A day on the Havel lakes with a rented boat

Nine in the morning at a base on the lower Havel, and the water is completely flat. It will not be flat at three. The Havel through Berlin is wide, open and oriented so that a westerly gets a long run at it, and the difference between the morning and the middle of the afternoon is the single fact that shapes the day.

Which is why the plan below runs the long leg first.

The water, described honestly

Calling the Havel a river is misleading. Through Berlin it is a chain of broad lakes joined by short narrows: the Tegel lake in the north, then down past Spandau through Pichelssee and the Scharfe Lanke, past the Grunewald shore on the east side, out into the Wannsee, and on past the Glienicke bridge into the Potsdam waters and the Jungfernsee.

The banks are wooded on the eastern side for long stretches, which is unusual for a city this size and is most of the reason people hire boats here. It is also shallow at the edges, with reed beds and sandy shelves, and the main channel is marked because commercial traffic needs it.

A day, at hire-boat speed

1. Base, briefing and departure. Allow the best part of an hour. The briefing is twenty minutes, the fuel and the fenders are ten, and getting six people and a cool box aboard tidily is longer than anyone plans for.
2. The long leg, straight away. Two hours out, in the direction you have chosen, while the water is flat and the light is good. Do not stop early.
3. Swim stop. Off a sandy edge outside the channel, out of any buoyed bathing area, anchor down and the engine off. Half an hour to an hour. Somebody stays aboard.
4. Lunch alongside. This is the hard part in high season, because guest jetties fill by midday. Have a second option, and be prepared to eat aboard at anchor, which is honestly better.
5. The turn. Set an alarm. The return leg into an afternoon breeze takes longer than the outward one, and it is the leg that makes people late.
6. Fuel, then the base. Refuelling points on the water are sparse and shut before the base does. Ask at the briefing where yours is.

Two hours out and two hours back sounds modest and is not. At the speeds these boats and these waterways permit, that reaches from Spandau to the Wannsee, or from Spandau up into the Tegel lake, and no further.

The three things that make it harder than it looks

Wind, with a long fetch. There is nothing between Berlin and the North Sea to slow a westerly, and the wide lakes let a short chop build fast. It is never dangerous in a competent boat, and it is uncomfortable, wet and slow, and it turns a two-hour return into three. Look at the wind forecast before the rain forecast.

The narrows. Where the lakes join, everything converges: passenger vessels, sailing boats, hire boats, a ferry, and paddlers who should not be there. Keep right, keep a steady speed, and take wash on the bow.

The lock. If your route passes the Spandau area, find out whether your boat and your permitted area include the lock. If they do, expect a wait at weekends and read the procedure before you are in the queue. If they do not, your day is defined by that, so know it before you leave.

Swimming, landing and where not to go

The good news is that swimming from the boat is normal and easy. The rules around it are worth learning at the briefing rather than from a shout across the water.

• Buoyed bathing areas are for swimmers. Craft stay out, including yours.
• Reed beds and marked protection zones are closed, and they are exactly the pretty shallow corners that look inviting.
• Landing is not free-form. Some islands and shorelines are protected or served only by an official ferry, and private craft may not put people ashore.
• The main channel is not a swimming area at any point, however empty it looks.
• Anchor outside the channel, in a depth you have actually checked, with enough line out to hold in the afternoon breeze.

The month to do it in

• May — air pleasant, water cold, banks green, boats freshly back in. Cheap and quiet, and swimming is for the brave.
• June — the best all-round month. Light until late, warm, and the weekends not yet solid.
• July and August — hot, crowded and thundery. Saturdays on the lower Havel are genuinely busy and the accumulated wash makes it unpleasant. Book early or go on a weekday.
• September — warmest water of the year, empty jetties, settled light. The month experienced people choose.
• October — short days and lifting-out season. Beautiful, cold, and the return time comes at you fast.

What to actually do

Go north from Spandau into the Tegel lake rather than south, if the day is a Saturday in high summer. The southern run towards the Wannsee is the postcard route and it is also where everybody else is, and a hired boat is not the vessel in which to enjoy a crowd.

Better still, go on a Tuesday. The same water on a weekday in June, with the banks empty and one passenger vessel an hour, is one of the genuinely good things this city offers, and it costs less than the Saturday. Before you book, settle the two administrative questions — what the permitted area allows and what the power threshold means for the boat you are given. And if a day is not enough, the water has a whole overnight market attached to it, which is a separate thing entirely.