Wednesday 8th July – Den
Helder – Day 36
It is warm
but there is a strong breeze blowing from the northwest.
The joys of
boating, the heads (toilet) pump has now decided to give up the ghost and is
badly leaking.
A word with
the harbour master informed me of where to find the chandlers and I was given
permission to use the dockyard workshop to carry out the repairs.
On the way
to the chandlers, you pass this fine example of an old wooden minesweeper, not
yet open to the public but a wonderful addition to the museum.
The first
chandler proved to be more of a supplier to the offshore industry while the
second was also unable to help. The
third was most helpful, with the aid of his computer, the necessary parts were
identified and ordered up, to be collected the next day.
Returning to
the boat, I removed the offending pump and took it to the workshop, stripped it
down and cleaned everything but could not find anything obviously wrong. Here, I met some of the maintenance people
looking after the marina/dockyard. They
all seemed to be of certain age and this kept them busy during retirement.
It started
raining in the evening becoming heavy and persistent accompanied by very strong
winds. I went ashore at 23.00 and went
off to the train station and met Jack coming off the 23.40 train from
Amsterdam.
We came
straight back to the boat and sipping night caps, Jack told of his journey. He
had set off 24 hours earlier on the bus from Newcastle to London. Onto another
bus, they were held up at the Channel Tunnel, by immigrants trying to come the
other way from Calais, eventually arriving in Amsterdam via Brussels and
Rotterdam.
Now we can turn
our thoughts to leaving Den Helder and moving on.
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