It’s October 3 and we’re being towed slowly down the Kiel Canal, preparing for our boating adventure in the Frisian sands, whilst staring out at the ‘vast plains of Holstein'.

We explain the benefits of *pledging your support* to the Club at unbound.co.uk (01:22 ); Lloyd offers a reading recommendation - 'The Year of Reading Dangerously' (4:21 ); Tim has a proper small boat adventure on the Dengie peninsula with Club member Tom Loosemore (04:50 ) - sailing to West Mersea, trudging across the marsh, towing the boat in knee-deep water, rowing home against the tide, ruining a pair of flannels.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT at http://unbound.co.uk/books/riddle-of-the-sands

Lloyd gives us the lowdown about the East Frisians (17:20 ), with much talk of the Inselbahn island train service (20:02 ); Tim offers what he knows about Holstein (24:26 ) and asks the question: why did Childers fail to write about all the animals of the region? Gulls & seals (25:15 ), Holstein cows including a famous presidential pet (26:05 ), Holsteiner horses (28:22 ); a few salient facts about Rendsberg (30:15 ); Holstein’s greatest literary figure with a (sort of) Childers connection - Theodor Mommsen (30:40 ).

Musical interlude: the Schleswig Holstein Festival Choir, and the sad tale of Eric Whitacre's ‘Seal Lullaby’, based on a Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book story (34:03 ); we sample cigars and schnapps of the region, and of the period (33:45 ) - and then on to Club Business (40:10 )/

John Ironside’s family connections (40:18 ); Erskine Childers shares with us a link to his great grandfather’s WW1 notebooks (41:08 ); Patrick on mooring Baltic-style and drinking at the British Kiel Yacht Club (41:34 ); Ian on the resting place of Esterhazy the spy (44:37 ); Sam on reading ‘The Riddle of the Sands’ in exotic locations - where and when did you last read this great book? (43:50 ); ahoy to Porter of the Bookseller for commissioning an article about our project - http://www.thebookseller.com/futurebook/digitally-book-mapping-line-sands-can-unbound-crowdfund-riddle(47:27 ).

Next week: What do we know about Dollman’s boat ‘The Medusa’? What do we know about Dollman’s daughter Clara? We propose a discussion about attitudes towards women who like to sail alone - both now and in 1903; how are we going to get from Brunsbüttel to Wangeroog?

MUSIC CREDITS

Great Open Sea by Wellington Sea Shanty Society (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Wellington_Sea_Shanty_Society/none_given_1098/12_-_Wellington_Sea_Shanty_Society_-_Great_Open_Sea) is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.

The Seal Lullaby at Schleswig Holstein Musik Festival 2013 - https://youtu.be/3w7q1Db0IfI