Bremerhaven

14 August 2015

Fortunately the forecast was right and the easterly wind came when we left Rostock behind us. Outside at Warnemünde it seemed for a moment that there would be very little wind, but slowly the wind increased. It was great sailing up to Fehmarn, where the rain came. But that did not spoil the fun and we sailed into the night. 
After warnings for thunderstorms and 9 Bft, we took the topsail and outer jib away. We saw a lot of thunder, but fortunately not the 9 Bft. 
Early in the morning we moored at Holtenau to sleep for a few hours and to bunker water. Unfortunately we had some delay due to a visit from customs, but when that was resolved we could continue: the Kiel Canal. It was a beautiful sunny day on the canal, watching boats, people, singing along with the ‘Wilhelmus’ and some chores on the ship. Just before dinner we moored to wait for the tide on the river Elbe and we had a nice dinner with the group. 
A few hours later we went through the locks and with the current down the Elbe. First a piece on engine, but fortunately later on we could hoist the sails. 
We had to be on time for the Sail-In Parade at Bremerhaven. Everything was organized, up to the minute, but in reality everything went different. Ships do not sail in the right place, not fast enough or too quickly, they don’t keep the scheduled line, in short, a nice chaos with many ships! But then all those ships have to go through the four different locks. What should run very smoothly, in fact led to more chaos. We did not have to go through the lock, so we had plenty of time and space to enjoy this event. When the chaos was gone, we dropped our guests off and quickly set up for the first evening trip.