The Kiel Canal, Germany: As I write this on Saturday local time (ignore the above date and time below), we are slowly transiting the Kiel Canal, and yes, it does have locks. It turns out that like the Suez Canal, here ships pull aside to allow other ships to pass.
The locks exist to prevent storm surges and tidal flows, they do not lift or lower ships appreciably. We entered the canal just north of Kiel, and exited into the Elbe River near its mouth, downstream from Hamburg near Cuxhaven.
What this transit most resembles is cruising the Rhine River: the water is dead calm, the scenery is bucolic and green, paved bicycle paths parallel the canal, and the fields and villages are painfully tidy. What is different is that you do not see ships as big as ours on the Rhine.
Today promises to be a very pleasant daylight crossing of the Cimbrian (or Jutland) peninsula and by this time tomorrow we’ll be ashore and headed for Schiphol airport and our flight home. Later today we pack up our stuff, always a bit of a hassle.
