River Cruising Water Cooler

[notamermaid]

Happy New Year to all.

 

@Daisi Thank you for your wishes I saw your post just before getting ready to welcome my guests. One unfortunately did not come, but that meant more pie and and dessert for the others. We had a lovely evening, food turned out well and fireworks were plentiful in the sky. I managed to burn myself with a lighter but the pain subsided quickly (possibly helped by red wine intake...).

 

Would like to babysit a cat some time. Sigh.

 

After a lazy day without a long walk this time I am getting ready to round off the water level threads.

 

I just could not remember the name of the village where I took the Eifel photographs but really wanted to leave you with a tip for the area so have looked it up again. It is here, outside a village called Wassenach (sounds Scottish to me, you know, like the sound in Loch):

 

I have taken a screenshot with the Rhine and the town of Andernach. The blue shape is an "eye of the Eifel",  The Maria Laach volcanic lake (Laacher See). The red marker is the Kapelle auf der Lay, which means Chapel on the Rock. You can access this area from Koblenz and Andernach well. Avalon Waterways has offered an excursion to there in past years, I do not know if they do in 2023. Famous beyond the region is Maria Laach Abbey, a Romanesque Church with monastery.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Canal archive]

I know this is not a river cruise report but could a similar thing happen in the worlds rivers.

Now am I really starting to feel just a little sorry for this company?
 

https://news.sky.com/story/cruise-ship-passengers-stranded-at-sea-for-days-after-biofoul-discovered-12778181

[Coral]

31 minutes ago, Canal archive said:

I know this is not a river cruise report but could a similar thing happen in the worlds rivers.

Now am I really starting to feel just a little sorry for this company?
 

https://news.sky.com/story/cruise-ship-passengers-stranded-at-sea-for-days-after-biofoul-discovered-12778181

There are multiple companies that have had issues recently in Australia/New Zealand - Princess, Cunard and Viking but I have heard Azamara and Regent also.

[Canal archive]

Must admit I only picked it up because it was actually reported on U.K. news and when you look the Anzac countries are becoming stricter and stricter maybe all countries should.

[gnome12]

Australia and New Zealand have always been very protective of their borders, in order to avoid importing "evils" into a fairly closed environment. When I cycled in New Zealand, they were interested in whether there was mud on my bicycle tires that could contain a pathogen.

[Canal archive]

They clean bike tyres in some of our National Parks now.

[CPT Trips]

When entering the US, just wait until you answer “yes” to:

have you been in close proximity to livestock? or

have you been on a farm or pasture?

[Host Jazzbeau]

4 hours ago, CPT Trips said:

When entering the US, just wait until you answer “yes” to:

have you been in close proximity to livestock? or

have you been on a farm or pasture?

Thankfully with facial recognition they don't ask any questions anymore!

[Host Jazzbeau]

I have finally completed the blog and review from our last trip of 2022.  No river sailing involved, but a lovely time cruising on the Adriatic on a smallish (~700 pax) Azamara ship:

Review of Azamara Journey Adriatic Wonders cruise October 6, 2022

 

[CPT Trips]

On 1/2/2023 at 8:32 PM, Host Jazzbeau said:

Thankfully with facial recognition they don't ask any questions anymore!

Yes, usually no interview. IIRC, the questions do pop up on the kiosk. Easier to misstate to a machine???

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

6 hours ago, CPT Trips said:

Yes, usually no interview. IIRC, the questions do pop up on the kiosk. Easier to misstate to a machine???

Isn't it like website contracts?  Don't read, just hit 'accept.'  🤣

[notamermaid]

It is Sunday and I should be doing something nice like a winter Sunday walk but I am clearing up after a somewhat unusual Christmas time and finalizing my work schedule for this year - holiday and tourism event work shifts need planning well in advance. So I am getting annoyed with not being able to figure out how to fit in a four night river cruise (should I book one at short notice) and dread having to rock the boat with the personnel department before the management change in Spring. I have some payment woes with them. Still, this means on the plus side that tourism is kind of back to normal. Seeing that I ignore the "bonkers Berliners" - I have had always had a "cultural problem" with the Prussians anyway - and do not read much other news I was quite disturbed by a lady who went shopping in my local supermarket the other day. She was wearing an FFP2 mask and gloves, walking around a bit slowly and dazed. The memories come back and I noticed that I was going into "what does she know that I do not know??" mode. Managed to shake it off relatively quickly and vowed that I will continue to focus on local problems and skip the news other than road works, the Rhine river and cruising in general.

 

Which brings me to a weird and interesting article I have read today on the regional newspaper online website "HNA". River cruise plans are of course in full swing, 2023 promises to be another great year also on the German market, meaning with the German companies, and another river will enter the array of rivers and canals that you can sail in Germany, the Fulda. I must admit I read that twice, thinking the headline must be wrong. Here is the explanation. The small ship, basically a luxury excursion boat, sails the Elbe, Weser and Fulda rivers from Hamburg to Kassel during the day. The "Serrahn Queen"' docks at night and the 50 passengers sleep in hotels. Seeing that this is a package holiday with overnight stay it is by definition a river cruise. The Hamburg company that operates the Serrahn Queen offers this holiday from April.

 

Have a good week.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Currently lots of people are ill in Germany, with either Covid or cold/flu. Well it is winter after all. I think I have not mentioned this but we still have Covid regulations, i.e. mask wearing as a more or less last one. This is ending in more and more Länder on public transport, Deutsche Bahn may keep it on long distance trains potentially until April. The health sector is still doing more but I am not sure of any details.

 

It is raining a lot so flooding is coming, probably mild only but we will need to see where the rain clouds travel to over the weekend. If you are interested, this is the map to follow: https://www.hochwasserzentralen.de/warnungen

As I write, the Moselle and Sieg are on alert level, parts of Sachsen-Anhalt are on pre-alert level. We get prepared and mostly this is not a big deal. Will just see how the week progresses and keep checking our authorities' info services.

 

Will probably start the river level threads later in the month and may mention a few more details about the situation.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Canal archive]

I’m just starting to recover, I’ve had every jab recommended- covid - flue - pneumonia and just before Christmas I get this cold not helped by the not even having a sniffle for years and having a heart condition. Now I’m on the quest to find out how or who I got it from, if I find out you’ll hear the fallout in North America!

[notamermaid]

Canal archive sorry to read that. All the best.

3 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Now I’m on the quest to find out how or who I got it from, if I find out you’ll hear the fallout in North America!

I am sure this is how a family member would think if he could think straight through his brain fog. Hit him hard whatever it was.

 

Things not going as planned here, neither in my family nor in the neighbourhood.

 

Flooding along the Moselle may get worse than I had thought yesterday and the storm here woke me up early this morning. Quite bad weather here, "sofa and hot chocolate weather with the blinds down" I call it.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

For now it looks like the flooding along the Rhine will not be extensive - a bit more on other rivers - and could subside a bit from Thursday. Police launches are patrolling the river, a normal thing as the authorities are on alert. Ships are sailing and traffic is still running well.

 

Work is gathering pace again, but I will probably not be robed in to work at a fair in spring. Good, do not really like the booths, bad air and loud voices in those halls. The first fair close to my realm is going to be at Koblenz, the Touristik Messe from the 4th to the 5th of February to which I will go as a customer not a tourism industry employee. Which unfortunately means I have to pay travel costs and admission fee myself. Fortunately not far and also reasonably priced. Looking forward to talking to the people showcasing river cruises and rail travel. There will be sales pitches by travel and coach operators, you know, with slides and videos. Fun to watch and listen to! This year there will be Namibia, London and Italy, for example. I uttered my interest at work to go to the big fair in Brussels called "Salon des Vacances" that weekend and my colleague and I had a few minutes of indulgence in wishful thinking - knowing that our management would think that this is over the travel budget allowance for us employees...

 

notamermaid

 

 

[notamermaid]

@Canal archive I see you had quite a bit of snow in England, even in your low-lying area, I think. Snow has returned to Germany overnight and the hills are clad in white, even causing traffic disruption in the valleys, for example in Bavaria. Some high winter resorts in Rhineland-Palatinate are ready for customers, but not all regions have had snow yet.

 

The Erbeskopf, the highest hill in Rhineland-Palatinate at 816m, apparently has now 10cm of snow. It is a nice region but unfortunately not near enough a navigable river. Just for some info should anyone think of doing a hiking trip there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erbeskopf

 

I know, I know, 10cm is nothing in Canada and I will not ask how much you have 🙂. We are happy with what we have got to keep winter sports going.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[gnome12]

2 hours ago, notamermaid said:

I know, I know, 10cm is nothing in Canada and I will not ask how much you have 🙂. We are happy with what we have got to keep winter sports going.

Here in Toronto, we have nothing left on the ground. Yesterday was high 4 and stayed there overnight, with some drizzle. I think it is supposed to get messy in the next few days with freezing rain and high winds, but I don't think we will have any accumulation of snow. This year may be more extreme than usual, but in Toronto our winter is usually freeze and thaw. Unless we get a particularly large dump of snow, much of it disappears.

 

The same is not true elsewhere.

[notamermaid]

@gnome12 Interesting, tells you that I am not that informed about Canada, we here tend to think you are in constant snow almost everywhere from December till February.

 

Remember I said last week that things are not going as planned? Our builder dealing with the hole in the yard did not come on the appointed day so a phone call to him confirmed that he is ill with Covid now. The hole in the ground is actually a trench covering almost a quarter of the yard, the rubble is next to it, the bins are scattered around the mess and the digger is also standing there. Sadly, a neighbour died just before New Year, now the family needs to empty the flat and negotiate round the mess in the yard. Another neighbour has been confirmed to be in hospital needing heart surgery. Never gets boring around here these days, unfortunately the fun stuff is somewhat absent. I think when the mourning period of one year is over it is time to get new cats overseeing the yard and making the humans happy.

 

notamermaid

 

[Canal archive]

Notamermaid we have snow lots of it but not near us we have extremely heavy frosts and lots of water making the roads like skating rinks. The Somerset levels don’t look to good at the moment even after the Dutch engineers did so much wonderful work several years ago.
When my aunt lived in Edmonton we judged the severity of the winter by how close the snow got to her lounge window cill.

[gnome12]

9 minutes ago, Canal archive said:

Notamermaid we have snow lots of it but not near us we have extremely heavy frosts and lots of water making the roads like skating rinks. The Somerset levels don’t look to good at the moment even after the Dutch engineers did so much wonderful work several years ago.
When my aunt lived in Edmonton we judged the severity of the winter by how close the snow got to her lounge window cill.

Remember on the map of Canada, there is a dip below the 49th parallel (the border between Canada and the US across the west) particularly in the populated area of Southern Ontario where I live. We are much warmer than many other places in Canada, and, in fact, than many places in the US. Also, because of our location on the north side of Lake Ontario, we don't generally get lake effect snow, which is how Buffalo regularly gets hit with mounds of the stuff.

[Daisi]

@notamermaidwe have a bit more here than @gnome12has in the "south". We have almost 50 cm down on the ground, it's been a funny winter. Seems as if we get the snow on Fridays, then milder temps during the week to melt it all. Either that, or a couple hours of freezing rain, which sends us in the eastern end of Ontario into panic mode as memories of an ice storm are still (after 25 yrs) fresh in our mind. Could have something to do with not having power for almost 3 weeks, I don't know. 🙂

That said, we are used to it, get the containers filled with water (no power = no water) for toilets, make sure we have gas for a generator so we can at least have a cold shower, and fuel for our fondue's and lamps. So far this year we have been lucky, so hopefully it will stay that way. 

 

Starting to get excited now, we are supposed to sail in Sept, and this year, it looks like we may actually manage it. Lots of double checking our planning now....

[Canal archive]

I must admit sometimes we in the U.K. forget how tiny our little piece of land is compared to elsewhere in our wonderful world.

[Host Jazzbeau]

Our snowbird trip to 'LA' [lower Alabama] has paid off beautifully today:  75º and sunny with a light breeze!

 

Definitely helping me heal from the 'trip' I took at the gas station just before arriving on Friday:  major gash above my right eyebrow (11 stitches, one inside to stop bleeding from an 'arterial' and 10 outside to close the gash) plus 4 below the eye.  Also both knees and wrists banged up, but only the left knee is still sore.  A friend suggested I get a t-shirt that says "You should see the other guy!!!"

 

Anyway, I'm recovering well and therefore hopeful that we will be driving up to Atlanta as scheduled on Monday and flying down to Buenos Aires on Tuesday for our trip to Iguazu Falls, Ushuaia, the Chilean Fjords and Torres del Paine, and Santiago/Valparaiso.  I won't have internet for much of that, so please 'play nice' and 'don't run with scissors' while I'm gone.  😉

[Canal archive]

Jazz, chin up and carry on! Have a great trip, relax, recover and most of all enjoy 😉