Fleetwoods Circumnavigation

I arrived in Viereth by 1.30 Franz a member of the club and married to a Dutch lady took me into Bamberg to check on the laptops. Both are toast. But I can only buy a new one here with a German keyboard and that is a not an oiption for me. So, I´ll go shop on line and see if it can be sent post restante/general delivery to Vienna or possibly Passau.

I am now in an internet cafe and it takes a lot of money to sort my photos and write my blogs on internet cafe time.

Bamberg is truly a uniquely beautiful city. But I was a bit disappointed in the interior of the heralded Dom church. Very stark- I liked the Sankt Michaels better. It is a 12 k.m. bike ride from the boat to downtown Bamberg, so, I may opt for the local Viereth parish church for Sunday service. I took a nasty spill on the bike when I was trying to keep up my speed on a downhill section with a following uphill to the St. Michaels Kirche. I hit a curb and cut my face just above my right eye. And a few other scratches. Maybe a helmet is not such a bad idea after all. I´ve done without for 65 years and many thousands of bicycle miles.

Only 14 k.m. left to go on the Main to Bamberg where the Main-Donau canal begins. The scenery on the Main was breathtaking but I often wondered what I had begun with the 34 locks and the 384 k.m. at the snail’s pace against the current. Each k.m. is marked along the river bank and at times the current slowed me down to 14 minutes per k.m. That is just slightly more than 4 k.m/hour… Pedestrians were passing me.

Friday the 13th brought me another setback. My trusty back up laptop, the Acer I bought in Capetown, three years ago, has given the spirit as well. It has been difficult to shut down and it stayed on all Thursday night and even thought the green light came back on after recharging it for hours it will not start up at all. So now what to do? I may need to buy a new laptop. But if I were ever to try and spend the money to recover the lost data on the HP laptop I might be better of trying to get it fixed, with the apparent broken  video card. I also happen to have an extra large battery for it that has come in handy at sea. Any digitally gifted readers that have a suggestion?

In my last blog I asked for your prayers for Martin and his mom on the “Roedel See*. It worked again. Danke Schoen! When I left the harbor in Wuerzburg they were casting off as well and I saw this proud skipper in the wheel house pass me on his way to Kitzingen to load for Rotterdam. They had been stuck in Wuerzburg since November without any income other than the 535 Euro monthly state pension of the mother.

The harbor fees in Wuerzburg were very expensive nearly 20 euroes. But the next Wednesday night I stayed for free along the river quay in Marktbreit at k.m. 277. This is a gorgeous old town with a river running through it into the Main. But I arrived late and too dark for photos. Thursday morning it rained hard. That evening I again had free moorage on the city front of Schweinfurth at k.m. 332.  Two local cops showed up in the locks before Schweinfurth and I was sure they came to check my papers but they were just interested in what I was doing and where I was going. One of them, Adie. showed up, changed into civilian clothes when I was mooring in S-furth and he told me that he had told a friend who is a reporter for the Main Post about me. He showed up a few minutes later. The article is to show in today´s issue. He promised to send me a digital copy and I will let the German readers know when I get it. The journalist took me for a Heffenweizen beer next door from my parking spot. S-furth was practically totally destroyed in the 2nd WW. It is the home for the worlds three biggest roller bearing factories. It has been rebuilt but many cities in Germany have done a better job in rebuilding in the historic styles.

Bamberg will be a sight to see. And I plan to go to mass tomorrow at the old Kaiser Heinrich dome church.

A club member at the Y.C. where I am parked now lets me use his computer in the local Ford agency. He has given me lots of good information on the Main Donau canal that I sorely needed.  The heavy mist after last nights showers is starting to lift now and I shall be be on my way.

After my last report from Stadtprozelten I had to get fuel from the nearby gas station. As is quite common in Europe they are often unattended and self serve with debit cards. But it would not take any of my cards.  Fortunately another kind German boater went with me back to the station and paid with his card and I gave him cash. So, I did not get underway till 2 p.m. and then made it to Wertheim/Bettingen marina, 24 k.m. The marina was part of a large camping complex. One section, the short stay, were all Dutch tourists on their way back from Austria and beyond. The river has become even more scenic, flowing through farmlands, meadows, wooded fringes and the steep hill sides with their vineyards are further away from the river. The narrower parts of the river have slowed me down even more with stronger currents. Monday I was able to put in a 14 hour day and made it to Wernfeld at K.M. 216 or better than half way of the 384 k.m. Main voyage. But it was getting dark by then and it turned out that the yacht club had no room for me, so, I had no other choice but to put the hook down, for the first time on this river trip. It worked out fine. The boat lay perfectly still along the bank, which was only about 20 feet away. There were two village clocks that almost simultaneously chimed off the hours, so that I was frequently reassured, while in my bunk, that the boat was still in the same location and not drifting down across the previously passed spill dam. In the early morning, when I tried to start the engine, there was not even a click. I had to hand start, which this time worked after just three hard pulls.  The trains tracks follow the river and the freight trains pull just one commodity, cement mixers, containers and the longest of all is the beer train. I arrived at Wuerzburg, one of the largest cities on this Main voyage, at near 2 p.m. I stopped at the fuel barge that was listed in my river guide, but they only sell to commercial barges. The book also suggested that the fuel barge had a marine store. And I needed to find a new starter button for the boat. They suggested that I go into the city commercial harbor and tie up to a barge called ”Roetelsee”, who has been here in the harbor for some time repairing it”s engine. I could not have been at a better address. The young skipper, Martin, was able to help me better than an experienced marine mechanic. He isolated the starter problem right away and he also had the parts for it and at the same time fixed my kill switch problem, that I had attempted to fix in Amsterdam. And then he helped me get fuel. Next I went to a nearby Computer repair shop to fix my HP laptop problem. They suggested that I put the hard drive back in that the people in Florida put in and then was replaced in Hoorn, with a genuine HP hard drive. Martin turned out to be an expert on computers as well and he found that none of the two hard drives work any more and that I have a bad graphic card. So, I managed to get my motor problems solved and the lap top problem analyzed. Yesterday I made good time because the two locks I went through were open and ready when I showed up. So, instead of at least an hour”s delay it was more like 20 minutes per lock. Also I am getting a little less anxious about the deep slippery caverns.  Oh, I forgot to mention that Martin lets me use his internet connection. Say a prayer for this fine young man that he finds a cargo to get out of here. His ship was built in the town I stayed the second night on the Main, in 1925. But the cargoes are hard to find now and prices have dropped much because of  the economy and many shippers stay away from older vessels for insurance reasons. He runs the ship with just his mid seventies mother. His father passed away two years ago.

I am not sure when this will make it on the web site. Of all the countries I have travelled Germany rates as one of the least wireless accessible. About the only public access is in the
the few Turkish cafes where the men play checkers and card games and in the back they have a couple booths with ancient PC’s where they do not let you use your own lap top. In this town they do not even have the Turkish Booths. There is a large camping operated by the marina I am in right now and they have no internet. Practically every marina and camping in Holland and France have wireless available.
So, where is Jack? I did better yesterday than on the first day on the Main when I did only 40 k.m. Friday I got to Erlenbach at KM 101.2, Through 5 locks. I was getting better at the locks, till the last one. I was the only boat in this enormous lock, about 12 x 300 mtr ( 40 x 1000 feet) and the rise is about 18 feet. They started filling the lock before I was properly tied up. Usually there are two large barges ahead of me and they absorb some of this enormous cascade of water that pours in from the front end. It takes a lot more water to fill the lock without these monster barge displacements to fill the lock. So, I am unable to hold the bow into the rush of water and the boat goes sideways in the locks, the mast is longer than the lock is wide. What to do? I ended up giving up on trying to  pull the bow around and cranked the engine up and centered the boat in the lock and kept the boat from bouncing off the walls.
But my trials were not over yet and I should have skipped this Friday all together.
I arrived around 7 p.m. at Erlenbach. A very nice marina and pretty spot. I wanted to get a few groceries and the store in the village was open till 8  o’clock. I took off on my folding bike. When I got to the marina gate it opened automatically but then it also came down hard on my head in the next instant. It threw me off the bike and I it the ground hard and cut my lip, my left hip is sore and I have a few more scratches. But the worst was that it infuriated me why no one warned me or had a sign up. On my way back I showed it again to one of the club members what the gate does to a bicycle. Apparently it works fine on automobiles but there is really no other way to get through with a bike or a motor bike. After I got back from the town I gave the harbor master a piece of my mind but he did not even give me an apology. I look like I was on the losing end of a street fight. After I gathered my self from the ground I took the wrong turn to the town and ended up seeing the store close a minute before I got to it. Then I went to the only internet cafe. The bartender offered to let me use his password to get on the internet. Then I realized that I should have skipped this Friday all together because next my fine HP laptop decided to crash once again. This time it prompts me to reinstall Windows and then it just so happens that the people in Florida who replaced the crashed hard drive just put one of their Windows VISTA versions back on. So, I have nothing to reinstall the software with. And this is the last place in the world to get some help. But I have my old Acer laptop and I backed up the HP laptop only two weeks ago on my external drive.

The weather on Friday was still cloudy and an occasional shower. But this has all changed today. My departure Friday morning was delayed because of a heavy mist but once this burnt off it was a beautiful sunny warm day.
The landscape has changed. I am now going through the higher hills of Hessen, through the forest of Spessart. The river winds in all directions through the valleys. At one time I am heading south and a little later I am heading north east.
I passed a couple of towns I would have loved to be able to explore, Hanau, Afschaffenburg, Freudenberg and Miltenberg. But I am starting to find out that the places for me to stop often are not deep enough for my six foot draft. Most of the marinas are designed to accommodate small power boats. And that was also the reason that I stopped today at 4 pm. at Stadtprozelten at KM 144, because there is nothing where I can fit further away before dark. But it turned out to be a good stop. A charming historic spot. I climbed up to the ruins of the 17th century Henneburg fortification. A great view of the Main river and the Spessart forests. I plan to attend 10.30 mass at the old  Sankt Vitus church.
It is Sunday morning now. It has been raining steadily and I fear that this will mean more adverse current on the Main River.
Well, no church service for me. I found a closed door here at the local church. Turns out the service is held alternately in Stadtprozelten and Dorfprozelten. With my luck this week I ended up at the right pew but the wrong church. Dorfprozelten is too far away to get there on time.

The sun is coming out once again and I’ll be on my way. The marina manager is letting me hook up my external drive to his p.c. I might end up going as far as I can and then stay on anchor for the night.

If I had known the challenges of this trip I might have opted for another route. It is a dream for the eyes the river, old villages and castles, the water fowl, etc. But the same discovery as I had doing my first inland cruise on the Chesapeake Bay in 2007. On the ocean voyages I love the long passages by myself and when ashore I am always meeting fellow travellers with whom we have common grounds. But on the Chesapeake and on the Main I am a strange Duck among the freshwater fowl.  Sharing the experience with someone else would make a big difference. In 2008 I met Lynne on the Chesapeake and we had a great time together later on the Intra Coastal Waterway. Sharing the story with all of you in this blog and getting some of your reactions keep me going and I am certain that I’ll be an experience richer by the time I reach the Black Sea. Yesterday things went much better in the locks. I finally figured out why I could not talk to the tenders on the portable VHF/marifoon. There is a switch for USA and International. Now I ask the tenders to be sure that I am hooked up before they open the sluice gates. The way the locks are set up it actually takes only one person to tend the lines because the posts for the lines are at least over 100 feet from each other so I center the bow and stern line on the same cleat. But it would be nice to have another hand to push of the bow or stern, when needed.

Anyway, if anyone cares to spend part of  the trip with me there are some good deals now on flying to Europe. See, for example,
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Flights-g188590-o60878-Seattle_to_Amsterdam.html

Not sure if everyone has the cultural background to get the pun in the subject line. Just google Offenbach.

Offenbach is just east of Frankfurt on the Main River. I have had problems getting my laptop connected to the internet. The internet cafes just let you use their computers because they are afraid of other laptops infecting theirs. Right now I found a friendly receptionist at a local hotel to hook up to their Wi-Fi. I wrote the below yesterday :

It is Wednesday evening. I arrived mid afternoon at the junction where the Main River flows into the Rhine. I am tucked away in a marina across from Mainz in a small town called Gustavsburg. So, what a relief that the most difficult part of this trip, the about 350 k.m. tow up the Rhine River,  is behind me. Tomorrow the trip continues with 384 k.m. on the Main through 34 locks, but fortunately very little current against me.  This will take me about a week to get into the Main-Donau Canal at Bamberg.

I was extremely fortunate to have Marinus and Leni Hoogendoorn help me to get up the Rhine to Koblenz. And then, once again with their help, I got towed to Mainz today.

But let me start introducing the whole gang aboard “Glissando”.  In the below picture there are 10 of them. Marinus and his wife Leni are the owner/operators of the vessel.  Marinus grew up on his family’s barge. His brother Leendert runs one and their oldest son, also Leendert (who was not aboard “Glissando”) owns another barge.Kees, one of the Hoogendoorn brothers and his wife Anja and their two tow head daughters came along for the ride and they and their car got off on Monday in Cologne. Jan, son #2, and his girlfriend, Joline, drove back from Duesseldorf and took the Hoogendoorn’s youngest daughter, Marilene, with them for her to attend sail camp.  The youngest son, Arie, also drove back to Holland from Duesseldorf.

Kees, Anja and the girls and Marinus and I went to 11 a.m. Sunday mass at the old Dominican church of Sankt Andreas.  The service was standing room only. Later in the afternoon the whole gang held a Sunday service aboard by listening to a recorded Sunday service. There were enough bibles and song books aboard for all to read and sing along. I was raised in a protestant family with similar values and rituals. A blessing is prayed before and a prayer of thanks after our meals and a bible reading is done.  I was pleased to find that this has not disappeared in Holland all together, afterall.   The great grandson of my great uncle ( I believe this  is something like a nephew twice removed??) Hubert Arendt and his wife Manuela came to visit me on “Glissando”.  They live near Duesseldorf. I had discovered the existence of his father, Georg Arendt, in 2003 and saw him for the first and last time in 2004. He passed away in 2005. Hubert’s grandmother was a cousin of my mother and they both grew up with the same first and last name.

His grandma grew up in Germany and was a member of the Nazional Socialist party during the 2^nd WW and my mother was arrested for resisting the same system.  But thank God we have all survived it and it has not affected the family bond.

At dinner time last night a barge pulled in, to rest for the night, ahead of “Glissando”  where we were being unloaded of the full load of street salt crystals.  ”Avensis” was also from Werkendam, where the Hoogendoorns hail from. Marinus found the skipper, Rinus, agreeable to pull me to Mainz. They were going to discharge their load of coal upriver from Mainz. This barge ran a knot and a half faster and it was a hairy and fast ride, especially through the rapids at the Lorelei. But all worked well. Marinus came aboard “Avensis” at 4.30 a.m. and made sure all went well. He let me use the tow ropes he had specially bought for the tow and his system wiuth the starboard and port lines again worked very well even at the higher speed and through the rapids. Leni came and picked Marinus up after we were on our way for a half hour or so, in the inflatable runabout they carry on board “Glissando”.

The weather was not ideal for photos, it was dark and frequent showers. Later in the asfternoon it cleared up. This Rhine trip is a favorite tourist attraction and you will have seen many pictures of it. For some reason I had expected more of the Lorelei. Just another Rock pile. Oh, well. The rush of the water on the hull, at planing speed, drowned out the Siren Song. But the villages and the vinyards draped on the hill sides are a sight to behold.

Thursday again: I am getting the routine down on the locks. I am forever grateful to Henk Nauta, who has done this trip to Turkey, and when I met him in Friesland, last month,  recommended that I make up wooden boards to cover the fenders. This works great. Because the fenders otherwise disappear in the cavities of the undulated iron lock walls. And these walls are slimy and nasty. But the slowing is agonizing slow. If I had more engine speed I could tag along with the rest of the traffic. Now I end up showing up by myself and then have to wait for the next batch of barges and sport boats to catch up to me from the previous lock I passed through. There is a lock about every 6 nautical miles…. Today I left at 9 a.m. and arrived in Offenbach at 5.30 p.m. covering all of 40 k.m., about 22 nautical miles, ouch! I went through three locks.   There are locks for pleasure boats only. But they are self service and it is impossible for me to handle all the operations of mooring at the lock, opening the gate, letting the water in, opening the exit door, putting it back in neutral and running back to the boat to be sure the lines are raised while the boat rises, by my self. In the first lock I rafted onto a Dutch barge. This avoids having to continuously adjust the two lines while the water level rises. Three locks down 95 to go till the Black Sea…..

This will be a short one, without photos.

I am catching a tow at 4.30 a.m and should be in the Main river by Wednesday afternoon. All is well

I am sitting high above the Rhine River in the wheelhouse of “Glissando”, in Duesseldorf. One hundred twenty kilometers upstream fom where I made fast last night around 10.30 p.m. The current ran very swift and Marinus had to teach me a couple new tricks on how to steer the boat in this fast current while getting the lines on to “Fleetwood”. I had heard so many discouraging comments on what to expect on the tow by such a large powerful river barge. But Marinus has it all under control and all went very smooth. The river runs at about 5 to 6 k.m./hr and the barge’s over the ground speed is about 8 k.m/hr. So, that means roughly about 8 nautical miles per hour through the water. You get the picture from the photos. The system that Marinus worked out is to have the main tow line attached to his starboard transom and an additional line from my bow to his port transom. Then the helm is set to make the boat always try move about 15 degrees to starboard; that way the boat travels to the side and away from the prop wash in quieter water. The line to the port  side keeps the boat from moving too far off to starboard. I did not have to steer at all and after becoming a believer managed to get a few hours of sleep. The boats that make the worst waves and severely test the integrity of my mast transport are the recreational stink potters who have no clue of the damage they leave in their wake.

The Hoogendoorns have two of their three sons, the one daughter, a brother Kees with his wife and two daughters and a girl friend of the #2 son on board and 4 cars. They are all across the river to a beach with their runabout and water ski gear while I make sure that every one knows where Jack is. The Hoogendoorns plan to have their own Sunday service aboard. I am waiting to hear back from Hubert Ahrendt, my nephew (twice removed??) who lives near here, to come and visit me tomorrow. The Hoogendoorns will have a family Sunday service on board tomorrow. We leave early Monday for Koblenz. 

I could have never ever have made the trip up the Rhine under my own power and it was a stroke of luck to get the offer from Marinus when I was in the Virgin Islands, last year March.

The pictures below show how Marinus took the aerial shots. Hung from a trapeze in the crane. The crane is mostly used to get the cars on and off the ship. You’ll count 4 cars on deck for this trip. Marinus used the crane to get back on board “Glissando” after we left Lobith and he felt certain that things were under control on “Fleetwood”.

“Glisando” is expected to arrive earlier than first expected. We are to rendez-vous here in Tolkamer/Lobith this evening around 10 p.m. I arrived here already at 9.30 a.m. figuring to be staying the night here. Last night I anchored in a bay off the river about 10 k.m. down stream. Yesterday was a bit blustery but I had the wind from behind. The current is now quite noticeable and on the last part I slowed down to about 3 1/2 knots/hour. I passed by Rhenen, Oosterbeek and Arnhem. I went under “The Bridge Too Far”, in Arnhem, where the allied forces were pushed back by the Germans in the fall of 1944. The totally flat landscape of Western Holland has now changed to rolling hills. I’m still learning the tricks of handdling the boat with the mast sticking out so far behind me. When I pulled away from the dock in Wijk bij Duurstede I did not realize that a high piling was in the way when I turned away from the dock. The top of the mast hit and I broke the base of the tricolor masthead light. It can be fixed. Then I had another battle in the locks at Amerongen. The previous lock I had been able to raft up on another boat and the couple crew handled my lines bow and stern and since I moved up with their boat did not have to worry about changing the lines to the higher wall cleats. In the second lock I was on my own and I was not prepared for the strong flow of water rushing in, pushing my bow away from the lock wall. I managed to hang on to the bitter end of the bow line with all my force but the mast end once again struck the lock wall, no harm done, but another lesson learned for a new trick.

At least on the ocean you get a little more time to figure out the new plan. Single handling is a new game on this part of the trip. And there is very little opportunity to go below for more than a minute because of the winding rivers and the traffic.

We will stop in Cologne for the Sunday and then continue to Koblenz on Monday morning, where we expect to arrive Monday evening. I will be staying on “Fleetwood” for this night and see how things go. I hope I’ll get some sleep and get used to the new way of travelling.

Marinus called me today. He is loading salt in Amsterdam on Friday destined for Koblenz and I expect to meet him early Saturday morning in Lobith, where the Waal river joins the Lower Rhine, on the German border. Then I will wait again in Koblenz for a tow to Mainz. Koblenz is where the Moselle River joins the Rhine. It is a beautiful old city and will be a good stop. I have a choice to meet “Glisando” in Tiel on the Waal river, which is closer by but I prefer to see the countryside of the Lower Rhine, which will take me past Rhenen, Wageningen and Arnhem. There is only a very moderate current against me on this route. I plan leave in the morning.

View from "Fleetwood" of the Rhine/Lek Junction

Last night was a beautiful full moon over the junction of the Lek and the Rhine River but I could not dig out my tripod to show you a good picture.  This morning I went for an early walk through the town of Wijk bij Duurstede. The 14th century windmill, the Sint Jan’s Church and the medieval castle and the well preserved old walled city make this a very worthwhile stop. I moved from the Euro 1.50/ meter city dock to the 1 Euro/mtr marina. A very pleasant and peaceful spot. There is a steady flow of river barges and pleasure boats moving up and down the river.

I made some improvements and reinforcements to the mast shoring. Sofar I have no idea yet as to when I can expect to leave here. But I have plenty of chores to do while waiting.