I spent part of the summer holidays with my family on a houseboat between 2020 and 2022. We travelled twice on the Brandenburg lakes and once on the Havel from Havelberg. We hired the houseboat from the operator BunBo, which has a large fleet. You can obtain the necessary charter licence directly on site when you pick up the houseboat. We quickly got used to the cramped space. In our version, we had two bedrooms, a toilet, a shower and a kitchen-living room. We avoided mooring at night, the special thing was the nights in the middle of the water. Our favourite place on the boat was the large terrace, where we had a barbecue every evening while watching the sun go down.

I often woke up at sunrise and waited on the terrace with my camera and a coffee to watch the sunrise. If an osprey, red kite or something similar came by, I had to be quick, of course. Watching the reeds in the morning was usually worthwhile, you always see something. Raccoons, kingfishers, wild boar and deer were all in front of my lens.

I have noticed that the flight distance of the birds is much shorter if you approach slowly from the water side compared to approaching from land. Among other things, we travelled under a tree while a white-tailed eagle refused to be disturbed and remained perched. The osprey, which we drove past slowly in the rain, was a beautiful sight. It sat quietly on its branch and watched us.