Travemünde

We read the weather forecast for Monday carefully and decided to sail to Travemünde on Sunday.

Travemünde is located at the mouth of the River Trave and is Germany's largest Baltic Sea port with ferry connections to Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia and Lithuania.

It was here that Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks family had their summer residence. The town still seems like a fashionable resort town with a nice beach, patricia villas, restaurants, jewelry stores, clothing stores and hotels.

We easily found Boebs Werft, an old reputable boatyard with its own harbor.

Hardly we had the duck before a fishing boat with Danish national flag and German visitor team sailed into the harbor.

Not only was it Danish. It was also from Humlebæk.

Strange

The boat turned out to belong to Søren. He has been with his boat in Humlebæk for a couple of years without us noticing each other. Now he was on his way home, after sailing for almost 4 months on the canals of Germany, Holland, Belgium and France.

We had good talks, tips on canal sailing, had dinner together and were allowed to borrow his maps and pilot books of the canal areas.

Tuesday morning we said goodbye to Søren, were visited by a journeyman and an apprentice who had to make the fridge and while they started the work, we sailed over to the crane, where 3 young men started the branching.

There were now 5 people besides us on board. Although it all reminded me a bit of the scene “Crowded Cabin” in Marx Brothers movie “a Night at the Opera” there was system in things.

However, the cleaning went a lot easier than repairing the fridge.

The journeyman could not find the fault, scratched his neck, tested wiring, thermostat and relay, called the mobile phone, sent the apprentice away for tools and once in a while stuck his head up in the cockpit to ask about something.

Eventually, he managed to locate the error. The problem was the switch on the main panel. When he had mast a little with it, the compressor ran again. A new switch cannot be obtained until in a week. It's a little long to stay here because of it. We are therefore trying to find an electrician further down the route.

The 3 young men got rid of the mast and spent a couple of hours packing the rig together.

In the early morning we will visit a mechanic who will give the engine a quick check.

And then we are ready for the channels.