Rhine water levels 2023 and similar topics

[notamermaid]

That's it, done and dusted. I mean my daily posts about the river's level at Kaub I may well reduce. The figure now is 137cm and that is well in the range of pleasant sailing for river cruise ships. There is a lot of water coming from the Upper Rhine valley which will raise the level to over 150cm soon. That more or less returns commercial shipping to normal as well. In the table for next week we see the figures in the 200's. That will bring Kaub to statistical mean levels. Now all we need is a bit of occasional rain to keep it up and lots of sunshine for pleasant excursions, autumn castle viewing and photos.

 

notamermaid

 

[moonriver54]

2 hours ago, notamermaid said:

That's it, done and dusted. I mean my daily posts about the river's level at Kaub I may well reduce. The figure now is 137cm and that is well in the range of pleasant sailing for river cruise ships. There is a lot of water coming from the Upper Rhine valley which will raise the level to over 150cm soon. That more or less returns commercial shipping to normal as well. In the table for next week we see the figures in the 200's. That will bring Kaub to statistical mean levels. Now all we need is a bit of occasional rain to keep it up and lots of sunshine for pleasant excursions, autumn castle viewing and photos.

 

notamermaid

 

Thank you so much for your tenacious reporting on river water levels!  You've helped many...including us.  It's been greatly appreciated...and quite educational as well!

[notamermaid]

8 hours ago, moonriver54 said:

Thank you so much for your tenacious reporting on river water levels!  You've helped many...including us.  It's been greatly appreciated...and quite educational as well!

My pleasure. Thank you for your kind words.

 

Time to get back to the topic of cranes. Or perhaps a perfume shop...

 

notamermaid

 

[Pushka]

11 hours ago, notamermaid said:

That's it, done and dusted. I mean my daily posts about the river's level at Kaub I may well reduce. The figure now is 137cm and that is well in the range of pleasant sailing for river cruise ships. There is a lot of water coming from the Upper Rhine valley which will raise the level to over 150cm soon. That more or less returns commercial shipping to normal as well. In the table for next week we see the figures in the 200's. That will bring Kaub to statistical mean levels. Now all we need is a bit of occasional rain to keep it up and lots of sunshine for pleasant excursions, autumn castle viewing and photos.

 

notamermaid

 

Thankyou so much for all your efforts. Much appreciated. 

[notamermaid]

Well, I have decided against the cranes and the perfume shop. It is food instead!

 

While enjoying this dish for lunch yesterday I was wondering if this is served on river cruises as part of the regional dishes: Döppekooche. You know German Black Forest cake and Alsatian Kougelhopf but what about this potato cake? Döppekooche is Rhenish and means pot cake. Here is a recipe:

https://www.germany.travel/media/redaktion/content/erleben_geniessen_content/deutsche_rezepte/rezept_pdf/en_14/DZT_Culinary_Rezepte_EN_RZ_RP.pdf

 

Hearty it is. By the way, there is a vegetarian option which I have eaten a few times, but it is better with bacon.

 

notamermaid

 

[Rikboatman]

I will be signing off now as we are home and all is well. Thanks you so much for all of the info. Best of luck and safe travels.

[Host Jazzbeau]

4 hours ago, notamermaid said:

it is better with bacon

... as is everything.  Except maybe banana ice cream [no matter what Humphrey Slocombe thinks with their Elvis the Fat Years flavor]

[Canal archive]

At a canal water festival in a city some years ago we decided for one morning on a ‘friendly’ breakfast = bring your breakfast speciality plus as unusual bacon (not your usual back or streaky) for a towpath binge wow DH was in his element, he’s a great lover of bacon of every style, cut and nationality. Non of us moved for the rest of the day. Oh and Turkey bacon was included so everyone could join in.

 

[notamermaid]

19 hours ago, Rikboatman said:

I will be signing off now as we are home and all is well. Thanks you so much for all of the info. Best of luck and safe travels.

Thank you for following. All the best.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Just a couple of comments today. It is the 30th so tomorrow is what the English-speaking countries call Halloween. Never was a tradition here but it has caught on so there are parties and decoration in some places. Protestant areas of Germany observe Reformation Day tomorrow. All Saints on 1 November is observed as a public holiday in parts of Switzerland, in France and along the Rhine area in Germany. Shops are closed in Germany.

 

notamermaid

 

[Canal archive]

Basically Halloween is the Eve of All Hallows or All Saints Day so it’s observed in one way or another by most Protestant countries. We stock up with a box of sweets and DH wondered for two years why we had no little trick or treaters until our grandson asked if he’d put the outside light on which he hadn’t because it is now automatic so DH will now not have a box of sweets to himself, oh dear what a pity!

[Host Jazzbeau]

6 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Basically Halloween is the Eve of All Hallows or All Saints Day so it’s observed in one way or another by most Protestant countries. We stock up with a box of sweets and DH wondered for two years why we had no little trick or treaters until our grandson asked if he’d put the outside light on which he hadn’t because it is now automatic so DH will now not have a box of sweets to himself, oh dear what a pity!

 

[mozfoz]

"Just a couple of comments today. It is the 30th so tomorrow is what the English-speaking countries call Halloween. Never was a tradition here but it has caught on so there are parties and decoration in some places. Protestant areas of Germany observe Reformation Day tomorrow. All Saints on 1 November is observed as a public holiday in parts of Switzerland, in France and along the Rhine area in Germany. Shops are closed in Germany."

 

I followed you all of 2022 leading up to our Oct. 30th,2022 Rhine cruise. I wish I would have known this prior to booking. Though the cruise was good, it definitely got off to slow start with the observation and closing of shops for 2 days. Live and learn. Thanks for all your information you provide.

[notamermaid]

24 minutes ago, mozfoz said:

"Just a couple of comments today. It is the 30th so tomorrow is what the English-speaking countries call Halloween. Never was a tradition here but it has caught on so there are parties and decoration in some places. Protestant areas of Germany observe Reformation Day tomorrow. All Saints on 1 November is observed as a public holiday in parts of Switzerland, in France and along the Rhine area in Germany. Shops are closed in Germany."

 

I followed you all of 2022 leading up to our Oct. 30th,2022 Rhine cruise. I wish I would have known this prior to booking. Though the cruise was good, it definitely got off to slow start with the observation and closing of shops for 2 days. Live and learn. Thanks for all your information you provide.

That means you arrived on 30th October when there was standard Sunday closure and then on 1st November it was public holiday closure. A bit disappointing, I understand that. Good to read that you enjoyed the cruise.

 

For those wanting to check public holidays, this is a good website: https://www.feiertagskalender.ch/index.php?geo=3059&jahr=2023&klasse=5&hl=en

 

Oh, and we are back on normal time, daylight saving time ended yesterday. It got dark so early today, I kind of am not ready for it yet.

 

notamermaid

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

15 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

Oh, and we are back on normal time, daylight saving time ended yesterday. It got dark so early today, I kind of am not ready for it yet.

 

notamermaid

[Canal archive]

I’ve come to talk to you again! We’ve now gone back an hour so are we or are we not back in step with Europe oops!

[Host Jazzbeau]

5 hours ago, Canal archive said:

I’ve come to talk to you again! We’ve now gone back an hour so are we or are we not back in step with Europe oops!

We have another week of daylight savings before the darkness descends.  

 

There are again proposals to stop the time changes, but I think there are two camps (for keeping DST all the time and never having it at all) so they cancel each other out and we keep doing what we've been doing...

[Canal archive]

Yup - springing & falling!

[notamermaid]

Discussions here, too. Every year.

 

UK and the European Union (I think) always change on the last Sunday in October. For years we in Germany changed at the end of September. I enjoyed those autumn years at work because I was on the same time as my London boss-bosses. I mean the time before we had e-mails. Do not recall when we switched to October.

 

notamermaid

 

[Pushka]

Australia goes to Daylight Savings the first weekend in October and switches it off the first week of April. But not every state has DST. 

[notamermaid]

Quite a few differences around the world with DST it seems. The sun is low down here now which gives some great light and today has been a day of almost augmented reality. The air was so clear and the sun favourable so that the shapes and different colours of trees stood out. Loved it.

 

It has given a nice light onto the river that the not quite so brilliant webcam picked up well enough this time. A busy Koblenz. Caught on camera are two Vikings ships (as is usual), these are the Viking Eir and the Viking Vili and entering the Moselle is the Arosa Brava. The others docking on the Moselle are the Monarch Empress, the Olympia and the Othello. Just leaving is the Magnifique III. All identified thanks to marinetraffic.com:

 

Shining in the top right corner is the river so you can see the bend of Moselle before it enters the Rhine, a bit in the dark is the last lock of the Moselle. In the background you can make out the humps, i.e. the volcanic hills of the Eifel. One of them is Laach Lake, which is an excursion with Avalon Waterways.

 

During my typing, the Arosa Brava has rafted with the Monarch Empress and the Magnifique III has move to the small dock on the river island:

Notice the different colours of water of the Rhine and Moselle, which are obviously clearer to see in full daylight.

 

Brief update on Kaub: 206cm, a steady rise that is now levelling off. Or in short: perfect.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

All Saints' Day. Recap of October at Kaub coming soon.

 

The Rhine ship spotters will in the next few days be able to see a hull transport, called NB 211, supposedly a ship ultimately destined for the Douro.

 

Just a few days behind is the hull transport BN 663, the future Amadeus Nova, spotted yesterday on the Danube in Austria.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[ddaley822]

@notamermaid Not sure where, but somewhere on this River Cruising forum you suggested this map! As a map lover, I had to order it and it finally came (from Australia) almost 2 months later. I love it so much! This Koblenz section immediately stood out since I recognized the Moselle/Rhine meeting point from the pictures you’ve posted above. 

Excited to bring it along and refer back to it on my AMA cruise this summer. Thanks so much! 

 

[notamermaid]

Aah, good to see that map and read your excitement!

 

1 hour ago, ddaley822 said:

As a map lover, I had to order it and it finally came (from Australia) almost 2 months later.

Wow, what a journey for a map. A world trip.

 

For those not familiar with it, here it is the website of the publishers: https://www.rahmel-verlag.de/en/products/produkte_details.php?prod_id=43

with some more interesting folding maps and calendars.

 

Unfortunately the publishers only ship within Germany so - as they also write - that big online marketplace is the best place to order it from.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[notamermaid]

Time to have a look at what the river at Kaub did in October:

From a still pleasant, a bit on the low side, level the figures went steadily down and on the 19th hit 67cm. That is 10cm below the GlW. At that 77cm the navigation channel is only 1.90m deep. A cliffhanger situation for ship swaps. Did they happen? There may have been a few, if so I did not read about them. A much better situation than we saw on the Danube. And so far this year has been a relatively good one on the Rhine relating both to low and high water. The level improved on the 20th and after a few more low days the figures shot up in reaction to heavy rain and put the sailing conditions in the "perfect" range.

 

Still great now, current figure is 192cm.

 

notamermaid