Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
A long day began with a swift walk into the town of Norderney, which by the way is a smart, clean and attractive one, to purchase a data only SIM to access the Internet for weather, e-mails etc. In France, Spain, Holland it is a piece of cake…buy it preloaded…fit it in the router and off you go. In Germany however one can't do that and after half an hour of explanations about dubious complex procedures I agreed to purchase the card the voucher and the bonus but was final beaten by bureaucracy and returned to the boat empty handed. When explaining my lack of success to the havenmeister he said, "Yes, that is Germany".
We set off in very quiet conditions and so it stayed all day with the sky clearing to a warmish sunny day which was almost completely windless as we motored the forty odd miles to the entrance to the Elbe. Then we followed the buoys for another twenty odd miles, only seeing one sand dune and no solid land until our arrival in Cuxhaven at 2100. A long day at sea for us!
The Elbe is a busy thoroughfare with a continuous stream of shipping coming and going. It has not yet been possible to see land on both sides - yet. We joined three other boats as we struggled against three knots of tide which eventually eased but about two hours later than expected and never actually was in our favour.
Now it's getting dark and our first drinks poured, the oven is on, Jasper has been walked and we are ready to put the world to rights…..if only the gentlemen from the boat with the horizontally striped red and white flag would lower the volume on their chronic singing!!
- comments