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| Widening work on the EHK |
Cloudy and humid when we set off
at 8.30 later it was hot and sunny. The Snails had decided to stick to the original plan and go down the Elbe and we would meet up again in the Mecklenburg lakes somewhere south of the Muritzsee in a couple of weeks time. So it was strange to be travelling on our own again. Had the gennie running to do some washing.
It was quiet for the first 2kms, then an empty 85m tanker from Magdeburg called
Viorica went past heading uphill by the junction with the arm leading to the
Elbe, Pareyer Verbindung-kanal.
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| Widening work on the EHK |
Loads of work was going on along the canal from
KP356 to KP361, straightening out the bends, widening the channel and making new
sloping banks edged with tonnes and tonnes of rocks. When the washing finished
there was nowhere to stop to disengage the Markon so we had to wait until
Genthin, then we paused on the Fahrgästschiff stopping place. As we were
setting off a WSP launch went past, going in the same direction as us - the
crew waved. The only mooring in Genthin now was in a small square offline basin
with piled edges (at least it was shady under trees and Mike said we might get
TV) the small brown DB Vrouwe Cornelia was moored there.
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| Old disused loading quay in Genthin EHK |
At the end of the town
was a disused long industrial quay for loading/unloading, which had a big
chimney and tall lattice-work metal towers with spotlights (maybe for 24 hour
working) and a small launch moored there with Vermessung (surveying) painted on
the side of it. A new sign advertised “Regenerative Energy” – coming soon,
maybe? A large sign as we left town said make no waves for the next 4 kms
(through the town and the new industrial havens). Next boats past were four
fast speedboats at KP365.5 followed 2kms later by the commercial with which
they had shared Wüsterwitz lock, Annegret,
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| Just us in Wusterwitz lock EHK |
loaded again now with cut scrap
metal (we followed the same boat on Monday round the diversion above Rothensee
on the MLK). It was followed by another small German cruiser, this one was
doing a more sedate speed. I made a cuppa and gave the freezer a quick defrost.
Two loaded commercials, Rheingold from Horstel and Stadt Fürth from
Duisburg-Ruhort (with a hold full of coils of wire) were coming towards us and
the first one was being overtaken by a fast cruiser from Wolfsburg on the wrong
side on the outside of the bend.
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| How about hiring a Bungalow Boat? Plauersee |
Three more cruisers were following behind the
second barge. At Wusterwitz they were building a new lock alongside the old one
to its right. Mike called on VHF and had the usual troubles with the lock
keeper not understanding us and us not understanding him. Eventually we got
through to him that we wanted to go down his lock. A tug and a cruiser cleared
the lock and we got a green light. Just us to go down, but traffic was waiting
below to come up. Like Zerben, the previous lock, there was a lock operative
waiting to close the gate by the top end gate controls – he pressed the button and the gate lifted
from the depths. Mike held the string and passed it down the recessed bollards
in the wall while we descended about 4m and I made some lunch. A short section
of canal lead to the Wendsee, a small lake, where there were many boats
anchored having lunch in the left hand corner.
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| Concrete quay, long disused, in corner of Breitlingsee |
One came after us and ran parallel
with us for quite a while but said nothing, just taking a good look. He stopped
and turned towards the bank. We turned to the right into the Plauersee, the
Havel was off to our left, running north to join the Elbe at Havelberg. The
cruiser that had followed us before came past us again and turned towards the
bank again where he stayed this time and didn’t pursue us any further. Strange
craft were navigation along the lake slowly, they could only be described as
floating sheds propelled by outboard motors – Bungalow Boats for hire! Several
went past, must be popular. Plauersee was a much bigger lake and filled with
sailboats, speedboats, more sheds; the banks were covered with camping sites
each with their own beach. The course through the lake did a left then a right
and narrowed as we entered the Breitlingsee. More speedboats. Had a text from
the Snails to say they had rocketed down river to Tangermünde where they’d been
welcomed by some very nice people.
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| Girders which once held wooden fendering. Submerged wood kept us off the wall |
We could see the concrete quay where we had moored
before and made our way carefully between the channel markers and the rows of
fishing nets marked by posts. Several boats were anchored in the corner by the
entrance to the Brandenburger Niederhavel, we went to the left of them and tied
to two huge rings in the wall and found wooden fendering below water kept us
away from the ends of several old girders which once supported substantial
timber fendering as this used to be a coal unloading quay for the Junkers
Aviation factory at Neuendorf. The factory was stripped of machinery by the
Russians at the end of WWII and anything useful shipped to Russia, what they
couldn’t move or didn’t want they destroyed with explosives. Apart from the
other aircraft that were produced here huge seaplanes were manufactured and
launched down a concrete ramp into the Brietlingsee. It was 2.30 pm and
starting to get very hot. Next to a concrete wall is not the best place to moor
when the sun is directly on the side of the boat. I put heat shields in the
windows behind the lowered blinds to reduce the heat as much as possible.
Outside it reached 41°C and we sweltered indoors with the fan on.
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