A radiant day again, allowing us to bask in the sun and swim to our content. And we’d better enjoy it, because in the afternoon a bad weather front is coming in. We actually had to do some work, but we’d rather do it tonight and enjoy the sun now, than regret that we’ve spent the whole day working while it’s raining tomorrow.
We did something useful today, though. It was high time for a laundry again. When we went to the harbour office to get tokens for the washing machine and the dryer the harbour master flat out refused to sell us a token for the dryer. She pointed upwards and said “There’s your drying machine. No, you’re not getting a token with al this sunshine, are you silly or something?” Since she really didn’t want to sell us a token for the dryer we had to hang all the washed towels and bedsheets on the lifelines and makeshift drying lines. Our boat looks as if it has hit a dry cleaner. We look like proper gypsies now.
The municipality marina was supposed to have a washing machine, but since all the facilities are spread over the three locations, it took a while before we found out where it was. There was only one machine which was already in use. Bummer. It was also quite far away from our boat so walking back and forth with two batches of laundry would be really cumbersome. The washing program had just started, and since we had to wait for an hour anyway we went in search for a launderette. After a quick internet search we found one nearby, but when we got there it turned out it indeed used to be a launderette, but was now a lifestyle shop called ‘t oude Washhuys (washhuys is old Dutch for launderette). There was one other option though. The Compagnieshaven, which is the commercial marina, was just on the other side of the street from where our berth in the Oosterhaven was. We saw on the internet that they also had laundry facilities, and decided to try our luck there. And yes! Four big washing machines and two dryers, all empty. We got our laundry, bought the necessary tokens at their marina office, put our stuff in the washing machine and took a shower while we waited. We felt a bit like stowaways, but clean ones, fully refreshed and with clean clothes.
We hadn’t done the laundry since Rhoon, so it was high time to dedicate a day to clean clothes and a clean boat. Whilst walking back and forth with bags of laundry we met Cameron, a Canadian guy who was feeding the geese who came every morning to collect their daily dose of breakfast cereals. Despite being Canadian he had a Swedish flag on his boat. He told us that we weren’t the only ones who found this peculiar. “Immigration also had questions about that. When they asked me why I’m not flying the Canadian flag I said: Oh really, isn’t this the Canadian flag? I didn’t know that.” The officials didn’t have his sense of humor, but apparently didn’t do anything about it as well because he still has the Swedish flag. He is planning to sail south towards Madagascar once he has finished fixing his boat.
We seemed to have ended up at the DIY dock. Next to us are two Ukrainian guys also working on their boat; welding, grinding and hammering all day. And further along there’s a Dutch guy with a motorboat painting his woodwork, so it’s quite an international and hands-on dock we’re moored on.
No boat works for us today, but in between laundry and cleaning we tried to fix the problems we were experiencing with our mail. Somehow people can mail us, but we can’t always mail back which is rather puzzling and very annoying. We spend a frustrating evening going through posts and articles on the internet to figure out the problem, without much luck…
Although the forecasts for today included heavy rainfall, the day started sunny and warm. We took advantage of the good weather and went for a walk to the town’s centre. Rhoon looks like a little agricultural town, not at all like a part of the big conglomerate Rotterdam, just a few stops away by metro.
We saw a measuring point (Trig point for Federal Triangulation) on the way to Rhoon. The land register puts these measuring points in the ground for the land surveyor. They use these metal marks as reference points with which they can map areas like where the roads, plots and building sites are, or measure any deformations in buildings or objects. We gave a lecture once on geo data (geometrical data about where things are positioned) and a guy from the land register who was in the audience said that they indeed put those measuring point in the ground, but that they have lost more than half of them. They simply don’t know where they are anymore. To find out where they are they had issued a game. If you find one, you can upload the coordinates to a special geocaching website:(https://www.geocaching.nl/overzichtskaart-rd-meetpunten/). But this one is so rusty, you can’t decipher the number anymore.
A rusty Trig point
By the way, the have lost a few hundred border marks as well. Anyone up for a new game, Germany and Belgium perhaps?
We did some groceries, and discovered a lovely little chocolaterie halfway back to the boat. The fragrance of melting chocolate was wafting into the streets. We couldn’t resist the temptation and we stopped there for a coffee and pastry.
There is a washing machine at the marina of Rhoon, and it was high time to do the laundry. Every marina has a different washing machine and a different system, so you always have to figure out how things work first. And doing the laundry in a marina is also different than at home. You set a timer, so that you can be back at the machine when the program ends. It has happened that if you are too late some else comes along and takes your clothes out. That wouldn’t be a problem if they put it neatly in a basket, but it happens that they just dump it on the floor. Sometimes other people even stop the program halfway and chuck your clothes out, because they are in a hurry and think they consequently have the right to go first. And it has even happened that items disappear. Maybe someone was in dire need of socks? That’s why doing the laundry as a liveaboard is planned with military precision.
Another liveaboard in the marina kindly explained the system and warned us for the presence of ruthless people that stop the program halfway. Apparently it also happens in Rhoon.
But there were no culprits lurking about, eager to disrupt the washing cycle this time allowing us to continue without further ado to the drying stage. Some of the clothes like T-shirts we don’t put in the dryer because you don’t want to end up with Barbie sized shirts. And the convenient thing of a boat is that you always have enough washing lines in the form of life lines to hang stuff on. It was however forecasted to rain, so we kept an eye on the increasingly darkening sky. Of course, in the end we still had to rush to get it all inside when the rain finally came before it got wet again…
