Friday 23rd August 2013 Burgwall – below Bischofswerder lk Voss kanal. 20.5kms 2 locks

Moorings empty for a while. Burgwall

Warm and sunny with a light breeze. Got up late and did a few chores. There was only one small cruiser left on the moorings when we set off and winded at 11.20 am. All the staff from the Gästhaus (including the proprietor) were sitting outside in the beergarden, having a well-deserved rest after the morning trade, they all waved and wished us a “Gute Fahrt” (a good journey) as we went past. A small fast open speedboat overtook us and a WSA tug went past heading upriver, all crews smiling and waving. 

Zuhr Fahre. Burgwall

The stretch of river down to Zehdenick is surrounded by lots of little lakes on both sides that are most likely former sand and gravel extraction pits, several have moorings for small boats in them and the one nearest Zehdenick is often used for anchoring. The little boat whose skipper got told off for speeding the evening before, was moored (on its home mooring by the look of it) not far downriver from Burgwall. 

Portulaca - Moss rose - new flowers for the boat roof.

Past the Alter Hafen, lots of moored boats in an old arm, the Ziegelei Park, where a lastkahn (evquivalent of a péniche or spits) called Ucker Fritz was moored and then the arm where the Free Campers came from, beyond that was a canoe station, a stopping place for canoes. A canoe went past paddling upriver. A hired day boat from the Alter Hafen was moored next to the WSA craneboat by a quay piled up with rocks for bank edging – they were fishing. 

Footbridge abv Zehdenick lock

We paused under the old railway bridge for Mike to adjust the trim tab on the rudder as the boat, for some inexplicable reason, had started to have a tendency to turn to the right. A canoe paddled past overtaking us and another day hire boat went past heading towards Burgwall. There had been no other boats about since leaving Burgwall until we were 1.5kms from Zehdenick lock when a wedge shaped cruiser overtook us and went on to the lock waiting area. One small cruiser came up the lock and when the gates opened left the chamber. 

Old boats (for a change) at Zehdenick boatyard

The fast cruiser went in on the right, despite the flashing information board saying that small boats should enter last and moor on the left! – the control rods were on the left – so we went left and operated the lock. Left Mike in charge of the rope and I made some lunch. As we followed the cruiser through the lift bridge we spotted that there was another lock waiting area upstream of the liftbridge - which we could have used when we got shut out going uphill had there been no more uphill traffic to activate the lock for us. 

Leaving Bischofswerder lock

There was a small yacht on the lock waiting area on the other side of the liftbridge. They’d stopped short of the rods that activate the lock and one of the crew was trying to move the bar with a boat shaft instead of moving the boat forward by about a metre. They took so long that the liftbridge and the lock gates closed! The Havel went over a weir and then followed a very tortuous course alongside the Voss kanal. The cruiser was very soon out of sight especially as we were going slower than usual, about 5 kph, as we were in no rush and going for maximum battery charging. 

Common frogbit

The Voss canal was equally as quiet as the Havel until we got to the next lock. Two fishermen in an open motorboat went past waving around KP10 and one small cruiser went past at KP7. The lock was at KP4.3 and we were overtaken by a smart cruiser at KP6 (a Pedro (Dutch) Donky – not seen one like it before). There were boats coming up in Bischofswerder lock, so the cruiser was on the waiting area. We tagged on behind. There were four canoes in front of the cruiser and another cruiser arrived just before the gates opened and two cruisers came out. The two big cruisers went on the left hand wall (neither of them stopped next to one of the two sets of rods – the lady off the second cruiser turned the bar) and the paddlers came in behind us on the right. 

Moored below Bischofswerder lock

Mike held the rope, moving down a succession of bollards in the piled lock wall while I got ropes and mooring pins ready as we were tying up immediately below the lock. After the cruisers and canoes had gone and the solitary little yacht that had been waiting to go up had gone into the 85m long chamber, we winded and moored next to the high piled wall below the lock where we’d had to wait at the beginning of the month while the WSA cleared all the wind-felled trees out of the canal. It was 4 pm. Mike checked the Internet and put the antenna up on the mast so he could print a copy of the RAINWAT Procedure for ships sailing the flag of non-RAINWAT countries, which should be kept with our VHF radio (which we now discover is out of date, therefore we need a new Marine VHF radio with ATIS, the “squawk” identifier, so no more trying to talk to lock keepers via VHF until we get one – we thought, wrongly, that ATIS was only for commercials).