9th August Gothenburg

We had tea and a potter in the morning and the couple on the little motor boat ahead of us came for some water from us which we gave them and they stayed for a cup of tea. Our Starboard water tank was empty by now which was a surprise as we’d only filled it a couple of days ago in Sjortorp. A German boat left the dock at about 0845, we left it until 0855 but we were all milling about by 0900 when the dock should have opened. Initially the lights were showing red and white meaning ‘about to open’  but after about 10 minutes it reverted to the red and  having found it not that easy to hang about we made fast to the north side of the river where a slightly dilapidated berth with ‘no yachts’ on it was conveniently placed. After about 10 minutes we heard from the motor boat that there was a problem with the lock and it would be around an hour before a technician arrived. This seemed a good time to have breakfast so Ailsa and Jean did bacon toast and scrambled eggs which we enjoyed in the cockpit, now in the sun.  The German boat had also tied up as we’d told him about malfunction at the lock. After breakfast I went for a short walk in the woods on the North bank and came back via the lock to see if anything was happening at the lock which it wasn’t. Back on the boat it was close to coffee time I thought I’d make preparations for a round of coffee, as I started this there were shouts from above, ‘the lock gates are opening’ so, abandoning the coffee percolator, I started the engine, we let go, turned around and followed the motor boat into the lock with the Germans following us along with a large French motor catamaran. Once out of the lock it was about 1100 and we pressed on although couldn’t catch the wee motor boat who had a 6354 Perkins to press him along. We were expecting the Catamaran to catch us but he dropped astern, we were doing about 6 knots through the water making 7 with the current and had about 30 miles to run, the scenery became flatter and more open and as we approached a junction where the river went off to the West and we continued South a bridge blocked our way. It was a road bridge with the road being a busy dual carriage way or motorway and we wondered how long we’d have to wait before it opened, by the time we were approaching it the lights still indicated ‘stop’ so we secured to the layby pontoon by which time the lights were saying, ‘about to open’ so we unsecured and carried on hovering close to the bridge, continuing when we could.  The scenery became more industrial and less rural as we carried on, I threw some soup together in the pressure cooker as we approached another bridge and we tied up again awaiting it. Again it opened quickly and soon we were having soup  bread and cheese for lunch whilst we carried on motoring South. By this time our eta had slipped from lunch time ‘til 1500. Carrying on we came to a double rail bridge with a ‘welcome to Gothenburg VHF 09’  sign. We called but had nothing initially, I tried again, expecting nothing but was surprised to hear back that they’d be opening shortly. They did and we went through leaving only the bridge before the marina to negotiate. We arrived just before 1500 and having called the bridge found out it was not to open ‘til 1635 so went and secured outside a marina (full) on the North bank. It was a lovely afternoon but still quite breezy from the West, the German boat arrived and the wife came and chatted for a couple of minutes, they were going to Denmark.  Manus came and waved from the opposite bank. Eventally 1635 arrived, we went through and gingerly approached the marina where Manus had said there were plenty of empty berths. We saw a sign saying ‘over 40 ft this way’ pointing to the outboard couple of rows and I chose a spot two in from the outside. Turning space was limited we made a nice approach but at the last minute I saw a ‘reserved, dock spot’ sign on it so chickened out and went for another one further in, it turned out that they all had the same sign on them but I’d gone quite far in and wanted to try for the one nearer the outside again. Backing out, unusually, went well and soon we were tied up with Manus aboard spreading good cheer. I was now worried that some one else would book our spot and Ailsa went with Manus to see if she could pay at the dock office. There was a sign indicating this should work but it didn’t so I went to see what I could find out. Eventually it looked like I needed to book with dockspot.com which was a pain and didn’t work several time but once I’d phoned them up and had some hints, along with a certain amount of cursing I managed to change my boat beam to 4m from 4.2 and fool it into allowing us to have the spot. Having tried to find the harbour master before, Ailsa now phoned up to say she’d found him and we chatted and he said not to worry about the beam, he changed the available beam on our neighbouring spot to 3.8 which probably meant it’s unlikely to be booked.

Anyway after a couple of drinks and some showers we went off to look for a place to eat. Manus found somewhere online, supposedly a Scandinavian restaurant and we arrived at it to find it was now a Nepalese restaurant. Opposite it was a pub doing food which looked ok so we went in and had a good meal there, not particularly scandi but very good with very good service. They were a beer focused pub and we mostly chose local beer which was good. From there we went to Manus’ hotel, the bar was on the 12th floor with a great view out over the harbour and a friendly waiter who found us a space to sit looking out of the window.

for a nightcap and then got caught in a heavy shower of rain on the way back to the boat.