Ibbenburen hafen MLK |
12.0°C
Sunny spells and clouds, breezy in the morning. Clouding over after lunch,
thunderstorms and torrential rain later. No one but us and the boat for sale
(Blomholm) in the corner. Set off at 8.50 am and turned left on the last 4kms
of the MLK. Met the first loaded boat by the first bridge, Aquarat (85mx8.15m
1199T) with a Dutch car on the roof but no flags (and no polish either, needed
painting). Another was catching us up as we turned right at the junction on to
the Dortmund-Ems-Kanal (DEK). Oriana (loaded) followed us round the corner to
Bevergern new lock. There was a commercial already going down in the deep lock
(8.1m fall) and Oriana went on the dolphins
on the right, there was nothing for
us to tie to and when two more loaded boats arrived we backed out of the lock
approach, winded and went back to the junction. It was too windy to sit above
the lock, the wind was gradually blowing us to the left with was a steeply
sloping bank with rocks. Mike said the guy at the chandlery place speaks a little
English we’ll ask where private boats are supposed to wait for the lock. The
young man sent us another 500m towards Münster where there was a mooring place
for sport boats (noted this one has an electricity box right next to it). There
was a cruiser called Flying Saucer moored there and a
young man was washing it
down with buckets of canal water. He was German but spoke very good English and
Mike asked him if he would use our radio and tell the lock keeper we were
waiting for the lock. He did. The keeper said it would be about an hour and a
half, then we could follow tanker Wotan. Great. We had a chat with the guy who
said he was about a day and a half from his home mooring at Waltrop on the
Datteln-Hamm-Kanal. His girlfriend arrived with a bagful of shopping. I went in
to make a cuppa. At 11.10 am the keeper called to say we could come down to the
lock. It took us ten
minutes to get there and three boats were moving, Wotan
was going into the chamber and empty Corrado was moving on to the dolphins with
loaded Libertas coming alongside and Mondial from Sneek was at the head of the
queue. We followed the 85m tanker into the 160m long chamber and attached fore
and after to bollards recessed in the concrete wall and went down seven
bollards as the lock emptied. Left the bottom at 11.55am. A yacht was waiting
on the quay below the lock and two cruisers were hovering in the middle. Mike
kept our speed up above normal cruising
to keep up with the loaded tanker on
the short 3kms pound to Rodde lock. The lock was ready for us and we followed
Wotan into the lock and dropped down 3.8m. It was 12.45pm when we left the
bottom on the 6kms pound to Altenrheine. Loaded boat Julia from Priessen
(86mx9.6m 1500T) was coming up the pound towards us. Mike waited until Julia
had gone past then tried calling Wotan on the VHF. No reply. Christine from Datteln (80mx8.20m 1089T) was
unloading sand at a long silo quay at Bochert. Mike tried calling Wotan again
and got an answer (German was not the first language of the cheery guy who
replied) and told him we
were stopping above Altenrheine lock. OK, he
understood. He could tell the keeper in his far off office that we’d stopped,
we hadn’t got channel 82 to tell him ourselves anyway! Christine had finished
unloading and was winding at the end of the quay to set off back towards
Münster. Wotan went into the lock and we went to the left and moored next to
the lock island wall in what was the entrance to the old lock (which had been
filled in and completely obliterated). There was a small German yacht moored at
the canal end and a permanently moored cruiser at the land end. We winded and
tied up with our stern rope on the first bollard after the blue electricity.
box. It was 1.30pm. Lunch. Gave Mike a hand to get the moped ready. He connected
up the electricity, I checked how much water we had in the tank (3/4 of a
tankful) and then I sorted out some washing. Thunder was rumbling round then it
started to pour with rain. Mike had missed the rain. I helped get the bike back
on board and he moved the car to a visitor parking place by the lock (where the
old lock chamber used to be). A Dutch cruiser arrived and moored behind us,
crew looking like drowned rats. Another cruiser arrived and moored in front of
us, tucked in behind the yacht.
The rain came down in stair rods and we had a
cracking thunderstorm, which rolled around late into the evening.
Looking back up the MLK from KP0 junc with DEK |
The queue above Bevergern lock DEK |
Behind tanker Wotan in Bevergern lock DEK |
Top end gate rises up from the depths. Rodde lock DEK |
Wotan leaves Rodde lock and we follow at a safe distance |
Coot and chicks at Altenrheine |
Moored in the old lock approach Altenrheine DEK |
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