When the last guests departed we had just a few days to clean and prepare the boat ready for our return to Hamburg. This involves a thorough cleaning of the interior, emptying and defrosting the freezer (fridge stays on running on solar power), flushing the seawater out of the engine, generator and air-conditioning. We do this in an attempt to reduce saltwater corrosion in these expensive things.
Last, but not least, we have to pack and generally get ourselves ready for the trip. This time we weren’t taking so much home other than a load of clothes that Angelika simply doesn’t wear.
Our purpose in returning to Hamburg was to check on the new place in Heilingenhafen (it was almost finished) and to start preparing for the arrival of Angelika’s parents there.
Heilingenhafen was somewhat colder (and wetter) to that we are used to, but it was still a nice place to visit. Angelika fed some of the wildlife in a local park, and then bought some other wildlife to eat later! There was even a Christmas tree in the market place.
The intention was to return to La Palma before Christmas. Because of the Corona pandemic it would be necessary to obtain a negative corona test before returning to the Canary Islands. We also needed to find out how this was achieved.
Finally we needed to sell our old Passat, which sounds simple but with a very old car it’s difficult to find a buyer AND we needed to be able to use it almost up to the day before we returned. For once at least one of my brain cells was awake and came up with an idea for the car.
I printed a flyer detailing the car, the price and the fact we had to sell it ASAP. I then walked along our road finding the cars that were older/worse/uglier than ours and put the flyer into those letterboxes. Within 20 minutes of distributing the flyer there was a knock at the door and one of our neighbours came and bought the car, no haggling or discussion. A masterstroke on my part…
