We arrived at the canal entrance at the top of the tide after carrying the flood all the way down the Elbe. There were about five other yachts waiting for the lock, after about 20 mins the lights all changed and we all motored in, we raised up very slowly only about a meter. It is forbidden for yachts to travel the canal at night so we needed to get to a mooring within the next three hours. There was a space about half a mile up from the lock. We took this but it proved to be very noisy with large ships moving through all night. we were up early the next morning to start the trip of 100km. you are allowed to motor sail if you have a free wind. There was only a force 1 blowing so we just motored at 5kns. The ships are big but the canal is wide, the only time it becomes slightly twitchy is when two big ships and yachts meet but it all seems to work it's self out. The speed limit is 8 kns so there are not large waves, you only feel a slight suction as they pass. All in all an easy trip. Another rule is you must hand steer all the time, along with other yachts we let our auto helm do what it does better than me steer a straight course, just putting my hand on the wheel as a police boat overtook us. We had a lovely hot sunny day for our trip. At km mark 85.5 the book said there was a lake off the main canal with an area for anchoring, this was our stop with about ten others. We were so warm we had our first swim of the year. The water felt cold at first but much warmer than the uk. Brenda noted that it was the first time she'd had a swim off the back of Bunny Bee, she did get as far down the ladder as her knees in the Isles of Scilly then got out. Once through we went into the British Kiel yacht club. This was set up after the end of WW11 to let our soldiers learn to sail, they devised a system of learning that went on to be adopted by the R Y A as the system in use today. They now have about a dozen yachts mainly new Swedish yachts, but one big classic wooden yacht. After the war ended, one of our top brass sent up a spotter plane to find all the good yachts in the area, they then went round and took them. I believe they had getting on for a hundred. Some had to be given back but the rest were sold over the years to pay for this great facility. It was nice to be able to chat to other English people who gave us some pointers on places to go. We set off the next day, the Baltic was far from flat. We had a F6 on the nose with 2 metre swells so we turned round and anchored in a quite bay for the night.