THE TRIALS OF AN N.D.S - WEDNESDAY 23RD JULY - DORDRECHT

 

Those who know us well, and many who don’t, may well have heard one of us referred to as her “NDS”.   Her "Non - Drinking/Dancing/Domesticated - Spouse".  

In a relationship that’s evolved over half a century, we have each taken certain responsibilities that may appear from the outside to have been divided along traditional gender lines, but in reality are more randomly aligned with our likes and skills.  This works splendidly until as the saying goes “someone loses an eye”,  like now, particularly if that someone has asserted her authority in the culinary domain to the extent that the other, at a stretch, is allowed to put the fizz in a soda bottle and even then under careful supervision.

Some of our offspring, no mean hands in the galley themselves often marvel at their Mother’s ability to know when things are cooked without the aid of a timer.  It’s some sort of sixth sense (they call it a super-power)  which the other of us does not possess. He does however possess a perfectly good timer which had less than two minutes to run last night when she called “it’s probably ready to come out of the oven about now”, and it was.   She can be assured that this intrusion into her territory is very temporary!

Oddly enough we are mostly ambidextrous in these allocations of roles and space.  Some of our self-assumed roles flip when we are travelling, and we haven’t worked out why.  While the accounts department at home is a girls-only space, for instance, it is the NDS who makes the travel reservations, takes care of the paperwork while away, the banking, the insurances, the medical appointments, the wheelchair and crutches hire, and dare we mention the daily injections of anti coagulant into his needle-phobic dearest. 

Shopping for food is a very strange overlap, he makes an excellent “gofer” in unfamiliar territory and rather enjoys the fact that “capers” can be found on the “kappertjes” shelf,  but on the home front is very happy to let her forage alone, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Thankfully the boat is of such a scale that it would technically be almost possible to cook a sausage while sitting on the toilet and having a conversation with others on the bed and in the saloon, perhaps while washing up with the other hand.   Therefore, supervision of domestic proceedings is one of the lesser difficulties for the indisposed, even from a position out of sight.  There’s simply nowhere to hide!   

So here we are, day three of the strangest of times, becoming  aficionados of all kinds of randomly selected raw food, one of us adjusting to having a slightly more dishevelled boat than is her norm, the other, hypodermic medicine in hand, confident that he’ll no longer wear the moniker “Non-Doctoring-Spouse”

CONFINED - TUESDAY 22ND JULY - DORDRECHT

 

Things aboard may (or may not) be in their normal ship-shape state of being at the moment.   

One of us reasoned that as long as stuff is tucked away by the time the Captain does her inspection when she regains her feet,  then who is to know?  It came as yet another small surprise to discover that with the shock of yesterday wearing off ever so slightly, along with her confined state, came a heightened awareness of her surroundings.  

Perhaps the kids were right, perhaps she CAN see through walls.

We needed the day to think, and arrange as best we can, the next week of our lives and generally regroup, which when there are only two of us was not a terribly arduous task.

The nautical term for our emotional state, albeit still tempered slightly by disappointment and bewilderment, is “bouyed” by all of the offers of help, the well wishes, and the downright amazing assistance provided by hospital staff, fellow harbour residents and Rob, the Harbour Master who made it his special task to find a wheelchair that we could use, to say nothing of finding us a berth right outside his office to ensure we had easy access to the harbour facilities particularly those designed for the benefit of disabled people which have not previously been used.

This latter kindness meant that we were obliged to move of course.  Given that our original decision regarding staying here was in part made to avoid moving on a day when substantial wind gusts were forecast, and subsequently brought to bear, this put us in something of a quandary.  Thankfully with all the time in the world to wait for the gusts to subside before making the twenty metre crossing of the harbour, in what must be something of a personal best, we made it without incident, with an audience watching no less.

The hospital meanwhile, not worried about any crosswind are completely ahead of us in this game.  In one day they have completed the paperwork, the online pre-op interview, arranged appointments with specialists on Friday and Monday next, and have done their utmost to make it easy for us. Despite our government’s reciprocal Health Care agreements, we are from so far outside of their system that we may as well be from another galaxy.  If numbers are missing, they seem to just make some up and press a button and make the question go away.

With the exception of one errant foot and the other ankle well on its way to recovery, and perhaps a spot of general untidiness, things aboard seem to be close to as best can be, so tomorrow we might just see if that wheelchair works, and attempt to get out and about for a bit.  

A NEW PLAN - MONDAY 21ST JULY - DORDRECHT

This morning we sat down quietly and mapped out a plan of roughly where we would go, how we would get there and when we would do it.   

This was a mistake.

We even went as far as giving a couple of people a loose idea of when we might see them along our way, and, with a plan as firmly made as ever it was, we set off happily to explore whatever Dordrecht could offer.  Barely half an hour into our morning stroll, we’d seen the big church but not taken any photos, been past the town hall, and had just admired the library, when one of us decided that the road seemed like a great place to rest for a bit. 

It seems she’d taken a slight depression in the paving to be something other than a slight depression, had rolled her ankle and fallen, using her previously uninjured foot to break her fall.   

This in retrospect was also a mistake.  

Downtown Dordrecht on a Monday morning is barely more alive than it is on Sunday morning yet a couple of kindly souls arrived from nowhere, helped us to the cafe across the road, organised ice and generally made a splendid fuss.

After not very much time at all, the barely injured (relatively) ankle was looking a little swollen despite the ice, while the other foot even to the untrained eye looked like a bit of a basket case.  The fact that the front half of it was pointing in a different direction to the back half was possibly a clue.

Thanks to the miracle of the modern gig economy, a friendly Uber driver had us to the hospital lickety split, where a bystander fetched a wheelchair, the admissions people pulled every required string to expedite our passage through the big electric door, and a young nurse who might have been good looking enough in a stereotypical kind of way to play the part of a doctor in a mini series, suggested the foot looked like a bit of a basket case, arranged for some x-rays and expedited our way through to see a doctor.

The bright young doctor who might  in a few more years be old enough to play a female Doogie Houser in the next series, offered hope but thought CT scans would be advisable in case it was actually a basket case.  

Happily the orthopaedic surgeon, saw hope in those scans, and pronounced that with a few screws and a bit of metal, it will probably be starting to look a bit more like a foot again before we know it.

This week, it’s plaster and crutches while we wait till the swelling subsides.  Next week we’ll see if she’s good to her word.   In the meantime, we’re not making any more plans! 

A TURNIP FOR THE BOOKS - SUNDAY 20TH JULY - WILLEMSTAD TO DORDRECHT

"Early morning starts can be fun", I’ve heard it said, and with a bit of rain and a bit of wind apparently set to fill in later in the day, we thought we might give it a bit of a try.   

It wasn’t spectacularly early of course, just enough to have breakfast underway, but it was very pleasant, drifting along in a blanket of grey with only a hundred ships to keep us company going every which way, and the AIS happily ensuring that they knew we were there.  It was looking as though we’d be in Dordrecht comfortably in time for morning tea, when we received a call from the Harbour Master, asking if we’d terribly mind being a little later.

Slowing down, is something we’ve had a lot of experience with, so we assured him it wouldn’t be a problem, and that is precisely when things began to go awry.

After days of struggling with currents at speeds as low as five kilometres per hour, we quite suddenly found ourselves doing twelve.   Even with Mr P on tickover we could barely keep things below ten, so despite our assurances to the contrary we arrived early.  Thankfully someone had departed early leaving a spot just for us so all was well with the world.  After completing the necessary formalities we wandered off for a quick exploration of the deadest, quietest old town we’ve seen since the last time we walked through a graveyard. 

With our hearts set on a simple lunch, we stumbled on a cafe which did not appear to be open, despite it being ten minutes till early lunch o’clock, but the friendly staff helped us with a disappointingly insufficient snack menu and we set about enjoying our solitude, wondering how they could justify even opening.   While nibbling and sipping and generally breathing happily, we noticed the tables gradually filling, and shockingly massive piles of food that was certainly not on our menu, being delivered to them.   It seems that at lunch o’clock an entirely new menu magically appears, and had the friendly young lady known we wanted to eat, well she would have happily brought it out for us!

As we meandered our way back to the boat, we couldn’t help but notice that the streets were suddenly mysteriously almost teeming with people heading towards the centre of town, the cafes, closed thirty minutes before were abuzz, the transformation remarkable, as though we’d been the victim of some sort of practical joke.  

Much later, we read the tourist brochure “On Sunday, the shops begin to open at midday, and the town comes to life….” ahh.

So we’ve tried “early”, it didn’t work that well, tomorrow we’ll rise at a sensible hour and see if there's an improvement.

LIKE A SORE THUMB - SATURDAY 19TH JULY - WILLEMSTAD

Even fleet of motor cruises, we are something of an oddity.  Our Joyeux is awkwardly different with a number of redeeming features, none of them aesthetically pleasing.  She is just not the way people build boats, unless those people live on the Norfolk Broads in which case she’s exactly how people build boats. 

Our “always-on-the-cusp-of-coming-back-into-fashion” swimming pool blue cabin tops never seem to compliment any background, yet more and more it is attracting compliments for its retro 80’s chic, by those confirming their doubtful expertise in fashion,

To be fair, fashion is said to run in forty year cycles so we are right at the top of the cycle for reasons that seem completely inexplicable.

Quite near the absolute limit of our attention spans when we arrived yesterday, and unaware that there were three separate harbours in town under one management, we logically chose the wrong one, the one principally for sailing yachts, and quickly found what we thought was our allocated berth, to be occupied.   

We squeezed into a handy spot temporarily, which might have been three sizes too small, and after a very friendly chat with the harbour master, to our great relief were given permission to remain where we’d settled.

Fortunately for the adoring public, this put us on full view of anyone promenading between the public carpark and the old town.  Willemstad is a beautiful village with a rich history and fortifications to underline that, and of course a windmill which seems to be trying to peek over the hedge, calling us into town whenever it thinks we are looking too relaxed, which seems to have been most of the day.

It did not take a very long time at all to explore the perimeter of the town and all it contains this morning.  Of course we were being careful not to be drawn into too many museums and places of historic interest  for fear of overtaxing ourselves, so it’s been a perfect place to spend a completely free day, 

We’ll probably go back for a walk in the evening, even if only because that gives us an excuse to go back onto the walkway and view our little boat standing like a rose among thorns, and it will make the windmill happy.

IN THE DOLDRUMS - FRIDAY 18TH JULY - WEMELDINGE TO WILLEMSTAD

 

Dave and Ria’s advice is usually without fault, so when they suggested that we spend a few days exploring the natural attractions of region we were in, we gave it serious thought.  Then we thought about how it will take another day to cross another estuary and the forecast for a marked deterioration in the weather on its way, and we decided with mixed feelings to continue our run north.  

When the time came to depart, we were still tempted to turn left and procrastinate, but faced with a glassy calm sea on a day,which they had warned would be long and hard, decided to stick with our decision.  On this particular topic we took so little notice of them they could have been mistaken for our parents, but we were keen to get on.

We pressed on into the wild grey yonder.   

Over the course of the morning we did not notice any change in the conditions.  Little did we know, we were frogs in a pot, and we were being slowly brought up to temperature!

The beauty of the greys and stillness of the water kept us transfixed, and keeping an eye out for seals was a novel distraction as we moved ever onwards against the tide at a steady six kilometres per hour, saluted byrather than waved at by hundreds of wind turbines lining our route standing patiently immobile.   

By the third hour of the morning with the hint of frustration creeping in, barely fifteen enjoyable kilometres had gone by, barely one third of the way to our destination, the temperature began to increase, the wind did not, the world began to melt into a kind of uniform grey splodge.   Not that there is anything wrong with grey splodge, but it’s a dish best served cold, and as the temperature reached the mid thirties on board we were beyond caring whether it came in any other shade.

Shade was what we longed for actually, or perhaps an air conditioner, but even if we had one, with not one wind turbine in the country able to turn even slightly there was probably not enough power to go round anyway.

Still, in the absence of any alternative we pressed on, pressing cool drinks into each other’s hands as we went along, wishing for the shade of a tree.  Oddly in our discomfort, we were passed by a continuous procession of speedier boats than ours laden with near naked, bright red people apparently enjoying the novelty of being dry roasted, admittedly in their cases with the benefit of significant apparent breeze.

Yes, the day was very long, and yes we had some mixed feelings about “missing” that south western corner of the country, and yes we had certainly had enough by the end of it, but two days later we are still slightly euphoric, pinching ourselves at the luck that the weather has brought, ready to make some plans.

A TOUCH OF THE BLUES - THURSDAY 17TH JULY - SAS VAN GENT TO WEMELDINGE

We have a friend who accidentally sailed around the world, and today is a perfect example of how that can happen to anyone.

Completely in line with the forecast we had a nice day ahead of us, perfect weather, twelve kilometres and a sea lock filled with big ships to go until our destination, so there was no sense in starting early, after all that’s our plan for tomorrow to catch the incoming tide.   

There were only a few butterflies at the great lock at Terneuzen while we worked out how to fit six ships and four pleasure boats in it when clearly it was only designed for six ships and two pleasure boats, but the friendly skipper of one of the ships took our lines and we had a four thousand ton floating bollard and not a care in the world while the lock did it’s thing.

Sticking to our plan, we departed the lock and choofed off for a few kilometres toward our destination to get some sort of idea what we might be in for in the morning into the startling blue stillness.  We’d arrived a bit early to catch the tide so progress was slow, but when not one of the hazards we’d been concerned about presented themselves, and with the tide slowly turning in our favour, we simply kept going.   

To be clear, if millponds had ships passing at thirty kilometres an hour, this was a millpond.   To be even clearer, even on a millpond it’s not particularly easy to estimate how quickly ships travelling at four times our speed, are closing and while there was never a chance of an accident, it was reassuring to hear Shipping Control calling a tanker to enquire whether they’d seen us crossing their track, through the magic of AIS referring to us by name to be perfectly clear.  

Dave and Ria, utilising the same magic were watching our progress live on the internet from somewhere in the north, hilariously updating us on our progress presumably in case we weren’t paying attention, capturing screen shots of each near death experience for the benefit of future generations.   

Now, here we are, on the other side of the Schelde quite accidentally weeks from where we thought we’d be, in a bit of a daze as we contemplate what our next move might be.