Rigging screws? Hmm...

Sunday 23rd July - guest crew join at Rendsburg.

If you believe what you read in Riddle of the Sands (sorry, here we go again) then guest crew joining your yacht in the Baltic can be prevailed upon to bring any number of weird and wonderful items of equipment. 

Carruthers brought rigging screws, a prismatic compass, a pound of Raven mixture for Davies's pipe and a No. 3 Rippingille stove. 

We thought that a replacement heating system was rather a lot to ask of guests trying to stay within the Ryanair hand baggage limit, and in any case the current heating system is not quite ready to be consigned to the deep. Though Howard does distort its name from Webasto to Webastard sometimes, so it may only be a matter of time.

Anyway Pete and Sarah very kindly made room in their bags for our new cockpit cover (now adjusted since its first fitting back in Bergen op Zoom) and a pair of shorts we'd asked for. Pete had also packed a rigging screw which we hadn't asked for, but you can see why we all enjoyed the joke and we're now on the lookout for a suitable piece of driftwood to mount it on. We were also delighted to receive gifts of rum and chocolate and some other goodies from Shetland. 

But search her baggage as she might, the one thing Sarah couldn't find was one thing we were particularly waiting for. The replacement power supply card which might allow Howard to fix our laptop somehow seems to have been left behind on the kitchen table! Sarah may never hear the end of this.

Carruthers remarks on his friend's habit of throwing unwanted items overboard and we have an opportunity to put this into practice with Pete's case which is falling apart. He buys himself a replacement but in the end we settle on a more acceptable method of disposal and he lobs the old one in the marina skip.

For their first taste of the Kiel Canal we take Pete and Sarah to an extra-ordinary terrace bar on the bank of the canal right under the enormous 40 metre high railway bridge (which they had crossed on their way here from Hamburg). This self-styled "ships meeting point" provides live commentary by a very keen and knowledgeable man seated in a glass kiosk/conservatory who announces each ship as it approaches. He gives all sorts of facts and figures if you can keep up with his German (Sarah and I caught snippets but never quite the full story). Thanks to this commentary we hung about for the arrival of the largest ship the canal (or more precisely the locks at each end) can take and we took the photos in my previous blog post.

We round off their first day with typical German snack bar food in a "beach bar" near the marina. Matjes Teller with bratkartoffeln for the girls (with wine), bratwurst and frits for boys (with beer as it happens). Prost!