Original version in French with photos

We arrived in Kiel late Monday evening and spent 2 nights there in a good marina, well sheltered. We were able to borrow bikes and on Tuesday everyone went on an adventure. Adam and I on bikes to find an almanac and pay the price of the canal crossing in advance and Timo, Hilari and Seth on foot towards the center to discover the city.

We also finally opened our bottle of Champagne to baptize Saltair while eating a ‘Blanquette de Veau (French Stew / made with chicken this time)

We were able to observe the operation of the locks of the canal before our crossing today. The Kiel Canal (German: Nord-Ostsee-Kanal) connects the North Sea (at Brunsbüttel) with the Baltic Sea (at Kiel) - the canal allows an average shortcut of 250 nautical miles (460 km) and allows a crossing much less hectic! With more or less 120 boats per day on average, it is one of the busiest unnatural waterways in the world.

The city of Kiel is interesting but not spectacular. It is a great maritime center and during the Second World War was a shipyard for U-Boats. The bunkers from that time were bombed extensively and nothing remains. Unfortunately, we did not have time to visit the German submarine U-995 which is part of a maritime museum. Without a car it was really too far. All in all a nice day and nice sunny spells to discover and restock!

At the end of the afternoon a nice sailboat arrived alongside us and Captain Nick' came to have a beer with us to share his knowledge of the coast of the Netherlands where he comes from as well as his favorite places in the south of England and northern France. It helps us a lot to have his knowledge and I have three large pages of notes! We now have to decide on our itinerary in August knowing that we want to be in Brest the first weekend of September.

Today we are transiting the Canal, after a short wait at the entrance to the Canal this early morning (7am), we entered the North Lock. It was a bit of a race…all the waiting boats rushed to get a good spot! Just a little stressful but we were ready with our fenders and our ladder to descend to the attachment pontoons. Seth is really great and very agile!

Destination tonight: Cuxhaven, a port 20km after leaving the Canal. But it will be late because the canal is 98km. Tomorrow we will continue our trip to the Frisian Islands of the Netherlands. We will have long days because few ports can accommodate us given our size! We also have to take into account the tides and currents, which was not the case in the Baltic Sea. We hope to reach Borkum either Thursday evening and Friday and our friends Timo and Hilari will leave Saturday to return home!

Guillemette