Plau to Schwerin

Saturday, 26 September

The journey today was somewhat longer than anticipated due to the lock at Bobzin being "kaput". It was reminiscent of the famous incident of the log in the lock on our first trip. This time the lock was empty but the mechanism was doing nothing. They have been working on this lock for more than a week. When we came through last Saturday is was only open at 10.30 or 16.30 but we were assured that it would be fixed by Tuesday. Last night in Lübz we heard that it had been playing up the day before.

We sat there for three hours waiting for the lock technician to come, and by then there was a queue of boats in both directions. When we finally entered the lock we were with three other boats. It was a squeeze and pretty uncomfortable trying to hold the boat in position away from the others. The lock was more than 7 metres deep so it took a long time to fill. I'm glad we weren't stuck inside it!

For the rest of the day we were in a convoy of four boats, all squeezing into locks together. At the last lock there was only room for three but it was quite a shallow one so they wouldn't have waited for long. We got into Plau about 5.30 and had another less than graceful parking experience, with a few comments coming from onlookers. Our kind friend from the boat in front came round to tell us that we only had a few minutes before the harbourmaster finished for the day, so we hot-footed it around to pay our parking fees and get tokens for the water and electricity.

Then a walk into the town and along the canal to find some dinner before walking back to the boat by the light of a gorgeous full moon. Tomorrow will be our last travelling day as we return to Untergöhren in preparation for handing the boat back on Monday morning.

 

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