Kiel Canal Germany

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We entered the Kiel Canal this morning at 4am - no we did not get up although there were pastries and coffee in the crows nest lounge for those who did. The Kiel Canal is the busiest shipping Canal in the world - more so than the Panama or Suez canals - and cruise ships do not often traverse it. Ours is a small ship and we we allowed to shave off the 400 km we would have needed to go around Denmark. It was a big deal for the communities we went through. People were waiting on the shore with big Welcome flags and many waving to us as we cruised by. It took 8 hours to go through the Canal. We enjoyed sitting on our balcony and watching the landscape. At one point we were on the bow of the ship and saw a drama play out with a flock of swans who got between our ship and an oncoming tanker and miscalculated the time it would take them to get out of the way. They had to go warp speed to escape injury.
All in all it was a great ending to our Baltic cruise. Then next day would see us back in Amsterdam.

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