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Dramas on Thursday 6^th June! We arrived back at Fehmarn and Stefan, the mechanic visited us to tell us that the engine was not engaging reverse gear properly. After trying to adjust the cable linkage it was found that the gear shift mechanism was slack inside its internal mechanism and that the gear change cable was virtually seized up. He managed to replace and adjust everything and left us at 8pm with a fully functional engine having enjoyed some of our Scotch.
A rough sail (or rather motor sail) from Fehmarn to Kiel on Friday 6^th June. Wind 20-25kn on the nose, (as Keren said, “if we didn’t have a head wind, we wouldn’t have any”). Spent the night at a nice clean marina at Laboe, which is on the north east side of Kiel Bay. Next morning, Saturday June 7^th, we crossed the fjord to buy fuel and then motored south to the little staging marina right next to the Holtenau lock to clean ship and wait for Bob to arrive. Bob and Barbara Speedie are long-time friends of ours from Australia. Barbara does not sail but Bob is dead keen to do some sailing in Europe, and we are very glad to have him along, because some of the passages around the German Dutch coasts are quite long and having a skilled crew aboard reduces the watch times on deck.

Big ships on the canal

An early start for us on Sunday 8^th and we caught the Holtenau lock at 0800 to motor down the 40miles of the Kiel Canal to our next stop and Brunsbuttel which is at the entrance of the river Elbe. The trip down the canal was much the same as for the trip up, seven hours of motoring with big ships passing. Brunsbuttel has a small staging marina just inside the canal right by the lock gates where we stayed overnight. Nothing much to recommend it but a convenient location.

By 8:30 on Monday 9^th we were through the lock and headed down the river Elbe bound for Helgoland which is a small island just north of the German coast. A fifty mile trip with the wind against is again. For us Helgoland has nothing much to recommend it except duty free cigarettes and booze. It is a small island full of holiday chalets that has added servicing the many offshore wind farms to its business. Yachts raft up four to five deep alongside a long pontoon and the facilities are minimal. Despite this, we stayed two nights so that we could stock up on provisions (food as well as booze!) and to wait while a low blew through.

Hegoland

On Wednesday 10^th June sunny weather and light winds were back, so we left Helgoland at six am for the seventy five mile leg to the island of Borkum. A long day motor sailing with a light head wind although we did manage to sail for a couple of hours and give the engine a rest. Borkum Island is on the east side of the Ems estuary which is the German / Dutch border. The tide runs quite strongly between the Frisian Islands and we arrived two hours into the flood so we were swept up the river doing over eight knots over the ground.

Borkum has a yacht marina with only 1.2 metres depth at the entrance (how daft is that?) so we moored in the main harbour where there is a row of serviced pontoons. As soon as we tied up  the Harbour Master  (a Scottish lady) arrived to welcome us and ask if we needed anything. We all walked up to the harbour office which is also a bar where we paid our dues and had a drink with the harbour master and her husband – what a fine welcome. We decided there and then to stay two nights, rest up, do the laundry and clean ship. 

The marina at Borkum

The last map picture was rubbish, so here's an improved version. Not great, but more readable!