Dokkum

27 - 30 July 2015

Last night's mooring was only about 4 miles from the town of Dokkum so we had a short and easy leg today - so we thought.   In fact it was pretty windy and we were held up by the bridges into Dokkum.   There were three of us waiting for the first bridge to open, jiggling about in a narrow canal in windy conditions.   Unusually, there was nowhere obvious to moor up while waiting, so we milled about for 15 minutes waiting for the 'bridge man' to do his stuff.  Once through the first bridge, it became clear why there was a delay - one man was attending to the two bridges 300 metres apart, cycling between them in, today, high winds and lashing rain.   He was still cheerful when collecting his bruggeld - €5 for both bridges.

This photo shows us moored up directly in front of one of the two windmills, with the 'second bridge' just closing:

In fact we were lucky to get this spot; when we came through this 'second bridge' it was clear that the harbour was almost full, although we could see two free places in front of us. We hoped that the two boats we had followed into the harbour would carry on, but one of them, a small German-flagged sailing boat, grabbed both slots by mooring, or attempting to moor, in the middle.   We could see that in fact she had gone aground a metre or so from the bank.  They didn't appear to be moving much, so we continued slowly past the all the town moorings, turned at the third and final bridge and motored back up the harbour hoping that someone might be leaving.   No luck.   We had to return to the first basin to be able to spin around, but saw that the yacht had by now managed to shift herself through the putty, leaving a gap wide enough (just) for us.

Dokkum is a lovely town - even if it was a bit damp.   The notes in the log read:

        27 July.  Rain, rain, rain.

        28 July.  Rain, wind, rain

        30 July.  Rain squalls.

        31 July.  Intermittent rain, sunny in the evening.

We grabbed some pictures during the dry periods:

As sightseeing and "wandering around in the sunshine eating ice-cream" wasn't going to happen on this visit, I took the opportunity of changing the oil and filter on the generator.   Oil change; no problem.  Filter change … um.   Before leaving the UK on this trip, I had contacted the Fischer Panda HQ in Verwood, Dorset to obtain some spares, giving them full details of the generator model including the engine number (it's a Kubota engine).   The guy appeared to know what he was talking about so I bought three HH152-32532 filters.   When I unscrewed the old filter it was immediately obvious that the new one was too big:

The difference in radius is about 1cm but there is a non-moveable pipe and electrical cable right next to the filter:

… so the old one had to go back on until the correct ones could be found.   

/Rich