Once we’d finished a wonderful breakfast (that they opened early for us) we walked out to sprinkles…..  even though the weatherman said it was to come and go overnight.  By the time we had the bikes loaded it was pouring, but we had a ferry to catch so we plowed through it.  Since the ferry left every half hour, we had to catch the next one or stand out in the rain and wind.  Oh yes, must have forgotten to mention the wind, though only blowing at 10 mph as opposed to the 20 predicted, it was in our face; not pleasant and certainly slowed progress.
Once on the ferry in the pouring rain standing under as much of the one foot overhang as we could, we were rescued my a nice woman who indicated there was a warm and dry cafe downstairs.  So we left the duckies and the bikes in the rain and ran for cover.  As our 20 minute ferry ride came to an end, so did the rain.

A couple miles of inlets and small towns and then the next 20+ miles was a flat, long, straight bike path through cattle fields: cows, sheep and horses.Luckily, there was a fence that separated them from us for ‘most’ of that mileage.  It was sort of like biking through Kansas, miles and miles of straight road, but somehow it looked different.Seamlessly, we left the cattle pastures to fields entwined with creeks, canals and the ever widening Elbe as it reached it’s end into the North Sea.Cuxhaven sits at the mouth of the Elbe to the North Sea, much like Virginia Beach and the Chesapeake Bay, although doubt any of us would confuse the two.

There is a huge tide swing here and at low tide (as it was when we biked  by) you could walk for miles into the sea.  They even had horseback riding and horse drawn carriages miles out on the sand (in the horizon in the pictures).
Early afternoon the strong winds (in our face) that had been predicted had arrived and then some, making our journey even more difficult.  Cuxhaven was supposed to be our halfway point for the day, but it was also supposed to be only 38 miles and it was 50.  We pushed another ten into a 25+ in your face wind and looked for a place to stay.  Luckily, we found a nice little port in the storm that offered scrumptious German fare for dinner.  Though in the middle of nowhere, it was the perfect spot to stay.  We worked hard for every mile we went today and at 4:00, we were ready to stop.