After the details and organizational steps for the next three days were discussed at dinner the night before and the last of the teams had arrived in Rosenheim by midnight, we can now get started!
7 o'clock breakfast, a last straightening of the necessary utensils and then it goes to the boathouse of the Rosenheim rowing club. This should not hide the fact that the realization of these rowing trips on the Inn had already experienced many months of meticulous preparations, so on the one hand by the friend Paul Geisenhofer of the RC Rosenheim-Innstadt on the spot, as well as the friends Hartmut Jaeger and Wolfgang Litzenburger of the RC Mainz, who took over the coordination for the members of the Fellowship.

Since the Inn, in contrary to the Rhine, on which most of the guests usually row, is provided with many barrages, two of these "transport racks were also carried along with the boats. Perhaps this explains why we did not encounter any other boats - neither rowboats nor canoes - on the Inn during the following two days. The transports of the boats around the respective barrages are necessary several times a day and quite demanding, since the places for disembarking and embarking or lifting out and putting down the rowing boat can be quite complex. On the other hand, these activities were rewarded by the wonderful, lonely and quiet nature that the Inn offers without any other boat activity. Few rivers in Germany seem as sparsely populated and natural as the Inn, even between two smaller towns like Rosenheim and Wasserburg.

In the evening on 30.09.2017 we could strengthen ourselves in Wasserburg in the cozy circle of 18 active and 5 passive rowers (inside) and enjoy the fantastic atmosphere of the old town.
In the morning of October 01, we made our 4 rowing boats (2 double - four; 1 four with coxswain; 1 two with coxswain) ready to go. Thankfully we had been allowed to store all our rowing equipment at the rowing club Babensham-Wasserburg the night before and could enjoy the great hospitality.

The current has it in itself, the weather looked quite gloomy at first, but we were rewarded! Practically without rain we experienced the untouched nature, without ships, motorboats, etc.. In fact, we did not encounter a single boat and became one with nature as can be seen in the following pictures......

The impressive landscape from the Inn viewed virtually at the front door with mirror-smooth water...
taken by Dagmar Gillmann-Blum from Mainz as she steered the double -four:
Wolfgang Blumschein – RC Wiesbaden-Rheingau,
Simone Emmelius – RC Mainz-Aurea Moguntia,
Klaus Willimczik – RC Darmstadt-Kranichstein,
Walter Müller – RC Worms-Nibelungen im Bug verdeckt

The casting off turned out to be quite challenging. First, a large stone had to be moved out of the way so that the boats did not run the risk of leaking in the very strong current. With our combined forces, we were able to master this challenge as well.

After a foggy ride along the - invisible - Lake Simsee, we reach the Chiemsee Rowing Club, which has its boathouse not far from the "Prienavera" adventure swimming pool. Built and almost completed by the club itself and equipped with great boats, it impresses us not least with its exemplary orderliness - everything has its place here.

Like every visitor, the Chapel of the Cross welcomes us as it once did the king's inspector, and we learn that the chapel has two "faces": one shows a forbidding face to the arrival, the other bids him farewell with the friendliest stone smile.

All this was experienced by our local rowing and Rotary friend Herbert Reuter from the RC Chiemsee, who incidentally also delighted us at lunch with a greeting from the convent sisters on Fraueninsel and reading fodder for future trips to Chiemsee.
Auf der Herreninsel erwartet uns auch eine exzellente Führung durch das Augustiner Chorherrenstift. Wir erleben 1200 Jahre bayerische Geschichte am historischem Ort dieses ältesten Klosters Bayerns, dessen Ursprung bis ins 7. Jh. zurückgeht.
From the canons' monastery, Ludwig II, whose fully furnished private rooms we were able to visit, supervised the construction of his Bavarian Versaille, which was never quite finished.

Of course, we explored the castle from the lake side! By the way, since the 50th birthday of our Basic Law, there is also the Constitutional Museum in the Chorherrenstift, which illustrates the creation of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany in the historic rooms of the Constitutional Convention of 1948. But unfortunately there was just as little time for this as for the permanent exhibition on the Chiemsee painters of the Munich Secession and Art Nouveau era

With an atmospheric picture that would have done honor to the Chiemsee painters, Lake Chiemsee says goodbye to us rowers. The friends who are at home on the Chiemsee and Inn will certainly be able to understand that this trip to the Upper Bavarian waters will remain an unforgettable experience for us "river boatmen from the Rhine".

And these are them - the Chiemgau rowers 2017: Jochen Blum (RC Mainz), Paul Geisenhofer (RC Rosenheim-Innstadt), Hans- Raimund Casser (RC Mainz), Philipp Jander (RC Traunstein), Dagmar Gillmann-Blum, Wolfgang Tenhaeff (RC Simmern- Hunsrück), Herbert Reuter (RC Chiemsee), Simone Emmelius (RC Mainz-Aurea Moguntia), Hans-Herrmann Schnieders (RC Simmern- Hunsrück), Michael Morath (RC Mainz), Walter Müller (RC Worms), Christof Orning, Hartmut Jaeger (RC Mainz), Klaus Willemczik (RC Darmstadt-Kranichstein), Wolfgang Litzenburger (RC Mainz). Not in the picture: Hartmut Benning (RC Mainz-Rheinhessen), Jan Führling (RC Rosenheim-Innstadt), Wolfgang Blumschein (RC Wiesbaden-Rheingau).