- Once upon a time: the Eider Canal
- Departure from Lexfähre
- Through the Lexfähre lock
- First night in Pahlen
- As guests in Süderstapel
- Down the Tideeider
- The historic Friedrichstadt
- Dutch role model
- It all depends on the tides
- All alone to Tönning
- Our westernmost point
- A century of boom
- District information: Eider
The view follows the meandering river to the horizon, where the land merges with the open sky. Seemingly endless meadows on which sheep, cows or horses graze, wispy clouds fleeing from the wind above and, in the centre, the blue ribbon of a lonely waterway seeking its way westwards in wide meanders.
Our boat moves downstream with the current. No matter in which direction the river bends, the land looks equally flat everywhere. Only rarely does a lonely farmstead with a jetty or an old hydraulic engineering structure offer a change of scenery. On the port side, the view sweeps over Dithmarschen, on the starboard side over North Friesland. Nowhere in Germany is there a flatter landscape.
Once upon a time: the Eider Canal
The Eider is not one of the European rivers sung about by poets. The most famous man of letters to have travelled it was the French novelist Jules Verne. In 1881, he travelled from Tönning to Kiel on his 35-metre-long steam yacht "Saint Michel III" - with considerable difficulty.
This was because the Eider Canal at the time was only permitted for ships up to a length of just under 30 metres. Even after dismantling the bowsprit, the yacht could only fit into the locks with difficulty and the crew could only navigate the narrow bends with difficulty. On board was his brother Paul Verne, who later published a travelogue - it is the only literary work about the Eider. In it, the brother enthuses about a "pleasure trip through an idyllic park landscape".
Departure from Lexfähre
Our charter boat, a Linssen 35 SL AC steel displacement boat, is significantly smaller than Jules Verne's "Saint Michel III" with a length of 10.70 metres and a draught of one metre. So we shouldn't have the same problems with length and draught as the famous author 144 years ago.
We took over our three-year-old charter yacht in the Eider harbour in the Lexfähre district of Wrohm. Heinke and Jens Edler run the Eider-Charter company there, consisting of the Linssen, a houseboat and two open motorboats for day trips.
I confess that I had never heard of a charter base in the municipality of Wrohm, district of Lexfähre. Lexfähre is located in the centre of Schleswig-Holstein, about 15 km southwest of Rendsburg. The former ferry town now consists of a beautiful campsite along the Eider, the Lexfähre Eider harbour and the Zum Alten Fährhaus inn. The Yacht Club Eider Lexfähre is located in the old Eider arm to the east.
Through the Lexfähre lock
And then there is the Lexfähre lock, which is located exactly at Eider kilometre 26. It marks the transition from the Upper to the Lower Binneneider. Our destination is the beautiful old harbour towns of Friedrichstadt and Tönning, both of which lie far to the west on the Tideeider. Tönning is the last harbour before the Wadden Sea. It is about 74 kilometres away, the last 22 of which are through tidal waters. A beautiful destination for a week-long cruise. Let's go!
A grey heron accompanies us from Lexfähre harbour to the lock, which we pass at 5.30 pm on Saturday. How far will we get in the evening? After a good two hours and 20 kilometres downstream, we reach the village of Pahlen. The Pahlen bridge in front of us should have a clearance height of 3.50 metres at the highest possible tide level. There would only be a hand's breadth of clearance between our upper edge and the bridge.
First night in Pahlen
To be on the safe side, we moor in Pahlen harbour and postpone the bridge passage until the next morning. With our stomachs rumbling, we walk to the Pahlazzo event restaurant about 500 metres away. But it's closed. The second pub in the village is also closed. We're just unlucky that all the restaurants in Pahlen are closed on this Saturday. Luckily, we had stopped at a discounter during our car journey to Lexfähre and stocked up on food and drinks.
In the morning we phone the bridge keeper. He says that he will open the bridge as a precaution because the current underneath is strong. At nine o'clock we pass the structure and sail westwards with the current towards the North Sea. We are now travelling through the "idyllic parkland" of the brothers Paul and Jules Verne.
As guests in Süderstapel
As we gaze into the distance, hunger strikes. I wonder if there is a bakery here that is open on Sunday mornings. The municipality of Süderstapel at kilometre 61 is the largest town far and wide. We moor in the harbour. On a hill above the harbour, the advertisement "Eiderblick" smiles at us. Do you get breakfast there? We hurry up the stairs. It smells of coffee and freshly baked goods. When we reach the top of the terrace, we can't believe our eyes. A gigantic buffet has been set up. It leaves nothing to be desired.
"Hi, I'm Jochen from Hamburg," an elegantly dressed man greets us. "We're having a private family party here today." "And I thought the Eiderblick was a public restaurant," I reply. "No. The Eiderblick is no longer a restaurant, it's now an event location."
We thank him for the information and walk back down the steps with our heads bowed. Seconds later, Jochen overtakes us and stands legs apart in the way: "The buffet is far too big and we would never make it. Please be our guests!" We take a seat on the terrace, a waitress sets the table and asks: "Would you like some chocolate mousse with champagne to welcome us?" Two hours later, the buffet is still gigantic. But we have to move on.
Down the Tideeider
We now have 23 kilometres of river ahead of us to Friedrichstadt, the first major destination of our trip. The further west we head, the more endless and lonely the landscape seems to me. We don't come across another boat until we reach the Nordfeld lock. Shortly after three in the afternoon, we slowly enter the chamber. The lock at kilometre 78 marks the border between the Binneneider and the Tideeider.
When we leave the lock ten minutes later, the world looks different. No more lush green meadows up to the bank and no more river flowing steadily down to the valley. Instead, in front of us is a shallow ditch of grey-brown mud that slopes down to the middle of the river, in which a murky trickle of water flows towards us - the rising tide. As the water rises, a white-haired fisherman calmly sets up his trap in the muddy landscape.
The historic Friedrichstadt
Just under an hour later, we pass under another road bridge and then turn sharply to starboard at kilometre 84 into the branch canal to Friedrichstadt. A barrage with a lock enables a tide-free harbour and protects the town from flooding. We pass the protective structure, enter the Old Harbour via the New Harbour and finally moor at the jetty of the West Coast Motorboat Club.
The historic town of Friedrichstadt is picturesquely situated at the confluence of the Treene and Eider rivers. The old town is criss-crossed by canals. Unfortunately, the bridges over these canals are only 1.50 metres high, so we don't have a chance to explore them ourselves with our charter yacht.
Dutch role model
You can walk from the motorboat club to the traffic-calmed old town centre in just a few minutes. The Duke of Gottorf, Frederick III, had the settlement built from 1621 as a planned town modelled on the Dutch model. Frederick wanted to establish a trading centre in his domain and brought Dutch builders and merchants to the north. Dutch was the official language for a long time. At the same time, Friedrichstadt was regarded as a centre of tolerance. In addition to Dutch, Danish and German were also spoken.
Narrow canals and gabled houses in the Dutch brick Renaissance style still characterise the cityscape today. The chic little Dutch town is also known as the "Rose City" because roses bloom in magnificent colours in front of many facades. The market square with its stepped gables is particularly worth seeing. During the Friedrichstadt Festival on the last weekend in July, there is a lantern parade with magnificently decorated boats.
It all depends on the tides
Tönning is the westernmost destination of our trip. It lies in the lower part of the tidal estuary and can no longer be approached at any time. We follow the advice of our charter company to head for the harbour of Tönning only within a time window of two hours before to two hours after high tide.
Tönning is 16 kilometres away on the Tideeider. We want to start so that we arrive around high tide in order to find a berth in the small harbour. We allow one and a half hours for the journey. Then there's another half hour for the Friedrichstadt lock. So we have to leave Friedrichstadt two hours before the highest tide. After a quarter of an hour, we have passed the lock and are heading westwards towards the Wadden Sea against the rising tide. It feels strange when you are travelling downstream but the water is gurgling towards you.
All alone to Tönning
At first, our little boat is still floating deep in the trench of silt and mud, but with every minute that passes, we visibly rise and the all-round visibility improves. Navigation is simple: on the somewhat wider stretches, you can recognise where the deeper fairway is by the rising tidal current. However, I don't want to have to sail here at night. We are alone on the water for the entire stretch from Friedrichstadt to Tönning.
A quarter of an hour before the highest water level, we pass the Tönning Eider bridge and turn hard to starboard 400 metres to the west. The tower of St Laurentius Church in Tönning can already be seen ahead on the right. We enter the Old Harbour, which is said to have a depth of 2.5 metres at medium high tide. Beautiful old fishermen's houses appear on the starboard side, today the tourist mile. Without searching for long, we find a free guest berth on the south quay below the historic packing house.
Our westernmost point
The small town of Tönning is the westernmost destination of our trip. There is no point in travelling any further. After about nine kilometres in a south-westerly direction across the Purrenstrom and the estuary of the river, we reach the Eidersperrwerk, where there are no guest moorings, either inland or at sea. Its lock is the gateway to the North Sea.
The harbour of Tönning has existed in its present form since 1613 and was home to several shipyards. The ships of the Tönning shipowners sailed to Hamburg, Holland or Denmark. The Eider Canal (originally the Schleswig-Holstein Canal), the first navigable connection from the Baltic Sea to the North Sea, brought the greatest boom.
It was officially opened with the trial run of the sailing ship "Rendsburg" on 18 October 1784. Three almost identical packing houses were built in Kiel, Rendsburg and Tönning to handle goods on the Eider Canal. They were used to store wool, grain, coffee and salt.
A century of boom
Tönning's economic boom as a seaport lasted a century. Over 300,000 sailing ships weighing up to 140 tonnes passed through the Eider Canal. But by the end of the 19th century, the ships were getting bigger and bigger and were increasingly powered by steam engines. The Eider Canal was too narrow, too shallow and too winding. With the opening of the Kiel Canal (then the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal) in 1895, Tönning fell into a deep sleep. The only ships still moored here were the shrimp boats.
After completion of the Eider barrage in 1972, however, these also disappeared. They now have a jetty on the inside of the barrage. The once so important commercial harbour of Tönning is now reserved for pleasure craft. The packing house is a listed building. The local history association has an exhibition on the town's history on the upper floor.
As much as we like Tönning, we have to return to Lexfähre because our charter week is half over. The weather forecast predicts two days of continuous rain. No problem, our Linssen has an all-round enclosed cake stand above the steering position. And so we enjoy the return journey through Verne's "idyllic" north, even in slightly cooler conditions.
District information: Eider
The Eider
No other river in Europe has been so rigorously remodelled as the Eider. The original river rises between Kiel and Neumünster and initially flows towards the Baltic Sea. Shortly before Kiel, it swings westwards and follows the natural gradient until it flows into the North Sea. The river underwent its most extreme change with the construction of the Kiel Canal. The Obereider, which flows south-west of Kiel, was separated from the Eider and now flows into the NOK at Achterwehr, which essentially follows the old river valley as far as Rendsburg. In this area, stretches of the Alte Eider and the Eider Canal still exist parallel to the NOK. The remaining Eider has a new source in Rendsburg, as no water from the NOK returns to the Eider. The Eider then meanders westwards via Friedrichstadt to Tönning, where it flows into the Purrenstrom (navigable part of the Tideeider), a nine kilometre long estuary. At the south-west end, the Eider barrage regulates the outflow into the Wadden Sea. The lower reaches of the Eider are connected to the NOK by the Gieselau Canal. The Eider federal waterway from Rendsburg to its mouth in the North Sea is divided as follows: Upper inland Eider: Rendsburg to Lexfähre lock, water depth between Lexfähre and Gieselau Canal 3.0 metres, decreasing to 0.8 metres towards Rendsburg. Lower Binneneider: Lexfähre to Nordfeld lock, water depth 3.0 m. Tidal Eider: Nordfeld to Eider barrage, water depth depends on the tide. Gieselau Canal: from the NOK to the mouth of the Eider, water depth 2.4 metres.
The journey
From the northern German metropolises of Hamburg or Lübeck, it takes about an hour and a half to reach Lexfähre. Free parking at the charter company.
Charter
Eider charter rents out a Linssen 35 SL AC, a houseboat and two open motorboats. The Linssen we chartered (10.70 x 3.35 x 1.0 m) has two double cabins with en-suite bathrooms. We took over the boat in a very good optical and technical condition. It is fully equipped, including WLAN. Prices: depending on the season from € 1950/week, plus € 160 final cleaning. Running costs: 12 €/h or return with a full tank of petrol. Contact: Eider-Charter Lexfähre, Tel. 0160 / 96 84 72 56
The driving licence
On all sections of the Eider as well as on the Gieselau Canal, the Seeschifffahrtsstraßen-Ordnung applies and the skipper requires a pleasure craft licence. There is no VHF radio on board the "Seppel", so no radiotelephone licence is required.
The literature
DK sports boat chart set 1 "Bay of Kiel and round Funen. With Lübeck Bay, NOK, Eider and Schlei." On map 05A, the Eider is shown on half a page - but cut into 9 parts, which are not logically arranged one behind the other. The maps are easier to use if you copy them and then cut out the individual parts and stick them on again in the correct order. ISBN: 978-3-667-13015-0 94,90 €.
