. We locked down (surprisingly) off the river by about a metre. We followed the tug out of the lock, then turned right down past the west lock, which leads on to the canal route to Szczecin, and went to tie next to the outer lock wall behind some WSA

Moored at Hohensaaten

boats as we could see nowhere else to tie up that would give us access to the customs office without an excursion of several kilometres by road. Before the ropes were tied, a man in blue overalls came to tell me (not the men) that we couldn’t moor there. (Mike said later, wonderful how the first words from a German were “Verboten!” Welcome back to Deutschland!) Mike explained that we only wanted to stay for half an hour to visit the customs and he said please, we’d push over to the other side, where the official mooring was, as soon as we got back – and the guy said yeah, OK. Grabbed ships papers and passports and presented ourselves to the Polish customs. The officer filled in our details on his portable computerised machine, then wrote everything down into a book too. Next we went upstairs to see a very jovial German, who just took note of our name and the boat’s name and registration. We spent more time with him looking at a big map of East German waterways and telling him we’d been to most places on it last year. On the way back Mike tried a burst shot (rapid series of photos for action shots) when he saw a snake (actually a slow worm) trying to climb up the back of a WSA boat. Back on the boats and we moved to the far side of the weirstream, where the official overnight mooring place was. It had a yellow painted metal edged quay for tying to, complete with little bollards and patch of close-mowed grass. It was 2.45 p.m. Later a cruiser and a small yacht filled the rest of the space. It was stiflingly hot. We both spent the rest of the afternoon dozing and sweltering. We had a thunderstorm and torrential rain. At 8.30 p.m. a hotel ship came up the lock. 82m long by 9.5m wide, called Swiss Coral it was offering Transocean Tours. Suddenly, after the calm and almost deserted navigations in Poland, we’re back in the busy world of German waterways!

Monday 20th June 2005 KP45 nr Dzierzów to Kostrzyn. R.Warta.

Mooring near Dzierzow

7.8º C Sunny and warmer with a cool breeze. The water level in the river over the weekend had dropped by 30mms each day. Up at seven, by the time we’d fetched in all the mooring pins, ropes, poles and plank it was 8.20 a.m. Let the boats drift gently out from the bank until the current caught the bows, then we were away downriver again. Pins in and generator running with a washing machine full of jeans. With the flow we were doing 10.4 kph, estimated time of arrival at Kostrzyn 12.50 p.m. Took a

Mooring near Dzierzow

photo of more half grown storklings at KP 35 near Roskowice. A white-tailed eagle went past too quickly for me to get the camera switched on! The only drawback with this new digital camera is the length of time it takes to switch it on! The washing finished at 10 a.m. and we had to wait until we’d gone round two long bends before Mike could turn the engine off and let the boat go with the flow for the two minutes it takes to disconnect the pins. Through the bridge at Swierkocin at 10.10 a.m. past

Results of a beaver feast

the lengthsman’s house with a long row of chickens scratching in the freshly exposed sand along the river’s edge. I made some potato salad and coleslaw ready for lunch. We’d just finished eating it when we arrived at Kostrzyn, bang on the dot of 12.50 p.m. and tied to the quay, half a metre lower down than when we tied there on the outward journey in April. Mike and I went shopping to get rid of the last of our złotys. A new Inermarché had been built just five minutes walk from the quay. Bought bread and salad plus a bottle of krupnik (a honey liqueur). When we got back I counted up how much change we had left, 16,99 Zł, so Mike used that to buy some petrol for the gennie. Bill went off on his bike to stock up with beer, etc. He came back without spending all his złotys, he’d still got 200 left! Mike took photos from the road bridge. We were invaded by a Polish-Cypriot guy and his little lad – the boy really wanted to see the inside of the boat he said, hopefully, so he had the guided tour (a rare

More baby storks

thing). Mike came back and Bill sorted out some containers to get some diesel from the Intermarché. He asked Mike if he’d like to go for a drink later. Lots of people passing by in the park stopped to look at the boats. I made chicken and spaghetti (with a Polish bottled sauce) for dinner. While we were eating, two kids, lads aged about eleven, came to the back of the boat and kept shouting “hello!”, but we took no notice and they eventually went away, there are only so many times you can repeat the answers to all the usual questions in one

Moored on the quay at Kostryzn

day without going crazy! More and more gongoozlers came on to the quay during the evening, most of them just stood outside chatting next to the boat. Mike and Bill went out to have a few celebratory last-night-in-Poland beers - I stayed home on sentry duty with Fanny - the wanderers didn’t return until late.

Moored on the quay at Kostryzn - last of the river Warta

Moored on the quay at Kostryzn

Friday 17th - Sunday 19th June 2005 KP215 Lipki-via Gorzów Wielkopolskie-KP45 Warta.

Moorings at Santok, with newly added access planks and ladders

Friday 17th June 2005  KP215 Lipki-via Gorzów Wielkopolskie-KP45 Warta.

14.4º C milder. Overcast hazy clouds, weak spells of sunshine, windy. Bill managed to fall off the end of the plank and stick one leg into the mud halfway up to his knee. His ropes came off and he was away at just after eight. We lifted the stakes, hauled the ropes and plank in and were off downriver again fifteen minutes later. Clouds of small black houseflies were a real pest as we were untying and we swatted a few cleggs (a vicious type of blood-sucking horsefly) as we set off. We overtook Rosy as Mike was finishing off washing the mud

Ferry across the Warta at Notec

off the back deck. Some swans took off from the edge of the river. Mike saw a very rare sight and called me to look. It was a dead swan, floating in the river where the others had just taken off from. At 9.15 a.m. we passed through Santok and said goodbye to the river Notec and hello again to the river Warta. The posts set in the river at Santok now had wooden planks which hooked over the wooden horizontal bars with

Houses at Santok

short vertical ladders attached to the ends of each plank. I took another photo of the beaver damage to the trees at Czechów. Gorzów soon came into view, its distant tower blocks lined up along the crest of the hill looking like a modern day citadel. The cooling towers at Wawrów dominated the skyline above the little town. One had been painted blue with clouds in an attempt to disguise it. Round the last couple of bends and we were at Gorzów. Just after passing under the

Beaver damage to trees at Czechow

new road bridge, Mike turned the bows upstream and entered the channel into the basin where there were new yellow posts to moor to in a relatively quiet hidden corner of the town. The channel was 5m deep, more than twice the depth outside on the Warta. It was 10.45 a.m. As we passed underneath the new bridge again I heard someone shouting, then discovered two teen-aged

High rise blocks of flats at  Gorzow

girls sitting on the girderwork right underneath the town side edge of the bridge. Bill brought Rosy alongside and then he went off on his bike to find an Internet café, as Waterways World and Canal and Riverboat had suddenly taken an interest in his idea to do an article on the first narrowboats to ride the Elblag lifts. I asked him if he was going to the market and saw any lettuces to get us an iceberg (they’d got none,

Cooling towers at  Gorzow

but he found lots of ladies underwear in some huge sizes - the market stalls were nearly all clothes). On his return, he said when he went past the girls under the bridge they wanted him to give them money – I dread to ask what for. Whilst at the Internet café, he’d managed to order a battery for our camera which would cost £14 plus VAT and be delivered free to Glyn’s in the UK. Mike went

Advertising on the sides of the high rise flats Gorzow

across to the Statoil garage by the bridge and bought some petrol at 4.05 Zł a litre (68p), then emptied his cans to go and get some diesel. He came back with two cans containing 54.8 litres at 3,65 Zł (61p) per litre. We set off again at 1.30 p.m. I made some more coleslaw for lunch. The weather was starting to turn grim, it started to drizzle as we set off, but fortunately stopped again soon after. The Polish yacht we’d been

Gorzow town quay and markets

seeing in various places was on the town quay by the markets (brave chap, we wouldn’t leave our boats unattended in a town). We ate lunch travelling at a sedate pace downriver to the place near Dzierzów where we’d stopped at on 21^st April, where there were several big overhanging trees which the beavers had been chewing. It was 3.15 p.m. when we got there. I threw a rope around a dead tree and Mike

Paused at Gorzow in new offline basin

brought the stern alongside the bank, slung a plank off and we put ropes around the trees. Bill brought Rosy alongside and we put poles out at each end to keep us off the sandy bottom. Decided to stay here for the weekend as Mike wanted to watch the motor racing on Sunday. We turned in late at 12.45 a.m. only to get up again at 1 a.m. after hearing strange screeching noises, something scraping

Gorzow town quay and markets - yacht moored by market

down the hull. At first we thought it was an animal. A bit un-nerved by the fact that Mike had seen torchlight when he turned the inverter off just before we went to bed. I got the big spotlight in case it was poachers or animals - that would frighten ‘em! We opened the side doors half expecting to see a large head, with fur and teeth, but there was nothing there. The wind had picked up and the terrestrial TV aerial was blowing along the roof - its aluminium elements were making the noise! Mike

Leaving Gorzow, heading downstream on the Warta

fastened it down and took the mast down as it was trying to rip all the flags off.

Saturday 18th June 2005  KP45 nr Dzierzów Warta.

Day off. 13.3º C overnight. Sunny and warmer, but still very windy. The torchlight Mike saw the previous night must have been fishermen on the far bank, just round the bend downstream of us. We had a lazy morning. Mike went out with the camera to take photos of our mooring place and the trees that were almost chewed

Pushtow heading upriver.

through by beavers. Lunch. Got on with sorting our new digital photos. Stopped to cook tandoori chicken nuggets and chips for dinner. Watched the news and weather before starting again on the photos.

Sunday 19th June 2005  KP45 nr Dzierzów Warta.

10.6º C overnight. Sunny spells, cloudy at times but still windy. Another day off. Had a lazy morning. After

Tug Bobr (named after tributary of R Oder) pushing two loaded pans

Russian orthodox church dome in Gorzow

lunch we ran the engine and did some washing. Mike put our other satellite dish out on top of the bank to get analogue French TV to watch the Formula One Grand Prix from Indianapolis. There was a big row in America about F1. Ralph Schumacher’s car had crashed in practise when a tyre exploded. Most of the cars were also on Michelins, only three teams were on Bridgestone tyres. The race started with only six cars running – the ones on Bridgestones – the other drivers refused to race. Mike retrieved the dish and coax from on top of the river bank before bedtime.

Friday 22nd April 2005 nr Dzierzów KP45 to Santok KP68 (Warta). 22.2kms no locks

Basin in Gorzow

Not so cold as the night before, but still decidedly chilly at 0.7º C. Sunny start with clouds rolling over and brief light rain showers. Before we set off Fanny chased a stick that Mike had thrown for her and pounced into some bushes, flushing out a duck which took flight surprising everybody including Fanny. Mike and Bill saw another otter, this one was sprawled out on a chewed tree stump not far downstream of the boats! We set off at 8.30 a.m. following Rosy upriver

Bridges over the Warta in Gorzow

until we caught up and overtook. Again there were lots and lots of swans on the river in quite large groups. As we saw the outskirts of Gorzow Wielkopolski, a short shower of rain sent us chasing after plastic bags for the GPS, ‘phone and radio – it stopped not long after the brolly went up. Gorzow from the water looked even scruffier than we remembered it from the road. A long, stretched out town along the river bank and up the hill, with

Painted building in Gorzow

old tower blocks of flats now cheered up with pastel shades of paint. We spied the onion dome of an Orthodox Christian church behind the factory chimneys and tumble down warehouses. An old basin on the right hand bank came into view. A redundant iron boat had been hauled up the sloping bank until only its stern remained in the water. Behind it stood an ancient, empty concrete quay with bollards. As we neared the town bridges we encountered the first of a dozen or so canoeists, paddling fast

The market backing on to the riverbank

downstream with the flow with such serious expressions and fast glups of breath – we thought that they must have been practising for the next Olympics! I took photos as we passed slowly through the town, the shops under the railway arches where five years earlier we had been spotted as tourists by a couple of sharks, the backs of the market stalls where bunches of youths were already drinking beer from the stalls, the cross roads under the railway by the river bridge and the guarded car park where our

An old tug on the bank covered in grafitti

sharks conned us into buying a road map of Poland as a waterways guide. Memories, memories! We’re older and more canny now! The moorings looked great, a concrete quay with mooring studs, right by the shops (and the vandals, thieves and cheeky kids!) By the new bridge over the river we noted a new mooring place in an arm on the left bank. There was a row of posts with a gangway linking them. The only occupants were two fishermen. A little further upstream on the right bank was another basin.

The market and blocks of flats in Gorzow

This one was full of boats, old waterways vessels, and a slipway and cranes. Mike had noted the place as a possible safe mooring, when we were there by car. The sun came out again as we left Gorzow astern. I made us a cup of soup to warm us up. At the edge of a large area of wasteland a man stood and watched us pass by. He had a small brown pitbull dog with him. He pointed to the boat and spoke to the dog, then he lifted the dog up and waved its paw! I just had to call on the radio and tell Bill to get Fanny

A guarded car park, by the market in Gorzow

to wave back! We’d been having trouble getting people to wave back to us, they all just gave us surly looks. A low range of little sandy hills occupied the left bank all the way to Santok. We noted more and more evidence of beaver attacks on trees. Mike pointed out one tree stump, which looked like the end of a sharpened pencil, where the beavers had actually felled the tree. Each village seemed to have a least one cartwheel on a pole with a pair of nesting storks atop it. On top of one of the hills there stood

Rosy passing through Gorzow.

the base of an old windmill, just the brick tower, now window-less and door-less. A large blue hulled cruiser (it looked like an ex-German police boat) came downriver towards us, then turned bows into the bank, tied to the kilometre marker (KP64) and a bloke jumped off and started painting the post. Mike said he’d seen five marker posts since Gorzow – the bank marker thief couldn’t work this far upriver! We motored on upstream to moor at Santok at 2.20 p.m. There was a row of posts linked together by planks

Waterways painting the marker posts

which stood in the river about three metres from the bank edge which was sloping and lined with rocks. We moored on the outside and Bill brought Rosy carefully up the inside – there was just enough depth over the rocks. Mike said Bill could borrow our plank and then he and the dog could get off. Fanny was by now in urgent need of a pee, so Bill let her off and then, once she was back on board, he put the plank on his roof. Mike lit the central heating again as the temperature dropped sharply after dark.

Moored on the Notec at Santok

Moored at Santok

Thursday 21st April 2005 Nr Oksza to nr Dzierzów KP45 (Warta). 20.2kms

Houses and marker posts at Swiekocin

It was really cold overnight –4º C, so we were glad of having lit the central heating the night before. The day was sunny and calmer, not so windy, but the light breeze was still very cold. We were about to move off at 8.00 a.m. when Bill said he’d got problems, no rev counter again and he thought he could see smoke (he’d had an intermittent problem with it yesterday) so Mike went on Rosy to help sort it out. The alternator pulley had split into two halves, so the belt was loose. They sorted out another pulley, etc, fixed it and we set off at ten to ten. A pair of storks were flying overhead, a gaggle

Traffic!! Near Kolszyn

of geese took off - as did more swans (I’d never seen so many swans) Coats on again. At 10.40 a.m. we passed a few houses on the left bank at the village of Swiekocin by the first bridge, where there were a pile of kilometre marker posts in a garden lying against a fence. Mike had been complaining about the lack of posts and here they were! Had the guy stolen them? or had they been taken in for the winter? Bill said it would be OK as long as he put them back in the right order! I baked some buns for lunch and made some drop scones while the oven was hot. Vacuumed the carpet and broke the belt that drives the brush roller. Had to replace it with a new one before I could finish cleaning

Trees make good moorings here

the floor. Made a cuppa and sat back out on the stern, birdwatching. Three goosanders flew off in front, one male and two females. At 12.30 I went inside to make some lunch. When I stepped back outside at 1.00 p.m. as we neared Kołszyn, to my surprise there was a commercial coming downstream. Number BM5228 (no names here) was 56.6m long and carried 495 tonnes according to his details painted on the boat’s coamings – it looked part loaded. The skipper just about managed a wave!  A strange ripple in the water stretching halfway across the river caused Mike to steer towards

Best not to tie to the ones the beavers have chewed.

the left bank. It was something huge swimming just under the surface of the water! As we approached it it disappeared. Near Chwalowice we saw an otter swimming across the river from right to left. I tracked it with binoculars as it headed for the bank and was hidden from sight in a mass of old tree stumps and branches.  Later on Mike said he saw something run up a tree, I looked with my binoculars and a few minutes later a large mink (or was it another otter – they are very much darker brown than we expected) scooted into a bank of dead reeds. We decided to moor before Gorzow and spied a convenient looking place by some old trees at 3.30 p.m. I threw a bow rope around a tree stump and Mike powered the stern towards the bank.  Bill brought Rosy alongside, then Mike put poles out to keep the boats off the sandy river bottom while Bill set some long lines fore and aft. The trees in front and behind us showed evidence of being gnawed by beaver. 

Wednesday 20th April 2005 Kostryzn to nr Oksza (Warta). 23kms no locks

The cable ferry Lubusz

A cold night 0.7º C sunny day, but biting cold ENE wind. Up at seven to go at eight. As we untied from the quay wall a lone gongoozler turned up, a man who’d driven on to the wharf in his car especially to watch the proceedings. Here begins the real start of the battle upstream against the flow on the river Warta, a smaller river than the Oder, but without (we think) the hazard of stone groynes. The first section of the river ran through very flat open country, a shared floodplain with the Oder, with a nature reserve area on our right bank. All around we were surrounded by wildlife, masses of birds, in some very remote and unspoiled countryside. The ground on the left bank was under water, turned into a marsh, which hundreds of swans and ducks and gulls were exploiting to the full. The engine revvs should have given us 7.5 kph in still water, with the flow of the river against us we were traveling

Bar-tailed godwit - Wikimedia photo by Steve Maslowski

upstream at between 3.5 to 4 kph, so the flow was between 3.5 to 4 kph. A mite slower than the Oder. The marshy fields were replaced by a flood dyke along the river’s edge on our left and more open countryside on our right, which was still the nature reserve. A man in a car drove towards Kostryzn on the dyke path, returning later in the morning. We wondered if he was a water bailiff or a fisherman. Lots of swans went flying off in front, to land and take off again, until we’d collected a bunch of three dozen of the stupid birds. They eventually flew away. We were both getting very cold. Mike changed his coat, I put on tights under my jeans and found a scarf. I made us a cup of soup to warm us up. Its effects were very temporary! The wind was bitter, it felt icy just like midwinter. We ate lunch on the move. The first signs of human habitation appeared on the right bank when we saw

Red kite - Wikimedia photo by Tony Hisgett

the first cable ferry. No one around. It had “Lubusz” painted on the side, it linked the villages to the south of the river with a small town called Witnica, several kilometres away to the north. We motored slowly on upstream until the road on the right bank swung away from the river and we found a couple of tree stumps to tie the bows to. Bill brought Rosy alongside on our left, nearest the bank (for the dog), and we dropped a rope on his bows that we’d already slung around a tree stump. Secured! We dropped back a bit when we realised our bows we over some flat stones. Mike ran a stern line to another tree stump after slinging one of

Starry night sky - Wikimedia photo by Michael J Bennett

our gangplanks off Rosy’s bows. Bill said one of the things he’d forgotten to get when we were at EHS was a new gangplank. A red kite came circling to inspect us, nothing edible, so he went on his way. We could hear birds in the distance, which sounded like bar-tailed godwits (once heard at close range, never forgotten, there had been lots of them last time we were in the Netherlands). I put the PC on and Mike went for a nap. My eyes were stinging from having the wind in my face for most of the seven hours we’d been travelling. We’d already relit the coal fire earlier in the evening, but around ten o’clock the temperature was dropping like a brick, so Mike lit the central heating. The sky was black and full of brilliant stars. Silence! Wonderful.

Tuesday 19th April 2005 Słubice to Kostryzn.37.8kms

Lebus - Wikimedia photo by Lienhard Schultz

We got the boat ready to leave at 10.30 a.m. It was sunny but windy. Mike went to the local Intermarché to get a broom handle to make a replacement flagstaff. He was not amused at the rude treatment he got from the young checkout assistant. He’d got a pole that belonged to a brush. He didn’t want the brush, so he went and found a different handle. Once sawn to the right length and equipped with a few cup hooks it made a passable flagstaff. Pity our old ensign was in such a tatty state. Some time ago we’d tried painting it with fabric paint as it had faded, but had given up and bought a new one. Mike said he’d have another go at painting it later. Lutz and Bernt arrived ready to set off at ten thirty. They came with us on our boat as Bill was having an attack of

Fortifications at Kostryzn - Wikimedia photo by Norbert Radtke

nerves about getting back into the flow on the Oder through the chicane under the bridge and round the submerged sandbank – he said he only wanted to be responsible for one death by drowning  - his own! We went first, he only had to follow us. It was cold in the strong wind blowing upriver, but the two German men sat out on our front deck, Bernt taking photos and Lutz smoking as ever. I found our spare binoculars, which Bernt found very useful when pair of beautiful goldeneye ducks took off. The Germans went inside and got warmed up and I made some coffee and found some photo albums for them to have a look at. We passed two customs vans sitting on the riverside, watching for more smugglers. Lebus stood on its crag, where the generals in WWII watched the battle below on the plain. I made lunch. We had sandwiches on the stern and I gave Lutz and Bernt a tray with salad, cheese and cooked meats plus bread buns to have on a plate or as sandwiches as they wished. We were making good time going downstream with the flow. The GPS said we were flying along at 11 kph, we’d engine revvs for 6 kph which meant we were assisted by a flow of 5 kph. A German tug from Eberswalde set off from the bank, pushing an empty pan just before we arrived at the junction with the river Warta. Under the bridges, passing the old red brick fortifications of

River Warta at Kostryzn - Wikimedia photo by Axe

the old town of Kostryzn (flattened in WWII) and we turned carefully to our right, avoiding the sandbanks at the junction, and headed upstream on the Warta. The wind was no longer in our faces and we were sheltered by the bulk of a large coal-fired factory complex. The change in speed was dramatic, we had slowed down to around 4.5 kph. It was 3.00 p.m. when we arrived at the quay, which was cabin roof height, so I stepped off the roof with our centre rope and tied it to the pole supporting the sign that said Kostryzn (with a couple of letters missing!). Bernt got off to help knock stakes in. Bill kept Rosy in midstream until we’d moored, then came alongside

Moored boats and coal-fired factory at Kostryzn

us. Bernt ‘phoned Siggi. She’d been at Seelow, which was not far away and arrived to pick them up in her green Berlingo. I asked if she’d like to come in for coffee, but she said, no, they would like to get home. Bernt certainly enjoyed his day out even if it was freezing cold, Lutz too said he had enjoyed himself. We waved bye, bye as they left. Bill went to take photos from the bridge and Fanny took her ball to play with two young Polish girls who giggled a lot. Mike had another go at repainting our ensign out on the bank and a gang of four young lads came to look at what he was doing and practise their English. He’d just put our surveillance camera on the mast – they were quick to spot it. Bill

Broom handle for a flagstaff! 

asked if we’d got pictures on our TV! Watched Channel Four News. Seventy eight year old Joseph Ratzinger, a German cardinal and good friend of Pope John-Paul, had been elected Pope on the second day of voting, he is to be called Pope Benedict the sixteenth but the media were already calling him God’s Rotweiler!^.  Later, what sounded like a few pebbles landed on our roof, so we went out to investigate and found Bill out on his stern too. Three youths were walking nonchalantly towards the road bridge looking completely innocent, except there was no one else in sight. Hoped this wasn’t a sign of things to come. I couldn’t find the stones they’d lobbed. The roof was getting covered in dust again and loads of seeds off the plane trees in the park by the mooring. Lit the coal fire as the temperature started dropping rapidly.