Haarlem
21st June
Saturday morning began quietly – no noise from the piling hammer; they can’t work weekends. We enjoyed our last shower here, had breakfast and slipped our lines at 10 am as we had had a meeting with a bridge at 1.15 pm. We arrived with plenty of time to spare, so moored up and had a nice relaxed lunch before heading back into Haarlem.
We had the same problem with the pay machine at Haarlem, and the Harbour Master’s office was closed, so we had to pay later. By the time we left the pontoon where the pay machine was the bridges had closed, so Carole called the Harbour bridge to request passage through as follows “Haarlem Harbour Master this is Yacht Seaduction we are at Brug 6 and wish to come through. Over”. After a short pause, Carole got a reply that the bridge man was on his way. Chris then looked at Carole with a big grin and told her that the number 6 was the speed limit not the bridge number! … How we laughed! Carole then called up the harbour master again and advised we weren’t at Brug 6 and got the reply ‘no problem’ with a laugh.
We sailed on through the town and had no luck finding a free berth, so Chris decided we should raft up to a motor boat. A young man was by the edge of the water and asked if we needed a hand but we said no as we were ok. Chris then got off on to the town quay and the young man turned out to be the Harbour Master! We found there was no electric available where we were but the harbour master suggested another spot just after the next bridge. Luckily, we were able to pay our dues, following which the harbour master zoomed off on his scooter and opened the bridge for us. Great service. We sailed through and then tied up next to the road by a tree for another night in Haarlem.
We took a stroll round Haarlem looking for an establishment where Carole could have a well deserved massage. It’s nearly a month since her last massage from Sally and she needs lots of knots freed in her back and shoulders. Luckily we found a Thai massage salon and Carole was able to have a really good massage from an experienced Thai masseuse. Excruciatingly good.
Chris put up the Satellite Dish to see if we could pick up any signal. Within 10 minutes we had BBC and ITV.
We decided to spend another day here to look around the town again to get some more provisions for the next few days. Chris got diverted into the Apple Store to see the prices of the new IPads in the Netherlands. The exchange rate for us is very good. Now we have a new IPad Air 2. For business use of course Chris!