We've got to get out of this place...

We've been here for... almost five days now. In Cuxhafen that is. Unless the water is crystal clear with dolphins jumping across the bow and barebreasted mermaids serve you breakfast every morning, five days is too long!

We sailed from Spodsbjerg in Denmark to Holtenau in Kiel. Holtenau is a nice little harbour in a calm area with buatiful old houses, and it's just next to the Kiel canal locks. We had absolutely no wind on the way over and the 60M we're done by engine. We arrived in the middle of a thunder squall and rushed below like drowned kittens.

The next day we went through the locks, it was uneventful and over before we knew it started, a bit of an anticlimax. We continued on to Rendsburg, a nice little town about 1/3 of the way through the Kiel canal. Again, motoring, as sailing is prohibited in the canal. In Rendsburg we found Ingeborg's sad looking sister.
She's aparently been laying there for ten years and looks like she's in a bad shape, although not beyond rescue, yet.

The next day we continued to Brunsbüttel, which is in the other end, the Elbe, or North sea end of the canal. On our way there we broke the traffic regulations of the canal! There meeting places or "exchange areas" as the germans call them, along the way, with signals indicating if it's OK to enter and leave, or to only enter but not leave etc. As we aproached one of them, there was a red flshing light, which means danger, enter but don't leave. We had two large sailing boats in front of us, a large german river barge and a german SAR boat and they all ignored the signal. We thought; when in germany, do as the germans. We would soon get the explanation to the signal though. On the other side of the meeting place there was a large railway bridge. Just as we went under the bridge, five police helicopters crossed the canal at low altitude and disappeared behind the forest on our right side. A few minutes later they appeared again, behind us and lined up over the channel. They then sped up and all of them flew under the bridge before disappearing around a bend in the canal... After all this excitement, the rest of the day was wonderfully boring. We didn't have high hopes for Brunsbüttel, but it was a pleasent surprise and quite coasy. We spent two days there, waiting for better weather, before leaving for Cuxhafen, a trip of 17M. Finally, the weather improved enough and we continued with the tide out the river Elbe, again by engine in headwind of force 5. With the wind against us and the tide, creating choppy seas, we were almost dead in the water at times but still did between five and eight knots over ground. We arrived in Cuxhafen just before lunch. That was thursday last week and we've been here since then. We've had westerly winds of between force 5 and 6 and during the weekend it peaked at force 9. Not good for us, as we are heading west. We're waiting here together with a whole bunch of dutch sailors on their way home. Tonight though, we'll leave. The winds have dropped and during the afternoon today they'll veer to south or southeast. Perfect! We'll leave tonight for Norderney, one of the westmost of the East Frisian Islands. Distance from here, around 70M The reason we'll leave tonight is that the appraoch is difficult in darkness, so we'll have to arrive during day. We also have the tide to consider. I guess the first part will be by engine again, as they have thretened with very light winds during the early night. Winds will pick up after midnight though, so it looks like it'll be a lovely night of sailing.

And now, a few words about Cuxhafen. It's not a bad place really. It's an old resort with lovely old hoses and nice beaches that keep disappearing and coming back as the tide changes. The town is quite big and it's divided into two parts. The center is quite modern with lots of shops and you can find everything you need. The older parts, the resort and beachfront are lined with beatiful old and large houses, small hotels and restaurants. There seems to be a lot of tourists here, but most are germans. There is no information in english anywhere! It's expensive here though. They charge you €2.80 to enter the beach. €20 per night in the marina and then nothing's included, you pay extra for electricity, water, showers etc. The only thing that's reasonably cheap is restaurants. Prices are about 10-30% cheaper than home, and you get served twice as much food. The day before yesterday we visited the yacht club's own restaurant and had a fishplate for two. It was a mountain of food and we could barely finnish half of it. We got a doggy bag and had lunch for the next day. This made our extravagant dinner quite cheap after all.

There are two main marinas here, the SVC (Sergler Vereinung Cuxhafen) which we're in. It's just a marina, all services but quite boring. Very sheltered though. Then there's Cuxhafen city marina, almost in the center and it looks really coasy. Max length over all for entering is 20 metres and you have to pass under a bridge that opens between 6.00 and 21.00. Both marinas have pontoons so you don't have to worry about the tide during your stay.



A typical Cuxhafen house with one of the churces in the background.























/Hampus, aboard S/Y Ingeborg in Cuxhafen, Germany. Waiting anxiously to leave.