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| Above Obere Schleuse. Link from MLK to R Weser |
Drizzling when we set off, grey
and cold all day. Sun out after dinner. Set off at ten then stopped again for
five minutes while Mike set the generator up, he had forgotten to do it. I did some
washing as we were going to fill the water tank when we got to Minden. A Dutch
cruiser went past in the same direction as us while we were tied up and Snail
was hovering. A loaded Czech boat went past (1,100 tonnes) then Eckhard Burmester,
an empty tanker, went past at KP94 followed by a Dutch loaded boat with a
square bow called Nova (1,267 tonnes).
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| Obere Schleuse, now empty. Link from MLK to R Weser |
A carriage pulled by two horses went
across the road bridge as a Czech boatload of wood chips overtook us,
Steigerwald (1,154 tonnes). A little German cruiser was overtaking a commercial
coming towards us as the one that had overtaken us went past him. Loaded Dutch
boat Gratias (1,445 tonnes) went past at KP95 followed by an empty tanker
called Elif (1,568 tonnes). Minden Yacht Club looked full and a new mooring
area had been put in front of a campsite with just 20m at the end reserved for
sport boats. At KP99 Alfa from Szczecin loaded with stone chips went past as
the long moorings before Minden started. Lots of commercials were moored up for
the weekend. Paused just before the junction to get some water from a box that
Oll opened with his key. There were two adaptors to fit on the end of the large
water pipe. Oll used his hose reel but it seemed very slow for such a huge pipe
so we swopped to our hose which had a greater diameter, that worked better and
the tanks were soon full.
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| Docks between the locks. Link from MLK to R Weser |
It took 2€ off the credit on the key (so the water
wasn’t 32c/m3 as the guy told Oll, it’s more like 3€/m3). We set off again and
turned left towards the shaft lock that leads down on to the river Weser and
tied on the waiting place for small boats in front of a trip boat loaded with
passengers. A commercial had just gone down. Oll called the lock via the
intercom. The keeper said to hold on for a while, or words to that effect. An
85m commercial arrived and moored in front of us then a 67m boat arrived and
moored.
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| Theodore leaving Unter Schleuse. |
Looks like we won’t get in the next locking either, might be here all
day. While we waited Oll went to see if he could get his key recharged at the
Waterways Office on the corner of the junction. He was back a few minutes
later. They could only credit empty keys with 10€, or sell him another for 10€
plus another deposit of 8,50€. He’d still got 5€ credit and we wouldn’t be
using it on the Weser or Aller as there are no blue boxes A guy with a small
cruiser came alongside and told us to follow him down the two locks rather than
wait for the shaft lock. We did, we followed him across the great Minden
aqueduct over the river Weser (the access to the old aqueduct was now blocked
off) and turned right into the Obere Schleuse, which was worked remotely.
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| Aqueduct carrying the MLK over the R. Weser. |
We
did fore and aft ropes round little bollards set into the brick walls and
dropped down 7m very slowly. Through the docks, some of which had boats moored,
and on to the Unter Schleuse where a loaded 85m boat called Theodore was coming
up. The wind had picked up and, as there was nowhere to tie up to wait except
on sloping quays, we all sat with bows into the wind until the commercial came
out of the lock. We went in and dropped down a further 6.3m, again worked from
afar. This time the bollards were a bit too far apart to do fore and aft so
Mike used the centre rope while I made a cuppa.
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| Steam powered paddle-wheeler trip boat. Minden. R.Weser |
Out on to the Weser and under
the two aqueducts, old and new, with the wind blowing a gale. It collapsed the
brolly, wrecking it this time, and I had to steer while Mike struggled it on to
the front deck. Good job the rain had stopped. As we passed the bottom of the
shaft lock there was a passenger boat making for the lock. Was it a real paddle-wheeler?
Then it let off a great hoot on a steam whistle, it’s a steam-engined boat too.
We hooted too so Mike could get a photo of the great cloud of steam as the
tripper replied. Mike checked the speed of flow of the river, it was running at
4.5 kph through the narrows under the aqueducts but on the open river it was
3.5 kph and we were flying at 9kph over the bed.
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| Moored at Petershagen. R. Weser. |
There were sounds of gunfire
coming from the woods on our left, must be clay pigeon shooting. Two loaded
commercials were coming upriver, Anna-Eli from Minden followed by Polish tug
Navigar 3 from Szczecin pushing two pans full of scrap metal; they were
carefully following the buoyed channel as it zigzagged up the river. We passed
a low piled quay in front of a factory and went on downstream to moor by the
picnic tables where there were groups of camper vans in a field and a few
speedboats on trailers plus one moored on the quay.
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