Fram's Voyages
Travemunde - Mittelandkanal
10 May
Skanör - Klinthavn, Møn
37.1 NM
Sunny, 12C
Wind SW 1-5m/s
Kimmie, Fredrik and Vilda waved us off from the dock at 10.00. It was sunny but chilly. For the first time in a while, we did not have ice on the deck in the morning. We sailed the first 3 hours but then the wind died - motored 3 hours and sailed the last hour when we turned west to sail into Klinthavn. Hardly any boats here and the visitors that are here are all from Germany; sailors heading north to the Stockholm and Gothenburg archipelago islands. I think I am the only woman in the entire harbour. All the German boats are populated by men. We took a walk to stretch our legs, ate a good dinner and off to bed.
11 May
Klinthavn - Gedser
33.8 NM
Cloudy skies, 10C
Wind S-SW 0-2m/s
This was not a pretty sail, very gray with leaden skies, dark sea and very little wind. We donned our foul-weather gear with fleece sweaters to keep warm. When will the good weather come?? Had to motor the whole way as wind too weak and on our nose. Saw 2 dolphins NE of Gedser. All tucked in now and ready for the Gale that is coming tonight.
12 May
Gedser - Fehmarn, Germany
31.4NM
Overcast turning to fog, 10C
Winds NE 0-5m/s
Dithered all morning but after a walk about town decided to go to Fehmarn. Wind had decreased from 21m/s to 8m/s. Left Gedser marina, hoisted sails but found ride was very rocky. Took in main to sail on jib alone but still horribly rocky so started engine and got speed up to 5.5 knots and felt good. Visibility went down to 200 m. Didn't see Fehmarn until we almost bumped into it. Luckily very well marked channel into harbour. Lots of people getting their boats ready for the sailing season. Took a walk to see the island and town; there are nice beaches which though did not look very appealing on a cloudy stormy day, are surely lovely in the summer time. Lots of hotels and swim halls, etc, for families. Most everything is closed right now though.
13-17 May
Fahrmen - Travemunde (Marina Baltica)
31.7NM
Cloudy 10C
Winds NW 5-0m/s
Took a walk around the area. The marina is circular and very large, plenty of space but not sure if it's because it's the beginning of the season or if they always have alot of guest berths. It's part of a big resort with lovely beaches, restaurants, and fun things for families. Kind of run down though. We left the marina and set sails just outside for the sail to Travemunde. Tons of boats out sailing. We had to motor the last 3 hours as wind died. Travemunde seems very festive. Lots of people out. We moved over to the crane at Marina Baltica for demasting. The mornings clouds burned away and we had a gorgeous sunny afternoon. Unfortunately, we only realised that it was a long weekend, due to Ascension holiday, when we got up to the mast crane and went in to the office to tell them we were ready for demasting. They said, great, we'll do it first thing on Monday. Today was Thursday..... So spent the weekend on rented bikes seeing Travemunde area. Very beautiful, long beaches and high cliffs. To our amazement though, there was no ship's chandler stores. So still don't have charts for the canals. We found a grocery store and enjoyed our first fresh white Asparagus with German ham and a lovely Reisling. All went fine with the demasting on Monday. Dan built the supports for the mast with wood that he brought from Sweden, (yes, we had a tough time moving about on Roam's decks), and no one else was waiting in line so we were able to take as long as we wanted to get everything in place before taking down the mast. Great service, friendly personnel but English nearly non-existent.
18 May
Travemunde Baltic Marina - Lauenberg
45.9NM
7 locks
Cloudy blustery cold day, 7C
Wind W 8-16m/s
All ready to go, but no charts. As luck would have it, we were talking to a guy who was helping us with our lines and mentioned that we hadn't been able to find charts yet. He said he had old charts that we could have and ran off to his boat and got them. Yay:) Gave him a bottle of wine in return. These charts will get us to Hannover, and by then we should have found a chandlers with charts. We entered the Trave River to Lubeck, then Elbe Lubeck canal. Experienced our first locks which went fine. We were traveling with a barge and had to go in behind him each time.
19 May 2010
Lauenberg - Bunker Station
N 52 43.425 E 010 40.007
Distance travelled: 44NM
1 lock
Time travelled: 12hrs 30 min.
Temperature: 10C
Got up at 06.00 to a gray cold and windy morning. No boats; neither barges nor pleasure boats,
were in sight. Left the Elbe-Lubeck canal and entered the Elbe River westbound for about
4 km before making a hard left turn into the Elbe-Seite Canal. The Elbe-Seite Canal is about
100 km long and has two locks. We figured we'd be able to make the entire run down to our
next canal, Mitteland Kanal, today. The Gods must have been laughing their heads off at us
and our naive plans. Rain started pouring down as we motored towards a new kind of lock.
It's an elevator. Basically. You drive into the lock, the gate closes and then the entire lock
lifts 38 m and lets you out at the top. Sounds so easy, no in-rushing water tossing you about,
just drive in, find 2 bollards to hook your lines around and sit and enjoy the ride. Only
one barge was at the lock waiting to go in when we got there so things were looking good.
As we are a pleasure boat, we are last on the totem pole, in terms of who gets to go into the
lock. Though only a couple barges came along waiting to go in, it's a big lock so figured
we'd be able to squeeze in. This lock is 100m long, 12 m wide, but the barges on this canal are
bigger too. So only one barge fits at a time, plus perhaps one or two little pleasure boats.
We arrived behind one barge who entered the lock directly and we followed right behind
figuring we must fit, but just as we got to the entrance, the green lights switched to red
lights, telling us, "oh no you don't" and we had to turn around and go put ourselves on the
breakwall and wait for the next trip. Unfortunately, while we were waiting, another big barge
arrived and this one was carrying fuel oil so by law no one else can enter the lock with that one.
So we had to wait another turn. In the end, we waited 2.5 hrs before we were finally signaled
to enter the lock. This was done by VHF radio. I must say, Dan took my breath away with his
command of the German language. There he was communicating away in German with the lock
keeper about when and where to go. We followed another barge in to the lock. From our brief
experience of yesterday, we learned that you wait till the barge is in and parked for good and
turned off his engine before you enter the lock yourself. The reason for this is that the barges
have incredibly strong engines and propellers as big as I don't know what and when they have
them in forward and you are directly behind them, your boat moves in ways you never thought
possible. You literally shoot backwards and of course always at a crooked angle which makes it
nearly impossible for you to right yourself before disaster strikes and you smash into one of
the walls of the lock. A surplus of fenders is essential to your boat’s survival. So we bided our
time until we saw that the barge's prop was still and no surge was coming out from under before
entering the lock. As luck would have it, just as we came in, the barge driver changed his mind
and decided to move some more and gunned his engine forward sending millions of liters of water
our way. I was standing on the bow with one leg already in mid-air to step off the boat and
take my bowline to a bollard and make fast when our boat started drifting backwards and out
of the lock, I couldn't stop my own motion so took a big leap and jumped onto the ledge. As I
landed I heard the urgency in Dan's voice shouting "make fast Margaret NOW!!!" I ran as fast
as I could and threw my line around the bollard and held on as tight as I could. Thank my
guardian angel, the line held and stopped our propelling backwards and smashing the stern
of our boat into the lock wall. Relief. Now we were tied down and it was just to wait for
this enormous elevator to take us to the top. We were placed just about as far back as you
can get inside the lock gates. But that was fine by us, until the gates started closing. I was
taking a photo of the activity and suddenly saw a strange cable about 10 cm in diameter and
stretching across the back of the lock, coming down right behind our boat. Dan saw it too.
To our mortification, it looked like it was going to come down right on the back of our mast
which sticks out behind the boat about 2 meters. We watched in stunned horror as it came
down looking like it was going to crash down onto our mast and cause a disaster. But we were
lucky this time as it passed about 20 cm behind the end of our mast and we were saved.
Sickening relief.
Now we could turn our attention to the machinations of the lift. Just to give you a feeling for
the enormity of this feat, the lock is 100 meters long, 12 meters wide and filled with 3.5 meters
of water, a barge that probably weighs at least 100 tons, and us, weighing in at 4 tons:). However
you do the math, that is an enormous weight to lift 38 meters. But it did and very quickly too,
I might add. When we got to the top, the lock gate in front of the barge opened and he got ready
to go, as he took his stern line loose, I, standing at our bow, asked to please move forward gently
and to think of us. He promised to try. Well, all I can say is if that was his interpretation of trying,
I dread meeting up with him on a bad day. He started forward slowly but increased rather quickly
and his surge sent us moving and since we were tied down good and tight with nowhere to go
forward or backward, our boat started tipping inwards instead. We thought we were going to
be tipped over, it was positively freaky standing there watching it all happen. But then just as
suddenly as it started, it eased up and we righted ourselves. We waited till he was well and truly
out of the lock before loosening our lines and pulling away from the side. Now comes another
little roller coaster ride, because due to all the motion of water the barge propeller has set in
motion, the currents in the narrow lock are incredible, throwing our boat every which way. Dan
had to gun the engine at almost top speed and hold on tight to the tiller to keep us going straight
ahead and out of the lock. As we came out, we both heaved a huge sigh of relief and thought,
hope the next one is smaller....
21 May
N 52 22.4
E 09 46.0
Distance travelled: 59.8 NM
1 lock
Time travelled: 13 hrs 30 min.
Temperature 13C
Woke up yesterday 20 May, at 07.00 to fog and about 8C. We had spent the night at a way station
with diesel fuel so we could fill up on fuel first thing this morning. Took off right away on Elbe-Seite
Canal which we finished after 48 km and entered onto Mittelands Kanal. The day was mostly uneventful.
The Mitteland Kanal is more lively than the Elbe Seite Canal with more people and going through towns
instead of rural areas. So a bit more interesting to look at from our boat as we ever so slowly
pass by. We travel at about 10 km per hour so have plenty of time to look about. We had one lock
just before we got to Hannover. It was a 14.9 m drop. We had to wait two hours before our turn came
but they were very good about keeping us informed via VHF radio. We went in behind two other barges;
one was 100 m long, the other was 85 m long. Huge, in other words. We came in behind so cautiously that
the lock keeper came over the loudspeaker and told us to hurry up:) When we got in we could see that it
was small bollards in the wall that you had to loop a line around and then move it down to the next bollard
as the water lowered. Since we had to do it manually, we had to share one bollard for both bowline and stern line. It worked perfectly fine once we got synched so that we weren't both grabbing for our loop
at the same time. Arrived at Hannover Marina at about 20.30 and had long hot showers with no thought
to how much water we were using! A great feeling. Today we went grocery shopping and are now in town checking things out in Hannover. We will stay here over night and move on tomorrow along the Mittenland Canal to Münster. From now on, we will only be online when we can get to an internet cafe. Have no idea how easy/hard this will be but figure we will be in a normal sized town at least every other day.
22 May 2010
N 52 19.375
E 08 21.653
Distance Travelled: 54.8 NM (102km)
Tiime travelled: 10hrs 07 min
Temperature: 12C in the morning, 25 in the afternoon
Foggy and totally overcast again, 12C. We left the dock at 07.15 this morning and continued our journey
up the Mitteland Kanal. Talked a lot about our visit to Hannover Center yesterday. One of our main
errands was to find a ship's chandlers where we could buy canal charts as we had come to the end of
the one we got from the man in Travemunde. But we were told by the harbor master that there
aren't any such stores in Hannover; we would have to wait till we got to Münster, about 2 days away.
Did not like the thought of motoring blind, even though it is rather straight forward. On the other
dock across from us was an English boat so as soon as they were up and about I went over and
introduced myself and asked how one gets a hold of canal charts. Noel is the owner of Mint
Imperial, a 37 ft motor yacht. He had tons of charts and invited me in to have a look and write
down the names. He had everything one can possibly need for the canals of Europe. I borrowed
the ones that covered our route and went back to our boat to write up milemarkers for harbors,
fuel stations and towns and also where to turn off onto new canals as far as France. So felt we were
more or less prepared again, at least as well as we could be given that it's so difficult to find
places where you can buy charts. Very grateful to Noel and his canal charts:)
We got directions to the bus stop and took off for our visit to Hannover. The bus took about 15
minutes and cost 4 Euros each for the entire day including trams. We got a tour map from the
Central Train Station and then followed the suggested historical walk which took us to several
churches, the town hall, and along the old moat and its medieval portals into the city. The most
beautiful church was Markte Church. It's huge with extremely high vaulted ceilings. Very similar
design to Lubeck's Church, though not quite as big. I always insist on going inside as I love the smell
and the peacefulness of churches. Dan followed me in grumbling "do we have to go into every church??"
There is something special about a church that is almost 700 years old. This one was built in 1347
and except for damage done from bombing during WW11, (it was fully restored after the war to its
former glory)it has stood here and people have been coming and going through its door for all these
hundreds of years. Amazing. When we walked in and started to look around, we could see that we
were in luck as there was a music ensemble rehearsing for a concert on Saturday evening. They were
playing on medieval instruments that must be ancestors to the clarinet, guitar, violin and trumpet.
There were 3 male singers and 2 female singers, one of which was blind and read her notes from a
Braille book. The music was beautiful, very haunting. The singers were extremely talented as well.
We asked one of the other spectators who they were playing. It was Carlos Monteverdi's Vespers
written in 1610. We sat there watching and listening for about 45 min, until they went on a break.
Back outside again it was sunny and warm and we thought how wonderful it was to walk around in just
a t-shirt and jeans instead of the usual long underwear, sweater, thermo vest, jacket, etc. In fact,
everyone was outdoors, in cafes, walking around, sitting in parks and on the walls of the city enjoying
the sun. Much of Hannover was bombed during WWII, and we only found one square that had the
original houses with cross-worked timber and fancy wood carvings and decorations. The square itself
was covered in lush green trees and bushes with all kinds of flowers blooming. Our walk led us back
to the train station where we did some grocery shopping, stopped at an internet cafe and then took
the bus back to the marina and Roam. It was 18.00 when we got "home" but the sun was still shining
and it was so warm, must have been around 22-23C. So we changed into our running clothes and went
for a run along the canal. It's a great place to run as there are bridges all along the canal so you can
choose how long you want to run. We ran up the canal for 4 bridges, then crossed and ran down the
other side back to the bridge closest to the marina and crossed over. Made for a perfect run.
Showered and had a steak and salad dinner with freshly cooked asparagus.
Weather was very strange today. Freezing cold this morning and then the skies cleared and the
temperature soared to 25 C all in the space of about an hour. This afternoon we arrived at km marker 62 on Mittelandskanal which according to our snapshot map from Noel was the place for the Bad Essen marina.
We were very happy to stop for the day and still have some time to go walking about to look around
and stretch our legs. The harbor master very kindly waved us in and showed us where to put Roam.
The entrance was tiny with barely enough room for us to fit through. But once inside we were shown
to a nice roomy slip and tied up. The harbor master gave us a map of the town and the use of 2 bikes
but we decided to walk instead. It took about 10 minutes to get to the village of Bad Essen and once
we entered the town center we felt as though we'd been transported to the land of Hansel and Gretel.
All the buildings were from the 1700s and white with cross beams and not a single straight line.
There were shops and restaurants and flower shops and people wandering all around and sitting in
cafes enjoying being outdoors again. We stopped at a cafe for a beer before continuing our walk.
Got back to the boat at 19.30 and made dinner.
23 May 2010
N 52 18.370 E 07 37.651
Distance travelled: 31.4 NM (58.2km)
Time travelled: 5 hrs 33 min
Temperature: 25C
Woke up to a sunny day. Decided we hadn’t seen enough of Bad Essen so borrowed two
bikes from the marina and took our map from yesterday and biked off to Ippenburg
Schloss. The way there took us on small country roads through Rape fields and woodland
paths. The scent of flowers was rapture. Ippenburg Schloss is an old castle from the
1600s, unfortunately we couldn’t get too close because there was a big flower show going
on there and try as I might, I could not get Dan to see the value of 25 Euro each to go
inside and look at flowers. So we admired Ippenburg from afar and continued on to
Hünnefeld Schloss which was about 3 km from Ippenburg; also through woodland paths
and small lovely country roads. We were very impressed by how every farm and home
was kept pristinely tidy and orderly. Not even farms had junk lying around. Flower pots
and flowerbeds were in abundance and well tended. Cows were contentedly grazing in the
fields and sheep wandered around huge meadows. Families seemed to have taken to
the bike paths and were out in force, all with picnic baskets and blankets for a day
along the canal or at Ippenburg to enjoy the flower exhibition. Hünnefeld Schloss was
originally built in 1160, can’t quite remember exactly, but there abouts anyway. It had
2 moats; one around the private schloss grounds and another around the schloss itself.
The castle walls were definitely extremely old but all was kept up and in good order.
It’s now a bed & breakfast cum museum. Well worth a visit and even a stay. From
Hünnefeld, we biked back to Bad Essen and went into the town center to take pictures
of the old buildings and squares. Also gave in to the temptation to buy pastries at the
local bakery. Home-made croissants and an apple pastry and a half loaf of dark rye bread
for lunch. Soooooooo good….
Back at the boat, we met up with our friendly harbor master who brought the promised
kerosene for our heater inside Roam. We have run out and do not quite trust that the
weather will stay warm. We have had huge trouble finding it in Germany and he had some
on hand and offered to sell it to us which we happily accepted. True to his word, he
showed up this morning with 5 liters which we paid 14 Euro for. We thanked him effusely
and then made ready to leave. This required some planning as the entrance to the marina
is directly off the canal and not very wide. We noticed during our stay that when a barge
goes by, it first sucks water at an alarming speed out of the marina and then after it
passes, the water all comes rushing back in again. If a boat were to be mid way through
the opening when a barge came through it would either be sucked out into the canal and
into the oncoming barge (disaster) or pushed violently back into the marina and most likely
into the other guest boats at the dock (major disaster).So Dan and I scouted the canal
both upwards and downwards and even though the marina provides mirrors reflecting the
canal in both directions, the right side is on a curve so you can’t see farther than 200 meters.
Not enough to make a fast get-away, at least as far as we’re concerned. So we employed
the kind help of another boat owner who was not planning on leaving anytime soon and was
willing to go out and stand on the edge of the canal and watch for on-coming barges as we
made ready to skidaddle. We checked the left approach; all clear, and our friend signaled
that all was clear on the right so we backed out of our slip and scooted out of the entrance
and into the canal safe and sound. With a cheery thanks to our watch-guard, we set off down
the Mitteland Canal once again. We said good-bye to Bad Essen with a fervent wish to return
as it is a real jewel. It was lovely to motor along in just shorts and a t-shirt and soak up the
spring sun. Apparently we were not the only ones that felt this as Germans were lining up
the canal paths on bikes, walking and boating all day. We even saw kids swimming
(not advisable, frankly, the water is so dirty you can’t see 1 cm down and there’s all kinds
of yuck stuff floating about). But they seemed happy enough. After 58 km, we came to a
little side canal that was quiet and out of traffic where we could tie up for the night.
Took a walk to stretch our legs and then made dinner. Tonight was German night; fresh
rostbratwurst fried in a skillet with onions peppers and potatoes. I learned this one from
my mother but it works here perfectly here in Germany. Check my recipes, if you’re
interested:)
24 May 2010
N 51 29.805 E 07 21.744
Distance travelled: 48.7 NM (90.1km)
Time Travelled: 8hrs 33 min
1 lock
Temperature: 26C
Sunny but windy. Barameter dropped drastically so thought we were in for some bad weather,
but although very windy, the sun shone practically all day and it was warm and nice. Today is our
9 year anniversary with Roam. We picked her up on the 24th of May, 2001 in Gothenburg with Kimmie.
Celebrated with champagne.
After just a few kilometers we came to the end of the Mitteland Canal and took a sharp right turn onto
the Dortmund-Ems Canal. We were getting low on fuel and were happy to see a re-fueling station as
soon as we turned onto Dortmund-Ems Canal but it was closed as it is Whit-Monday today and holiday
for Germans. It didn't take long to realise this as the canal paths all along our route today were full
of people biking and walking along the canal. Saw lots of dogs too, all kinds and though it was fun to
watch them running happily along and jumping into the water to swim, we thought none of them were
as sweet as pretty as Vilda:)
We only had one lock to clear today and it was very easy as there were no barges this time, just
Another pleasure boat like us, from Holland. The lock was 11 m downwards. We did the one-bollard
for both bow line and stern line and it went perfectly. We got down to our last 10 liters of diesel
and were beginning to wonder if we'd make it all the way to the Wesel-Datteln Canal on this tank.
According to our notes from Noel's charts back in Hannover, we had 20 km to the Wesel-Datteln.
But suddenly we rounded a bend and to our right was a big lock and directly ahead was a bunker-
station (fuel station). Wondered what the heck this was and after some checking on canal signs,
we realised that we had arrived at the Wesel-Datteln Canal entrance. Ooops! Here we were...
So tied up and went to the local bar for a beer and asked about re-fueling. Everything would be
open tomorrow, they said. After reading up on this area, we learned that this is the biggest canal
intersection in Europe where 4 canals meet; Dortmund-Ems, Rhine-Herne, Wesel-Datteln, and
Datteln-Hamm Canals. We have to clear 6 canals tomorrow before turning onto the Rhine River.