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A swan family on the banks of the Canal.
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We cruise for an hour on the embranchement de Niffer, which is a canal allowing
for large barges to head into the commercial poet of Mulhouse.
Before we enter the Rhine at Niffer we have to have Thomas back on board as the
Rheinpatent is needed to drive any ship longer than 20 meters.
Our temporary permission to drive on the Rhein without Rheinattest has arrived from Strassbourg
so we are all set to go.
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Decision time ...
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The Rhine lock at Kembs. Thomas jokes "do you want to drive in sideways".
The dimensions are enormous - nearly 200 m long, 23 meters wide and 16 meters
deep.
And they fill it up just for us!
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The lock chamber fills and we raise slowly up.
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On the way to Basel we see a newly acquired antique airplane. The Lockheed Constellation
heads for Basel airport.
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The Mattmüller boat-yard. Next week we will take the place of the orange ship - it is the
Regional `bilge and oil' boat (Bibo-Regio). They are currently doing maintenance of the engine
and so we get to use their space in the
Port of Basel for a few days.
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The entrance into the port of Kleinhüningen-Basel.
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The three country corner: this is where Germany/Switzerland and France meet in the middle of the
Rhine.
What courtesy flag should we fly? German, Swiss, France? We decide for now to leave the flag of the
Alsace region and stay neutral.
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Thomas enters the port
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We made it! We celebrate with a Kir Royal, Betty wears Thomas' old Harbor-Police hat.
2 1/2 weeks of cruising 825 km and 134 locks
- and the DAF engine is running like clockwork. I guess it rather heads
against current with 1600 revs using the Turbo than barley over tick-over
speed in the canals.
So may be we need to have an
`engine-cleaning' cruise each year.
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Even Racine participates at the celebration and Betty gives him some turkey as a special treat.
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The British flag in the port of Basel with some big (180 m long) container ships
heading backwards into basin 2.
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This is what I call a tight fit! In Basel they can handle three layers of containers, further down the
Rhine they add two more layers. This makes the wheelhouse match the third floor of a house.
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