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.
1 comment
A lovely photo of one of my favourite Dutch towns, Peter. Thank you. Good to know that Dordrecht takes it as easy as you generally do. We've been caught by that current as well, but we were going the other way. It should have been with us but for some inexplicable reason, we had to fight it all the way. Although the Holland's Diep has limited tidal flow, its connections with the Nieuwe and Oude Maas seem to be a law unto themselves.
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