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.

Monday 18th April 2005 EHS to Słubice Poland. 37.8kms 1 lock

The shaft locks at Eisenhuttenstadt

Sunny and warm, windy. Up bright and early to get the boat ready to move. Hans the school teacher came round to say farewell and tell us he couldn’t accompany us with his inflatable Zodiac (gummiboot in German!) as his new young radio amateur friend had decided not to c with him. He looked very disappointed as he cycled off. Our green card for the car insurance had arrived from France, so Mike went to tell Christian - who didn’t understand a word. Mike went across the road to the car

Our friend Hans come to see us off

dealers where Klaus works to tell him so he could pass the message on to Christian that our insurance documents had arrived so no need to check the post for us, but he wasn’t there. Hans-D arrived and Mike asked him to explain to Christian, after he’d explained the situation to Hans-D himself. Christian was busy moving a boat. Another one of the members had hauled a trailer with the boat on it down to the side of the club using a small tractor. He’d turned it and had caught the stern end of the boat

Rosy leaving the shaft lock EHS 

on top the fencing along the edge of the quay as there wasn’t quite enough clearance and the boat was now bending the fence. Not the right moment to talk to Christian! We left the basin at 10.30 a.m. with Rosy following, and ran down to Eisenhüttenstadt twin shaft locks. Christian had already ‘phoned them for us to get the lock ready. The right hand chamber was full and ready, but the lights were red. We stooged about until the invisible keeper changed the lights to green. Hans-D had cycled down the towpath and went on to the road, which ran across the tail of the lock on a level with the top of the lock. The descent was, as usual, very slow and gentle, with a musical, screeching floater to hang on to - which stuck every now and again as we descended sometimes dropping suddenly around a metre, or so, as the change in water level left it hanging. Hans-D came across Furstenberg to the Customs office. We moored with our bows on the Customs landing and our stern end on the new landing stage for the trip boat, which doubles as a mooring for pleasure boats too. We went in the office with all our papers. Hans said he’d see us later and didn’t come in with

Rosy below the shaft lock EHS

us. Neither the German customs officer nor the Polish lad spoke much English. First we went in the German officer’s office and he took a few notes. Then we went next door to see a very young Polish Custom’s officer. He used a portable computer to swipe our passports and then wrote down all the details in two books. We’d just told Bill that we’d had our passports stamped when we came through last time. The lad must have understood because he asked if we wanted stamps on our passports. We all

A waterways boat on the slip in Furstenberg

said oh yes please, very eagerly! The two Customs men came to have a look at the boats and we showed them a few photos. Bill asked the lad if he wanted to take a look inside Rosy, but he declined. The older German guy, however, asked if he could see inside Temjiun and Mike took him for the guided tour, while I stood on the stern chatting to Hans-D. Marianne was shopping at the market, he said, for some fish for their lunch. We wished Hans a good holiday in Britain in May, they’re going for about a month and reminded him to send us postcards and to write to us. He said he would. Mike

The customs pontoon in Furstenberg

said he should have had a ride with us down to the Oder. Next time! The German officer was taking photos, so Mike did a twirl with the boat – a figure of eight – before we set off on to the Oder, waving bye bye to Hans-D. The river was flowing well with still quite a bit of flood water – there was no sand showing anywhere and all the groynes were well under water. A stork flew over as we entered the river, heading downstream towards the Baltic. A tug pushing a craneboat went past motoring hard, running uphill. I made some lunch, which we ate as we went along, sitting out in the sunshine. Willie wagtails were hitching lifts on the boat roof, but didn’t seem interested in searching out insects

Frankfurt. Rosy heading back upstream on the Oder
into the harbour at Slubice 

around the planks, etc, as others had done before them. Just before Brieskow-Finkenheerd, at KP575, border patrol boat No 43 came upriver at very high speed, slowed down to look at the two strange boats, then went back to high speed once it had had a good look and passed us both. We’d forgotten to bring out the ‘phones (both Polish and German ‘phones will work for the next couple of days) and we’d got an SMS from Peter on the Polish phone. He’d received the post from us, liked the picture in the papert, he said, shame about all the errors in the write up. Under the autobahn bridge above Frankfurt, then under the town bridge and a swift turn round in the current to battle back

Frankfurt from the Oder

upstream, between the sandbanks and back under the far arch of the road bridge into the arm where there was a good quay mooring at Słubice. It was ten to four when we tied up. Surprised to find we had to step down off the boat on to the quay. When we were there last time we had to climb up on to the boat roof and then use the tractor tyres, which festooned the walls, to climb up on to the quay. We hadn’t realised how much flood water was still running down the Oder. It was interesting to look back at the photo of the mooring last time we were there. Bill came round to tell us that his friends from Frankfurt were coming to see us at 7.30 p.m. We all went for a drink in the bistro by the quay, a very short distance away up a flight of steps. Steffi, who is a journalist, arrived with her husband Lutz, a retired actor, and their friends Siggi and Bernt. Both women spoke quite

Frankfurt from the Oder

good English, but the men didn’t. Lutz said he learnt French at school, but said he didn’t remember much! He smoked a lot (and coughed a lot too). We sat outside under a huge umbrella, drank bottles of Tyskie beer and chatted until the sun went down. Fanny barked at every dog that went by – there were a lot of dogs around, most of them much bigger than her! Bill came back from a visit to his boat with the astounding news that the red ensigns from both boats had disappeared! We couldn’t believe it, we were only yards away. We hadn’t locked the doors either. I went to make sure the boat was OK and locked the stern doors. Steffi asked the landlord of the bistro if he would ask the lads who were fishing at the waterways yard house opposite if they’d seen

Moored in the harbour in Slubice - Poland!
(Sorry for bad quality of photo - very early digital camera)

anything. No. Wonderful. Our first night in Poland and somebody steals not only our red ensigns but the flagpoles too! Steffi said she hadn’t been able to come and photograph the boats going under the bridge at Frankfurt as she’d been reporting on the WWII commemorations a bit further north upriver at Lebus, site of a famous battle in the latter days of WWII when over 50,000 Poles, Russians and Germans died. She also told us that the German customs men had made a record bust, catching smugglers with a million Polish cigarettes. Mike and Bill asked the Germans if they’d like to come with us the next day for trip down the river to Kostryzn. The women said no, but the men said they would like to come with us. Our visitors went home at 9.30 p.m. Mike and Bill sat out a bit longer, but I went back on the boat as I was starting to feel cold. 

Friday 15th October 2004 Wergensee to Eisenhüttenstadt for winter.

Christian - the Boss at the boat club

3.7° C Grey chilly morning, breezy afternoon, rain started at 2 p.m. Off at 9 a.m. Rosy following us. Mike had to untie and do the lock by himself, as I was still having trouble bending due to my bad back. I tried taking pain killers, but they didn’t do much good. Up Neuhaus lock. Mike gave the keeper a bottle of French red wine, which he refused to take - but only for the first five seconds! Mike said he seemed very pleased to have been given a present for keeping an eye on our car in the corner of the WSA yard. Followed Rosy back up the Spiesekanal and on to the OSK. Both Mike and Bill saw a pair of cranes fly over very low, squawking loudly, at less than a hundred feet. I made lunch at 12.15 p.m. The wind was very chilly and the temperature never crept above 10°C, so I left the central heating on. As we were passing the enormous factory complex of the Ekostahl around 2 p.m. the rain began falling. There were no signs of life at the factory except for one man on a tall chimney stack. A large bucket was being lowered down from the top, the wind swinging it out from the side of the chimney by about 20°. We turned into the basin at 2.40 p.m. There wasn’t as much

Furstenberg church from the R Oder

space as when we visited by car, three more large cruisers were moored along the wall. We moored on the wall beyond the new landing stage and Bill tied on the landing by the pump out, then the two of them went to find Christian. Mike unloaded the moped and we moved up alongside Rosy on Christian’s instructions. He connected up the electricity and set up the TV. Tired, we both went for a snooze, only to be reawakened by a knock, knock. Guess who? Our friend Hans the school teacher and his little dog. Mike

Police patrol boat in Furstenberg

stood outside chatting to him and Klaus, one of the club members who speaks English. Hans said he was off on a 100 km bike ride next day. It started to rain again, so Mike said bye ’bye and he went home. Bill came round with a bottle of red wine and we sat and had a chat (Fanny stayed at home). Mike opened a couple of bottles of his favourite white wine, Erben Spätlese, and we talked about all the jobs to do while we were on our winter mooring and having an exploratory trip or two into Poland by car. 

Thursday 14th October 2004 Kossenblatt to Wergensee.

A chien viverine also called a racoon dog - was this what he saw?
Wikimedia photo by Jukka A Lang 

3.6° C Sunny and cold. Clouded over in the afternoon and the wind picked up. It was only 3.8° C when Mike set off back down the Spree at 8 a.m. I had difficulty getting out of bed as my back was still bad and I’d had a rough night waking up a dozen times or more. I decided discretion was the better part and stayed indoors again. Took Mike some tea out as we were passing the old lock. We arrived above Beeskow lock at 11.45. The lock filled and I made a sandwich as we waited for the lock to empty. We dropped down the lock side by side with Rosy and followed behind all the way back to Wergensee, where we tied up exactly where we’d been the previous morning. It was 2.15 p.m. It took 6.8 hours to go upstream and 5.7 hours coming back with the flow - an hour faster. That was surprising as the flow didn’t seem to be very much. Mike said he’d seen a herd of deer and later a large animal like a fox but the wrong colour. We looked in my French book of European animals and the only thing like it for size was a chien viverine (whatever that is!), but Mike said it wasn’t like that. He said it looked a bit like a fox with a bushy tail but greyish in colour and it had shorter legs. It remains a mystery. Peter sent an SMS to ask if we were on air just as we were about to eat. Sent one back to say OK we’d play HF a bit later. He ‘phoned to find out what was happening as Mike was erecting the pole and wire on the roof. I held the spotlight for him by the side doors. It was very dark. They had a very reasonable contact on 40m until conditions dropped. Peter ‘phoned us to say he’d lost Mike on HF in the noise. Put the central heating on overnight.

Wednesday 13th October 2004 Wergensee to Kossenblatt.

Ten years later a much safer Beeskow lock - DIY automatic

1.2° C Sunny and cold. Mike set off at 8.30 a.m. Outside temperature only 2° C. I stayed inside all day as I had a bad back and was having trouble moving. Mike had estimated our time of arrival at Beeskow automatic lock (which works on the hour whether there are any boats in the chamber or not!) and adjusted the engine speed to go a bit faster than normal to arrive there at ten. We moored below the lock at a few minutes before ten. As Rosy was coming alongside us, the lock started emptying and blew Rosy sideways. Bill swore and backed off! When the flush had subsided he came alongside. When

Aug 1999 the old 40m lock at Kossenblatt, which was closed

the gates opened we went into the chamber still roped together. I noted there was no emergency stop button to halt proceedings if anything should go wrong. Mike went up on to the lockside to look and confirmed there was no shutdown switch. Hmm. This lock doesn’t conform with the rest of Europe’s health and safety standards, and it doesn't even comply with German ones! Mike did however find some interesting mushrooms and brought me a couple of them for identification. I

Kossenblatt in 2014, a new DIY auto lock (only12m long) and weir

couldn’t say for certain what they were as they were white with white gills, so I did a spore print which was also white. No confirmed identity so we didn’t eat them, although they looked and smelled good. We carried on up the Spree with Rosy in front of us. Made lunch at 1 p.m. and hobbled down to the stern to take it to Mike and managed to steer while he went insidefor a short break. We arrived at Kossenblatt at 3.15 p.m. and moored alongside Rosy in the mouth of the old lock chamber, with our stern almost touching the old gates. Later Mike lit the coal fire and burned some of the coal he collected from the old Siemens factory wharf. 

Tuesday 12th October 2004 Große Tranke to Wergensee.

North chamber of Furstenwalde lock
with elevated track and towing mule for push-tow pans (2014 photo)

-0.5° C First dip below zero this autumn. Frost covering the roof and canvases first thing. The sun shone all day, but we still had a very cold east wind blowing. Mike chatted to two WSA men, who had come to read the water levels at the pegel by our stern end, just before we set off at 9 a.m. following Rosy. A loaded boat called Concordia came downstream and Mike called Füstenwalde on VHF and got a reply from the lady keeper, a torrent of rapid German, none of which was understood by us. The lock emptied and we went in and hung on the wall, Rosy alongside us and rose about one metre. The two ladies who

New lock at Kersdorf from 2014 - old one to right out of shot

were in charge of the lock came to talk to us, still in rapid non-stop German. One slowed down enough for Mike to understand that she was asking where we were going. She told him that there was no traffic coming off the Oder as the water level was too low at present. An empty Dutch boat, Aurora from Nijmegen - a 65m long 700 tonner, was moored above the lock. It was wild and windy as we went along the river Spree. I made hot sandwiches for our lunch and fed buns to Mike one by one so that they wouldn’t go cold. We arrived at Kersdorf at 1 p.m. Mike called on VHF and an elderly couple came out on to the lockside and opened the gates on the left hand chamber. We went in and rose three metres with Rosy alongside us. Mike had another long chat to the keepers in very limited German. On to the summit level at 43m asl. Now we were on a true canal section of the Oder-Spree-Kanal. Again the keeper had said to Mike that there was very little water in the

Neuhaus lock (2014 photo)

Oder. Three cranes flew over, trumpeting loudly. They were flying north - wrong direction chaps! Africa is south of here! A man operating a digger from a Polish Transbode tug from Wroclaw, was loading rocks into a pan called Lucie. Rosy was in the lead and we followed, turning right into the Spiesekanal down to Neuhaus lock. On the bank we passed more evidence of wild beavers living in the vicinity - a half gnawed through tree trunk. It was 2.35 p.m. when we arrived at the lock. No signs of life. We lashed alongside Rosy on the landing for the lock and Mike went to find the keeper. The lock was already full, so he came out and lifted the bridge, then we went in and dropped down about a metre. While the lock was emptying Mike moved the car from the public car park to the WSA yard, after he’d asked for permission to park it there from the keeper. At 3.15 p.m. we tied up by the tiny (12.6m long by 3m wide) lock down on to the river Spree. There was just enough room for Rosy on the lock landing, we winded and put our stern next to the other side of the wooden landing, roping our bows to some old wooden posts in the river bed. I took the camera to photograph the unusual manually operated lock with sideways sliding gates. Fanny came with me and sat waiting for me to throw a stick for her (ever ready

Wergensee lock - too small for us!

Fanny waiting for me to throw a stick

to play as always) so I took her photo too while she was sitting still. Bill lit his coal range in his back cabin. 

Monday 11th October 2004 Schmöckwitz to Große Tranke.

Wernsdorf locks
Wikimedia photo by hans g oberlack

4.3° C Sunny with a cold east wind. Mike was up first at 7 a.m. Bill wanted some shopping before we set off, so Mike took him in the car to Extra and I got on with some chores. It was on the news that Superman, actor Christopher Reeves, had sadly died at the age of 52. We set off at 8.50 a.m. Rosy following after a Berliner tug had passed. There was no one around at Werndorf lock when we arrived. Mike had called three times on VHF and had no reply, but the lock emptied and we went up. As we left a 60m empty called Cor-Mar arrived to go down. At eleven I made us a cup of soup. The Refleks decided to smoke a lot, so I turned the fuel supply up full until the whole pan was burning evenly then turned it back down to two. I did that three times and then finally had to turn it off as it kept on smoking.

Wernsdorf bridge.
Wikimedia photo by  fridolin freudenfett

The outside temperature was increasing, but the east wind in our faces was bitterly cold. The Schiffahrtspolitzei tug See Otter went past heading downstream and came back again not long after. Bill tried to let Fanny off at a landing stage and, to his surprise, almost got stuck on the bottom. Not deep at the edges! We decided as it was so cold we would cut the journey in two and stop at Große Tranke. Three people with baskets (mushrooming?) were walking along the towpath just before the double chambers of the stop lock at Große Tranke. A Polish tug came through the stop lock and picked up a loaded pan, which had been sitting next to the piling, then he set off downstream. Through the stop lock and turned left towards the weir on to the Spree and moored by the little landing stage for canoes to portage and little boats to use the bootschlepper. It was 1.40 p.m. Mike was sure we would have trouble getting the satellite due to the trees in the way, so he made up a length of coax with two plugs as a second extension cable - and then found that there was a sufficient gap in the tree foliage exactly in the right place for the dish to work in its usual place on the roof! Never mind I’m sure we’ll have to use the extension some time. At 3.40 p.m. Mike went to get the car and move it on to Neuhaus. He was very late getting back, it was dark and cold when he arrived at 7.30 p.m. He’d had trouble with the roads, either they didn’t go where he wanted or there were diversions. The light over the “No Entry” sign by the mooring was very useful as we stored the moped back on the boat roof in the dark.