Sassnitz has an enormous harbor, formed by a breakwater that is a lilttle over a mile long, and in the days of the DDR it was the home port for their huge fishing fleet.

There are long wharves and floats with yacht berths, but they are the bow-on boxes so often seen in the Baltic, and of no use to us. I do not want to even think about climbing ashore over Barbara's bow. We tied up to the inside of the breakwater just before it began to get crowded; my log shows that we left Allinge at 06:00 and shut the engine off in Sassnitz at 14:48.

The harbormaster suggested that we move to this wharf, to a berth just astern of a fishing boat, where we could plug in and also fill our water tanks if we wanted. So we did, and as I came alongside the new berth, the harbormaster was there to take our lines, which was above and beyond the call of duty, and very nice of him.

I spent the day wandering around Sassnitz, getting the lay of the place and doing a little shopping, and in the evening Barbara arrived, after an epic journey; flying from San Francisco to Paris, then to Hamburg, then a many-hour train trip to Sassnitz, literally the end of the line.

After a few days, we started up and headed out of the harbor again, heading south this time, for Peenemünde, site of the research laboratories where the V-1 and V-2 rockets were developed during World War II. We followed the twisting channel up the Peene River a short way to the old airbase harbor, where we moored in beautifully peaceful surroundings.

Lauterbach is a sleepy little dorp, home of some yachts and a few fishing boats, but it also has a neolithic grave and a rather grand railroad station, a relic of its days as a fashionable spa.

I was puzzled at first by the amount of rolling stock, since most narrow-gauge railroads I know of in the States have about enough for one train, but a little research showed an interesting answer.

From Lauterbach, we took the narow-gauge train to the next stop, Putbus, founded by a family of Slavic princes who eventually became barons under the German Empire. The castle was, unfortunately, torn down by the DDR government because it was considered a symbol of class oppression, but its orangery and stables survive.

To reach the city however, we had to go under the bridges that carry most of the road and rail traffic to the whole of Rügen. These are drawbridges, and although their clearance when closed is 6 meters, we needed an opening because we were still in ocean-going trim, with our mast and radar raised.

As a testimonial to its wealth in the late middle ages, Stralsund has three huge churches; I once spent some time studying French gothic churches, and it is a little surprising to see the same concepts executed in brick, sometimes in contrasting horizontal stripes of red and black.

As Barbara explored the Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas) while I waited in a cafe in the market square, she happened on the rehearsal of a concert by the choir, invited soloists, and a small orchestra. The music was very pleasant, and she decided to attend the concert that night. At the same time, however, I heard a lovely voice singing softly nearby; the young woman at the next table with her husband and daughter turned out to be the alto soloist of the concert, running through her part. So I, too, had music along with my ice cream and strawberries.

We enjoyed wandering around, looking at old buildings, particularly enjoying the old monasteries, that have been well preserved. The city abounds in delightful little corners that one might not expect.

We spent three nights in Stralsund, parked in a marina in the old harbor where Hansa trading ships once lay on their return from voyages to Russia and up the Neva River.

We had casual contacts with the couple from the German sailboat, Kea, across the float from our berth, and on our last night Matthias and Elisabeth and their daughter Hilde came aboard for a tour and drinks, and we wound up having supper aboard Kea. A very pleasant evening.

The next morning, June 15th, we set out early and wound our way north through the Strelasund and through the narrow channels among the sand flats south of the resort island Hiddensee. Just at the south end of the island, we saw what must have been several hundred swans resting, a nice peaceful sight.

It was immediately apparent that we were entering a major port. There were shipyards to starboard and Ro-ro berths to port.

Further off to port there were glimpses of more big-ship wharves with their cranes and grain-loading chutes. We sailed past them all, and past all the ships lying at wharves in the river itself, running the five or so miles up to the center of Rostock, the Old Harbor, now too small for big ships.

As a major port, Rostock was heavily bombed during World War II, and the DDR rebuilding is uniformly uninspired, but there are occasional gems.

One of the most important cities in North Germany in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Rostock has a history of ups and downs, even if we ignore the Swedish occupation. In the sixteenth century it was a very prosperous center of shipping and beer-brewing, but the Thirty-Years' War left Rostock a Swedish possession, and a fire toward the end of the seventeenth century destroyed many of the breweries and with them much of the city's prosperity.

We stayed two nights in Rostock, and on June 17th headed downriver again, past shipyards on one side and a bird sanctuary on the other, and past the wharves and ro-ro berths of Warnemünde.

To reach Wismar from Rostock, one first heads west along the Mecklenburg coast, keeping just far enough offshore to avoid the shoals and their attendant larger waves, until one can round the Bukspitze and head southwest into the Lübeck Bight.

Wismar Harbor is guarded by the large island Poel and by extensive sandflats, so one has to pick up the sea buoy offshore, follow the buoyed channel toward the light at Gollwitz, then follow a zig-zag of channels through the flats to the harbor.

The cruising guides recommend the new marina at Wendorf, or the marina in the West Harbor, but Barbara prefers to stay in traditional harbors, lying to centuries-old quays, wherever possible, so we carried on to the Alter Hafen, where we found a berth between a replica of a medieval cogge and a topsail schooner.

The harbor is an active place, as well. Next to our pier was another harbor inlet with ships unloading pulpwood from Norway, just as in Kalmar, and the large shipyard just west of our harbor is busy. In fact, as we left, a new vessel passed us, returning from her builder's trials.

Again, we stayed two night in Wismar, and might have stayed longer except that Barbara had an international conference looming in the very near future, and we wanted to leave the boat in a secure place.

Once we got in behind the breakwaters, into the river Trave, we saw the reason; there is a whole battery of ferry berths just above Marina Baltica, where we intended to leave Barbara. This fact had the benefit for us that there is a special railroad station, the "Scandinavian Quay Station," in very easy walking distance.

We were assigned a nice, easy-to-get-to spot in Marina Baltica, and we did some shopping, replenishing our stores, and explored the small town a little. We also watched the ferries from Scandinavia, from Latvia, and from other German ports slide by just off our stern and turn just beyond the marina in order to back into their berths. They did not waste time; by the time the docklines were all ashore and tensioned, the stern ramp was already down and the first trucks were rolling off. Some of the trucks are complete trucks, whose drivers travel with them, while other loads travel simply as trailers, or containers on wheels, hauled on and off by tractors from the terminals.

As we started walking around Travemünde, I realized that it was different from the German cities we had visited, and I realized something that I knew but had not given much thought to, that we had come from the former DDR to the West.

When German reunification was first being mooted, I feared that this might be the case; my friends had a tendency to say all would be fine, but it is a somewhat melancholy satisfaction, to be right in this case.

At the end of the week, we returned to Barbara and continued with our cruise, but that is for the next chapter.