Germany - 54° 18' 38" N 09° 40' 50"E

Guess where?!

The Germans have very kindly built a canal shortening our trip into The North Sea by nearly 300 nautical miles.  The Kiel Canal was built in the late 1800s and is large enough to accommodate ocean-going ships.  It runs from Kiel in the north to Brunsbüttel at the mouth of the Elbe River which leads to the Port of Hamburg.  It is said to be the world's busiest man-made water way. Fun!

Officially left the Baltic Sea!

We hovered around the sea lock waiting for the combination of lights that would allow us to enter.  It was us, a small tourist paddle-boat and two other yachts in the 310 metre-long lock so it was very straight forward.  The water level drop was not very much (30 - 45 centimetres) and before we knew it, we were motoring out into the canal - a big, wide canal with big ships and lots of industry.

The Kiel Canal (source: Wikipedia)

The Kiel Canal can be traversed in a day but rather than push through the 60 nautical miles, we opted to break the trip at Rendsburg.  This was also a handy location with a train station for Pat to jump ship. The day turned bright and sunny and we motored along passing some rather large ships.  Sean amused himself with a rendition of The Kiel Canal Song - which did sound a little familiar!

We pulled into the pretty Büdelsdorf Yacht Club in Rendsburg.  The locals were very friendly, caught our lines and gave us lots of good tips about where the best schnitzel was to be had. Guess what we had for dinner! 

Bye, bye Pat!  We've had a blast having you aboard.

The rest of the canal was uneventful.  We were passed by many ships, saw lots of swans, herons, ducks and even a few Canada geese floated by to say g'day.  Arriving in Brunsbüttel, we opted to stay on the canal side of the lock and lock through the next morning on the outgoing tide. (yes, tide - we haven't had to think about tides for months!) We rafted up to a workboat in the small harbour to one side of the main locks and spent the evening watching cargo ships lock in and out.  Very cool!

It looked a lot bigger and a lot closer in real life!!

With the work boat needing to go to work, it was an early start.  We headed across the canal and rafted up to a barge while we waited for our turn in the lock.  In we went and out we popped into the current of the Elbe River.  Despite not much wind, we unfurled the solent and cruised down the river at over 7kn (yay for a favorable current) to Cuxhaven.

We spent the afternoon exploring around Cuxhaven and planning our 130nm jump to Vlieland in The Netherlands.  We needed to time the current out of Cuxhaven, dodge ships as we wove out between the shallow sandbanks and stay out of the Traffic Separation Scheme that runs along the coast.  We also needed a good weather window.  Storm Amy was on her way and we wanted to be well out of the North Sea by the time she arrived!

Storm Amy* (Storm Detlef in Germany).  The pink and purple are over 35 and 40 knots, respectively.
Not surprisingly, we wanted to be in safe harbour before her arrival!

Locals has terrified us with tales of the The North Sea being notoriously rough and the winds at this time of year predominately south-westerly and they all quizzed us, "What are you doing, trying to head south in October?"

Out we go into the (potentially) wild and raging North Sea

So it was to our great amusement that we found ourselves motoring over dead calm, windless seas!

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* Storm Amy was the first named storm of the season causing wide-spread damage and killing four people