On to Hamburg

As is no doubt clear from the Position Map, we are now in Hamburg.  This picture, taken somewhere near the middle of our North Sea crossing, will no doubt look familiar to nephew Paul and brother-in-law Larry who have actually stood on offshore oil platforms.  There are over 1000 of these structures in the North Sea and, by the time we arrived at Cuxhaven at the mouth of the Elbe River, we felt we had seen most of them.

Our first impression of Germany was that it is a very clean and tidy place.  Our first impression of sailing in Germany is that there are masses of other boats and you have to be alert all the time to keep from running into anyone.

A tiring 9-hour trip up the river brought us here to Hamburg. It is a city of great beauty.  We are reminded by the cold and rain that it is not yet sailing season here in Northern Europe so we will linger a few weeks before moving on.