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| Stadtschleuse in Brandenburg |
Very hot and sunny. Set off at
8.30 am. We had been surrounded by anchored cruisers and speedboats overnight.
Turned left into the Brandenburger Niederhavel, a narrow channel leading into
the old city of Brandenburg that is nowadays only used by small boats,
commercials have their own canal, the Silo Kanal, which completely bypasses the
town, forbidden to sport boats.
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| Mast off for low bridge in Brandenburg |
First boat past was a very large smart cruiser,
called Adagio, with the Stars and Stripes on the back. As we turned right into
the Brandeburger Stadtskanal a small cruiser overtook us. Usual story, he’ll
get to the lock before us and then we’ll have to wait as he wouldn’t think of
waiting for us to join him in the lock. Mike took the mast down as there are
two bridges that are low. Spot on about the lock. The cruiser was in the lock
and it was half full when we tied to the pontoon below the lock to wait.
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| Sailboat towing a swimmer |
A busy
lock at anytime (our guide book says it locks 10,000 boat through per year,
April to end of September), the Stadtschleuse was 22m long by 5.3m wide and
lifts boats just 1.2m. The keeper pressed buttons and the lock was soon ready
for us. Fore and aft ropes today as the bows were very close to the top end guillotine
gate. The keeper sat and read his paper whilst smoking a cigarette, not a
chatty type. Another boat was waiting below. We were soon on our way again and
not long before we were through the town and on to the beautiful, meandering
Havel again, following the marked course between the islands. Masses of small
boat traffic, as heavy as the Mitteland was for commercials!
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| Ancient quay at Deetz |
We saw only one
commercial, which was running empty downriver. We stopped to explore an arm
with a quay near the village of Deetz, which we’d seen before and noted but
never stopped there. Out of the channel it was very weedy but deep, over 2m, so
we went slowly over to the old arm. Mike winded and we reversed in. There was a
picnic table about 15m from the old concrete quay and a family with bikes had
stopped for lunch. They left without even looking in our direction!
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| Moored at Deetz, view across the Havel |
An old tree
provided shade for about half the boat’s length. Two young women on bikes
stopped to chat while we were tying up. They spoke good English and told us
they were from Bremen on a cycling holiday and had stopped to go for a swim as
it was so hot. They decided it was too weedy and pushed on towards Brandenburg.
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| Beautiful sunset across the Havel at Deetz |
We had to move the boat further back down the quay to be able to get satellite
TV through a small gap in the trees.
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