Sunday – 16 June 2013 – Kiel Canal
I felt no remorse as Silver Cloud cast off and left the downtown Hamburg under construction cruise port at 8am. We sailed down the Elbe River for a couple of hours, mostly watching multiple gigantic container ports go by. Hamburg is one of the largest port areas in Europe and certainly the largest in still prosperous Germany. Oddly enough, the ports are hours sailing from the North Sea. I'm sure there's a good explanation. Unfortunately I don't know it.
Just before reaching the sea, however, we entered the lock to be raised about a meter to transit the Kiel Canal. The 92 kilometer long ditch across Utland saves ships 250 miles of sailing around Denmark in the sometimes torturous waters of the North Sea. Instead the ride is a smooth and unbelievably scenic "land cruise". By some measures the Kiel Canal is considered the busiest artificial waterway in the world. We passed dozens of fairly large ships going the other way.
The Hamburg end of the Canal is quite industrial. We sailed by a very chemical plant looking aspirin factory and various other appropriately serious sites, but in less than a half hour we were riding through woods and pastures and listening to birds signing or cow bells ringing respectively.
The Canal is only 90 meters wide at the bottom, 162 meters at the waterline. Although most ships can pass each other without delay, lock operations and the occasional bigger freighters require that "meets" be made at designated points. I was amazed to see the canal pilot controlling Silver Cloud at one of these pullouts, in a driving rain no less. Our Captain was no doubt observing from inside the bridge, but I suspect he would much have preferred that he wasn't required to relinquish operating the controls. I knew that the Panama Canal requires that this happening, but I was quite surprised to see that the Master was not driving his own ship in the Kiel. So was the Captain, I suppose.
Barbara and I spent the entire eight hour transit on deck watching the fields and towns go by. As this was a Sunday, the locals were out for a good time. In Northern Germany that usually amounts to eating at country inns and scowling and/or waving madly at passing cruise ships.
We had been briefed by the ship's Destination Lecturer, Corey, that we would see towns, fields, pastures, and some industry along the canal. He also told us that we would see what appears to be the world's longest bench. After taking a bunch of photos of this magnificent structure that could rest more people than live in all of the German state of Mecklenburg, we came across the sight that would FOR ME be the most memorable wonder of the entire cruise, at least so far. Under a railway bridge I spotted what looked like another of the numerous ferries that cross the waterway. However, it became clear from the support cables that this was indeed a Transporter Bridge. These structures were built by the 100s during the turn of the previous century. They are essentially ferry decks that are suspended a few feet above a river and carry people and vehicles across. Propulsion is by a winch arrangement controlled by the operator in a small "pilot" house on the deck.
I knew of three Transporter Bridges still in operation, in Middlesbough in England, Newport in Wales, and near Bilbao, Spain. This one in northern Germany was a complete surprise. The Captain must have enjoyed seeing this wonderful device as he tooted the ship's whistle as a salute. Perhaps that was because as he wasn't allowed to drive the ship maybe he just wanted to show he could still blow the horn, now that I think of it.
We exited the canal about 10 pm in sunlight and sailed the rest of the night finally in the ocean as we had now transited from the North Sea to the Baltic to arrive early Monday in Warnemunde, our last stop in Germany.
