First thing on Monday I phoned the Netherlands distributor who confirmed it was all in stock but he wouldn't sell me one as they only sold to account customers and even if they broke that rule they wouldn't send it to a boat, only a proper address. Nothing I said could make them change their mind. SO in the end I asked for their dealers in the area. The closest, a 20 minute bicycle ride away wasn't interested and the closest other ones were 70km in Groningen. Well to cut a lot story short, one of the dealers ordered it for us to arrive the next day (Tuesday) and we decided to bus into Groningen and collect it. Just at that moment, the guy from the trip barge next door came over and asked me to put electricity coins in the meter as he was going to be away for a few days and he didn't want his drinks for his guests to get warm. I asked him the best way to get to Groningen by bus and he told me "Hadn't I heard there was a total indefinite bus strike in the area that had started just yesterday".
Oh dear. Well we didn't know what to do. So close yet so far. The trusty internet swung into action and I booked a hire car in Emmen about 25km away and very luckily the barge man offered to give me a lift there. SO the next day I went off to get the carin the drizzly rain and returned 90 minutes later with a Fiat Panda.I was expecting the chandler to ring when the part came in but by 2pm no-one had rung, so I rang them to discover our contact there had the day off. But the part had arrived, so we jumped in the car and drove up to Groningen and fiound our way in the rain around the city and got the part. When we returned I re-assembled the pump and had everything working nicely again.
Next morning I returned the car to Emmen and in the pouring rain biked back the 24km to Ter Apel where the boat was. The weather eased slightly in the afternoon so we cast off and one hour later we were in Germany.
We spent the night on the River Ems in a placed called Haren. The next morning was fine and we biked around the town and then after lunch set sail up the river. There were many barges and we could only pass through a lock in the company of a barge. So we chummed up with 'Michael' and went through a number of locks in company before stopping for the night. The weather by now was getting very hot (30c) and was very sunny.
Next day we continued along the Dortmund Ems Canal to the junction of the Mittelland Canal where we stopped for the night. The Mittelland Canal runs wide and straight for 325rkm across Germany with only 2 locks. It is very very busy with commercial traffic. But they don't actually create that much wash. It's the small sports boats that create most of the nuisance.
Next day we continued along the Dortmund Ems Canal to the junction of the Mittelland Canal where we stopped for the night. The Mittelland Canal runs wide and straight for 325rkm across Germany with only 2 locks. It is very very busy with commercial traffic. But they don't actually create that much wash. It's the small sports boats that create most of the nuisance.
SO here we are now 30km west of Hannover sitting outside on a lovely fine evening drinking a cold beer and watching the boats go by. There is a small cafe in the marina where we will have tea and then in a few days time we shall reach the Elbe and we will have to decide which way to go - South or North of straight across. That decision of course will be all in our next blog.
