Posts In The “Germany” Category
Following an overnight run from Amsterdam, we made a brief pit stop in Heligoland to top up our diesel tanks with duty-free fuel and were underway again in time to catch the last half of the Elbe River flood tide and reach the Kiel Canal that afternoon. We arrived at the canal in a fog…
Just over four months after arriving, we departed Amsterdam on a calm but chilly morning and exited the canal system into the North Sea at IJmuiden. From there we made a 200nm overnight run to the German holding of Heligoland to pickup a load of duty-free diesel. Conditions were wonderfully settled most of the way…
On our run from Germany to the Netherlands, we’d hoped to exit the German Bight on the border at Delfzjil and take the sheltered Netherlands canals through Leeuwarden to Harlingen. But the least depth through some of the waterways is an optimistic 1.9m, too shallow for our 2.1m draft. So we instead returned to the…
Cuxhaven, Germany sits at the mouth of Elbe River and the North Sea. For centuries the location was a stronghold to control sea access from the river and continues that tradition as an Elbe River pilot station. While the river provides much positive value to the city, it also has negatives. Dangerous seas form when…
After three exceptional days on the Kiel Canal, we followed five large commercial ships into the Brunsbuttel lock and out into the busy Elbe River. We made a short run downriver to our final stop in Germany at Cuxhaven, where we had a berth waiting for us at the YC marina. Below are trip highlights…
Our third day on the Kiel Canal was the longest and the most exciting. After an aborted first attempt due to fog and traffic movement restrictions in the canal, we made a 36-mile run from Rendsburg to Brunsbuttel at the western canal entrance. During the transit, we ran at wide-open-throttle for a time in order…
On our second day in the Kiel Canal, we stopped for the night in Rendsburg after an 11-mile run from Lake Flemhude. As part of our “full Kiel Canal experience” we had lunch canal-side at the Bruckenterrassen Cafe with a view to the passing ships. We also walked under the canal through a pedestrian tunnel…
The Kiel Canal was completed in 1895, connecting the Baltic and North seas through northern Germany. It is the busiest artifical waterway in the world and annually carries nearly as many ships as the Suez and the Panama canals combined. In contrast to Scotland’s Crinan Canal that we passed through last year, Dirona wasn’t even…
From the Netherlands we made a 500-mile, 3-night run to Norway with a pitstop in Helgoland, Germany for duty-free fuel. Conditions for the first two days were wonderfully calm and for the final night were rough in tight seas on the bow with pitching to 20.5° as we closed on the Norwegian coast. But we…