Eventually the day for the return to Germany came upon us. Bags were packed, lines checked and the boat closed up for the slightly more than 2 months we would be away.
I always find this a worrying time as I’m always scared that I’ve forgotten to do something. Previously I’ve come back to a fridge full of black mould as I forgot to leave it open; a teapot full of mouldy tea as I forgot to empty it; and once I came back to find the bilge dangerously full of water as I hadn’t checked that the log (speed sensor) blanking plug was correctly installed. Yes, the boat has an automatic bilge pump, but it needed a new sensor which I was bringing back with me 🙁
Our trip back was not without it’s own form of problems. Due to the Coronavirus crisis our return route was as follows:
- Hire car from Tazacorte marina to Santa Cruz De La Palma airport
- Plane from the airport to Tenerife North airport
- Taxi from Tenerife North to Tenerife South (it was supposed to be a bus but the machine had run out of tickets)
- Plane from Tenerife South to Frankfurt
- Train from Frankfurt to Hamburg
All in all it took over 25 hours including waiting for 4 hours in Frankfurt airport for our train at 0435. The only good bit was I had booked 1st class on the train as it was just 8€ more expensive!
Of course the whole journey had to be accomplished wearing a mask.
It wasn’t over after we got to Hamburg as we had to collect a hire car for our trip to Heilingenhafen. We wanted to look at an apartment we wanted to buy for Angelika’s parents.
Masked and socially distanced waiting in line.
