1-2 June Peenemünde

The fine sailing grounds around Rugen almost come to an end when sailing South East from Lauterbach - the Baltic opens again to the East and waterways go South passing Peenemünde and on to Poland via navigable water not unlike the Norfolk Broads and just about as shallow. Having been born during the war, it is not possible in my view to simply pass by such an historic place as Peenemünde where the dreadful V1 and V2 weapons were developed. Set in remote, flat countryside of thin woodlands where wading birds live along the reeds and tall rushes line the water there is an incongruity between the idylic natural peace of the chosen location and the strident monumental architecture of the research establishment reflecting the form and function of the Bauhaus era albeit some of it with walls and ceilings of 3 mtrs thick concrete. Now as a museum, the total story of rocketry and the rise and fall of the Third Reich is told in straight factuality with no emotive element - an interesting approach bearing in mind the human cost but the political, ethical and moral issues involved could not be resolved in a two hour museum visit. As with the Roman ruins in Cyprus where I walked upon wonderful mosaics floors, or once being so close to a letter written by Oliver Cromwell, I get a very strange spooky feeling knowing that here - right here stood those very people who changed the world in some way.

The glorious Baltic sunshine continues and in the long evenings everything is washed with a golden light enough to make the most miserable Dickensian character burst out laughing with joy. We now have flowers on board and go out of our way to dine in style in the cockpit to show how mad the Englanders are but we are few and far between in these parts - we and our confusing red ensign are rare birds indeed.

While there are no tide times to meet here, we have the time gate of two more bridges to contend with and having met one we are parked alongside the town quay of Wolgast, an old Hanseatic town which time has passed by. It seems to have lost its importance without realising it and neither has a holiday trade nor any other reason to bustle. All the same - lovely old buildings, fortified here and there in that star pattern of old - capable of keeping off all comers, until somebody spoilt the fun with gunpowder. Quite large cargo ships stop here to fill up with something or other and a modern train purrs across the canal bridge stopping all the traffic at regular intervals - we have not seen any passengers on it though but it is punctual and gleams and has a nice sounding railway-crossing bell.

I have to admit that my two attempts to do a "selfie" on my mobile phone with Jane at supper did not pass quality control so you will have to imagine how much we appear to be having fun - and we are, it just seems to go on, what an adventure.

I meant to tell you about the astonishing eratics which pepper the German Baltic coast, both at sea and around the land. These are "foreign" boulders carried by glaciers in the ice age for many hundreds of miles away from their natural physical home and dropped where the glacier melted. They can be as big as a house but more often are car sized. Along the coastal sea fringe there are thousands marked on the charts and on the land can present developers with an interesting challenge as to what to do with them. Spotted a whopper just offshore where we saw the car rally - estimated at 1000 tons.

Tomorrow we meet the second opening bridge and move to probably our last German port before Poland. Ooo-er, and I've almost got the hang of Euros - well the shiny ones anyway.