It's love at first sight. The Charter boat which we immediately took to our hearts, is not really a boat at all and certainly not a yacht. Strictly speaking, it is aBoard crate on two floats with an outboard motor at the stern. It is so simple and beautiful that we liked it from the very first moment.
There is no cockpit, but there is a terrace with a bench seat and folding table as well as aFire bowl over which you can barbecue. From the terrace you don't go down into the cabin, buton one level and without having to duck your head anywhere, into the large living room furnished with Ikea furniture;
You have the feeling of being in a summer house on Lake Vänern. The spacious shower room with its Nordic look is accessed from the kitchen/living room. And two bedrooms branch off to the rear. You can stand anywhere and there are no stairs, steps or companionways.
TheControl column consists of a wooden boxwhere firewood and barbecue lighters are stored. We search in vain for instruments and complicated technology. Only a steering wheel and a gear lever are screwed on. That's almost all that makes the wooden box a sports boat. I've been travelling around the world for 30 years on the most amazing boats and yachts. But I've rarely seen anything as simple and endearing as this plank box.
We take over theBunBo at the jetty inZernsdorf on the Krüpelsee. Zernsdorf is part of Königs Wusterhausen and is located on the south-eastern outskirts of Berlin. The Krüpelsee is part of the Dahme waterway. The briefing takes no longer than for a Swedish holiday home.
Where to go with the cosy crate? Base manager Norbert Raumer suggests two alternatives: "Either towards Berlin or into the Brandenburg countryside."
We decide in favour of nature, which certainly suits a boat like this much better. Norbert explains the anchoring manoeuvre.I search in vain for a chain, winch or transfer jib. The BunBo has two anchor piles, as known from Dutch barges or inland dredgers.
You simply lower an anchor pole into the shallow water. Then turn the BunBo with the outboard motor so that the deck is facing the evening sun. The second anchor pole then rushes downwards. That's it. The box is standing.
In the afternoon we leave the marina at Krüpelsee astern and head eastwards on the Dahme and then southwards in the direction ofScharmützelsee. We are in for another surprise: the BunBo is child's play to steer and runs as straight as a rail.
We sail up the Dahme to theDolgensee. The area south-east of Berlin seems to be BunBo territory. At every corner theHouseboats in their cheerful colours or they "anchor" at the shallow edges of the water. People greet each other, the atmosphere on board is relaxed and exuberant. Right next to the steering position is aHammock where either the partner or the children enjoy the ride in a very special way.
It's time to moor. At the southern end of the Dolgensee, where the Dahme narrows to the width of a river again, lies the village of Dolgenbrodt, where we discover "Kuddels lustige Stube" (www.kuddels-stube.de) on the starboard side. That sounds inviting, and we go alongside the beer garden. The friendly landlady offers to make stuffed peppers for us. We get an excellent meal on the banks of the Kuddel.
While the morning mist is still wafting over the Dahme, we leave our mooring and head towards Prieros. Shortly before reaching the village, we take a sharp left and leave the Dahme waterway. This is where the Storkow waters begin, which will lead us to the Scharmützelsee.
The boat traffic decreases noticeably. We enjoy the Indian summer on the Langen See and the Wolziger See all by ourselves. Before reaching the village of Blossin, we steer into the small harbour of the Blossin fishery (www.fischerei-blossin.de) and tie up the BunBo at the "Zur Fischerhütte" inn.
Here, fishing is still done according to old tradition with a fish trap and the catch is smoked over freshly split alder wood. Eel, trout, halibut and butterfish fresh from the smoke taste excellent!
The Blossin fishery offers boaters a good service. Both harbours have electricity, water, sanitary facilities, a bread roll service and moorings for day visitors and permanent residents.
Our trip continues eastwards along the Storkow Canal towards Storkow, where we want to moor in the evening. We reach the Kummersdorf lock shortly before 5 pm. The water is down, we could enter straight away and would probably make it through the Storkow lock, which is only 5.2 kilometres away.
Wonderful! But the traffic lights are red. I call the official number for the lock. Nobody answers. I go to the pretty lock house. Nobody is there. First I call, then we give a long beep that can be heard for miles. Nobody moves.
After waiting for half an hour in front of the empty lock, I call the water and shipping authority's hotline and ask for the lock keeper's mobile phone number. "We're not allowed to give it out. But we'll take care of it."
Minutes later, the lock keeper comes along the water from the neighbouring premises. I'm sure he could have heard our horn. His facial expression is not exactly friendly. At around 5.30 p.m. he starts the lock process. I politely ask him whether we will still make it through the Storkow lock.
His answer: "I hope not!"
There's no friendlier way to put it. When we arrive at the Storkow lock shortly after 6 p.m., the automatic self-service lock is, as expected, already switched off. We use the forced break to go shopping in the nearby town centre of Storkow. There are several supermarkets and restaurants here.
In the morning, we pass through the self-service lock and head out onto the Großer Storkower See. Even from a distance, the tower of the Hubertushöhe hunting lodge stands out in the autumn sky. The castle was built around 1900 by the Berlin publisher and print shop owner Büxenstein, who also printed the Reichsbank's banknotes.
After reunification, tobacco manufacturer Reemtsma converted the property into a luxury hotel. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and French President Jacques Chirac were the most prominent guests. The property then changed hands several times. The current owners want to turn the Hubertushöhe into an art and literature park (www.hubertushöhe.de).
We moor in the small harbour below the Hubertushöhe. We reach the castle through a beautiful park with old trees. It is closed. There is a modest restaurant with coffee and cake in the "Fischerkate" at the harbour, but only from 11.30 am to 5 pm. After that you have to leave again.
We leave Lake Storkow behind and take our last lock in Wendisch Rietz, the gateway to Lake Scharmützel. In the most beautiful evening light, we sail out onto the Märkisches Meer, as the poet Theodor Fontane affectionately called the lake.
And because it's so beautiful, we head north across the lake and "anchor" in front of the Bad Saarow promenade. In the stylish "Seebad" restaurant, we enjoy a sundowner with a marvellous view over the Märkisches Meer.
There are now around a dozen small marinas and restaurants with boat moorings around Scharmützelsee. This is where we realise that a BunBo week is far too short. We want to have seen at least the most famous highlights of the lake.
The small marina at "Café Dorsch" is located roughly in the centre of the lake on the western shore. Autumn has sent us a capful of wind, and a short, hard wave is rolling across the Märkisches Meer from the south.
The mooring manoeuvre at "Café Dorsch" with wind and swell from the side is a bit of a maritime challenge. This is where we realise that bun-boat sailing is not just child's play, as the crosswind causes the boat to drift to leeward despite its skids.
The "Café Dorsch" (www.cafe-dorsch.de) is an institution. Built in the 1930s by Berlin dramaturge Fritz Wetzel as a summer house, it was run as a café by Hermann Dorsch after the war. Artists from East Berlin used to meet here.
After Hermann Dorsch's death, the HO (trade organisation) continued to run the restaurant for a short time. Finally, in the mid-1970s, the Ministry for State Security confiscated the property and turned it into a club for Stasi comrades.
Shortly after reunification, the Vater family acquired the property, freed it from the Stasi stink and turned it back into what it once was: an Eldorado for artists and connoisseurs. The small "Dorsch" marina was built in 1996. In the picture gallery you can see that almost every famous musician or actor from Germany once enjoyed the view over Lake Scharmützel here. You won't meet any comrades here now.
In the south-west of the lake, we head for the Wendisch Rietz marina. In the 1980s, there was a youth recreation centre (JEZ) here with the first and only sailing school in the GDR. The former harbour is still there, but the surrounding youth recreation centre with its bungalows has disappeared.
An investor has grouped a pretty harbour village and a beautiful holiday park around the moorings. Not far from the guest berth, you can eat very well on the terrace of the harbour restaurant - with a view of BunBo. The marina is operated by the charter company Ring & Partner (www.ring-yachtcharter.de).
It's time to point the bow - sorry: the deck - of our BunBo back towards Zernsdorf. We cast off from Wendisch Rietz marina at midday and make it to Dolgensee by nightfall. Here, we let the anchor piles crash into the bottom, make a campfire and put sausages on the barbecue. BunBo life can be so beautiful!
In the morning, we head south again a little way into the Dahme and spot a sign saying "Mooring welcome - Restaurant Fährhaus". We accept the invitation. We have heard a lot of good things about this restaurant, which has been run by Torsten Hahn and his crew since 2005 (www.faehrhaus-dolgenbrodt.de).
The warm autumn sun casts its golden glow over the colourful leaves as we enjoy a freshly tapped pilsner on the terrace overlooking the waterway. The waiter recommends: "From today we have knuckle of pork. Classically served with sauerkraut, mashed peas and potatoes.
Of course we have the biggest ice legs again." It takes him a few seconds to persuade us. For 14.50 euros, I eat the biggest and best pork knuckle of my life.
The BunBo is still ours for another day and a half. We want to travel up the Dahme as far as Märkisch Buchholz, where its navigability ends. We enter the Prieros lock in the early afternoon. A friendly lock keeper, who looks a bit like Karl Lagerfeld with his neat white hair tied back in a ponytail, takes the lines and has some entertaining stories to tell.
When the lower gates are almost closed, he sees stragglers approaching and opens them once more. During the lock we learn a lot from him about the region that now lies ahead of us.
Six kilometres further south, we meet an equally friendly and helpful lock keeper at the Hermsdorfer Mühle lock. In Märkisch Buchholz, the trip ends below the impressive weir over which the Dahme bypass channel flows into the Dahme. Here there is a boat tow on a small railway lorry, on which boats weighing up to 300 kg can sail around the weir to continue towards the Spree.
We moor our BunBo at the Märkisch Buchholz bivouac site and walk to the nearby town centre. With 773 inhabitants, it is the smallest town in Brandenburg and one of the smallest towns in Germany. Worth seeing is the church with the peace oak in front of it.
We then navigate the Dahme back down to the valley and "anchor" in Lake Streganz south of Prieros. The "Waldhaus Prieros" hotel, which is known for its stylish restaurant, lies tantalisingly on the shore. Wilhelm Pieck, the first and only president of the GDR, resided here from 1954 to 1959.
Why go out for an expensive meal when there's barbecue stuff in the fridge and piles of logs under the steering position? We enjoy the cosy atmosphere on our BunBo and are really sad that we have to give it back the next day.
Would you like to have the complete voyage with all sailing area information, map with sailing stages, tips on the sailing area and information on the charter boat? Then you can download the PDF below.
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