The Elbe-Lübeck Canal, as it is now called, still connects the Baltic with the industrial center of Germany, even if salt is no longer the main cargo.

Several locks, none with any great rise, honed our skills and gave us a foretaste of what was to come on the Mittelland Canal. Liz gave us a very welcome extra pair of hands for a stern line.

Once alongside, we immediately emulated the club members on this warm Saturday afternoon by getting into bathing suits and jumping over the side. I am not entirely sure about Barbara or Liz, but I found it a little strange to be swimming in fresh water, after so many years surrounded by sea-water.

I walked about the town a little, but found it much more pleasant on a hot afternoon to sit in the clubhouse, which also serves as a pub, and talk with the Harbor Master and his friends.

The next morning, not too early, we went on to Lauenburg, a former Ducal capital, where the canal meets the Elbe River.

These festivals, and the Marksmen's Guilds that put them on, are a relic of the days when towns had to raise militias to defend themselves, and they are still socially important in many places. We just caught the end of the festival, with a band leading the "marksmen" to a local pub.

The church and most of the houses are in the upper town, on the bluff overlooking the junction of the Elbe and the canal, safe from the river floods.

The Elbe Seitenkanal, which runs pretty well straight south from its beginning at the Elbe, is something of an anomaly. Most of our travels have been in canals and harbors with considerable history, and there is a certain pleasure in following centuries-old tracks, but work on the Elbe Seitenkanal began in 1968 and was finished in the late 70s.

Because the water displaced by each ship simply runs back into the canal, the weight of each basin, and thus the load on the motors, is constant. Each basin is suspended on 240 cables, each almost 2" in diameter.

There is quite a bit of traffic on the Elbe Seitenkanal. We saw huge shiploads of coal from the mines of Silesia headed for the power plants around Hamburg, and tankers bringing oil from Hamburg to Berlin. Eiltank 50, Beate, Nieder-sachsen VII, Dettmer Tank 45: we came to recognize many of these ships as they went back and forth along their routes, stopped only by darkness, and sometimes not even then.

We wondered about a coal barge lying alongside near where we waited for the lift, but the mystery was solved as we saw a 100-meter ship, likewise loaded with coal, come out of the basin and stop just astern. In a few minutes the cables were hooked up and the two proceeded, now as a unit. Apparently, the forward units of these two-ship combinations have just enough power to get themselves out of a lock and alongside, so they are not constrained by the length of the lock chambers.

Many of these big locks have floating bollards that, as their name implies, go up or down with the water, and that makes the locking operation fairly simple. Sometimes, however, we have to move our line (we use only one spring line) from one recessed bollard up or down to the next, and this requires careful timing. Early on, we did jam one line and had to cut it, but we have since refined our procedures and had no more trouble.

These deep locks fill quickly, usually in about fifteen minutes, so they do not hinder one's passage for long, but their sides are invariably coated in mud, so keeping the fenders, the boat, and oneself clean is a constant battle.

We moored alongside such a quay next to a bridge and discovered that there was a choice of grocery stores about 500 yards away, and a quite nice restaurant just a litttle further. The waits for the locks had made it a long day, and we very quickly decided that dinner at a restaurant and a quiet evening sounded ideal.

Bad Bodenteich, for such was the name of the town, used to be just plain "Bodenteich," being next to a good-sized pond, but over the last forty or so years has developed itself as a spa for rest cures, and was eventually allowed to add "Bad" to its name.

This area has a number of place names ending in "-büttel," but I never succeeded in finding out why.

We arrived at Edesbüttel in wind and rain, but that evening the glass started to rise, and the next morning was fair and we felt much more cheerful.

Very soon, we were moored alongside, between the Volkswagen plant and the city, right next to the railroad station. In fact, the way to the quay from the city led through the tunnel that also gave access to the various station platforms.

Since the city has no medieval or Baroque center, it is a little strange, a quite atypical German city, but it does have, instead, a "theme park," Autostadt, or "Auto City." This has pavilions devoted to each Volkswagen brand, playgrounds for children, a hotel, a stadium, a small boat-rental lagoon, and a water show of fountains lit by computer-controlled lasers.

Originally established as an attraction for customers who wanted to pick their new cars up at the plant, the park has become somewhat the German equivalent of Disney World.

Allied with the park, but on the opposite side of the canal, is the modernistic Science Center, Phaeno, designed by Zaha Hadid. To our eyes the buiding looked more mannered than modern, like a 1930s vision of the "future," or perhaps an airplane that had failed to take off, but then, we are perhaps not the intended audience. Much more to our liking is the public library, designed by Alvar Aalto, which draws the visitor in to a series of attractive spaces.

Several groups posed on the stairs of the state entrance, or in the elegant garden, and some had brought coolers full of champagne and set up card tables in the various courtyards for what looked like impromptu receptions.

Across the street is a very old building serving now as an inn, and a litle further along are the former count's stables, now the headquarters of a riding club. Most of the castle's farmland was taken, of course, for the auto plant, but a little piece, on the north side, away from the city, has become, quite appropriately, the headquarters of the city Parks Department. The ancient building that formerly housed the castle's brewery has become a museum of agricultural implements.

Next to the VW plant is the stadium where the Wolfsburg "Wolves" (football/soccer team) play, and we had read reports that crowd noise could be a problem, but one evening of our stay they played München-Bayern, another very major-league team, for a championship whose details we never did figure out. The city was full of Munich fans, mostly in Lederhosen, and locals in green-and-white, and at such times the tunnel under the station is closed, to help with security. I had gone shopping that afternoon, and had to return to our berth by way of the footbridge that also carried fans to the stadium. The security guards looked a little askance at the wine in my bag, but accepted my explanation. I must say that the fans appeared to consume a certain amount of beer, but the noise, such as it was, did not bother us.

Twice a day, large numbers of clean-cut, executive-loking people streamed past our berth to the footbridge over the canal, heading for their offices at Volkswagen.

The city is quite prosperous now, but one does wonder what the fall-out will be from the emissions issue, as VW Passats are the main product of the Wolfsburg plant.