Crashing the party in Kiel

It all starts with an Instagram comment we received right before we started sailing towards Kiel, that said “oh, you’ll arrive in Kiel right for the Kieler Woche!”.

We did not know what the Kiel week was, and we were too busy preparing the sail down to the Kiel Fjord to check it out.

On the morning of Saturday the 16th of June, we approached Kiel and noticed hundreds of sailboats and tall ship at the entry of the Fjord, and started to suspect that we had underestimated the Kiel week.

A google search revealed that the Kieler Woche is a HUGE maritime festival that welcomes 3 MILLION visitors each year, and we were sailing right into that. We had totally missed that “detail”. Do you think we called to check about marina spots? Of course not! And that made us a little nervous about our ability to find a spot.

Oh, and it started raining like crazy. At the most southern point we ever reached on Polar Seal, we were getting showered.

We got lucky and found a spot. Now that we were in Kiel, and there was a big party going on…. We needed to go check it out! We were joined by Dyke, an old college friend of Ryan from Germany, who guided us around the festival. Or? We essentially went from food stand to bars and more food stands, walking out the enormous amount of calories we were ingesting.

Ryan and I bought each other some “lebenkuchen”, those heart shaped cookies you wear as a necklace. I bought Ryan a “Princess” one and he bought me a “pirate” one. We found the party square, that had great music (at least, what I deem is great music), and I had a little party for myself.

At the end of the day, Ryan tried to eat his lebenkuche cookie, which turned out…. Isn’t that good. Coming next: we are taking the Kiel canal!