Thursday 17 August - Wilhelmshaven and Sande

Where's Bertie? He's in a free Stellplatz alongside Sandersee, just outside of the town of Sande (exact location: 53.51167, 8.00090)

Last night's Stellplatz was such a peaceful place until, at 4.15 this morning, we got startled awake by fighting cats. It wasn't just squealing meows; they were right below us and actually bouncing off Bertie's underside. Venturing out this morning there was much disturbed gravel and clumps of fur, but we've seen worse on our driveway at home.

It took a while to settle again, thus when the alarm went off this morning I decided to have 'five more minutes', which somehow translated into waking up at 9.15. What lazy layabeds!

There were only two things on our agenda today: to visit the naval museum and to try again to find the location of Mick's old school. We succeeded in both.

We did, however, err at the museum by starting with the inside exhibits. We had been reading the displays for over an hour when it occurred to me that, as it was forecast to rain this afternoon, it would have been more sensible to start outside. It probably would have made more sense from a crowding perspective too. We promptly abandoned what we were reading and went out onto the harbour.

The u-boat was particularly crowded, but then submarines aren't renowned for being big and spacious, and we inched our way through the 'tour route'. I never thought I would have liked to have been a submariner and our visit did nothing but reaffirm that view.

As this particular u-boat was decommissioned in 1993 there's a chance that Mick tracked it at some point in his RAF career.

Another shot of the u-boat as taken from the destroyer and with a bit of the minesweeper visible to the right. The wooden vessel to the left is the German Navy's longest serving ship (1951 to 2005) and the green one to the right of the sub was a GDR vessel that was only in service from 1976 to 1989*

The rain started as we entered the destroyer, which was the next accessible vessel along. The signage told us it would take 45 minutes to go around and that it wasn't possible to shortcut. It only took us 35 minutes, but that's probably because all of the information signs on this one were in German only and German is a language in which neither of us excels.

After a shufty around a minesweeper, a fast patrol boat was last on our tour of the vessels and, being a more recent exhibit (decommissioned in 2014), it does have bilingual signage.

Finishing off what we had skipped inside the museum (the special exhibition, which we gathered was to do with the church's role in the military didn't take long as it was also only in German), it was gone 3 by the time we headed back to Bertie, giving us time for lunch before we needed to leave our parking slot, by 4.

We had spotted a number of motorhomes on a free wasteground-esque car park as we arrived in Wilhelmshaven yesterday and we joined them briefly as we left town, so that we could continue our quest to find the place where Mick went to school.

He's pretty confident that we found it. Even though the buildings are all gone, the land hasn't been redeveloped and thus we were able to walk across it with Mick pointing out where all of the buildings used to be. The layout of the remaining roadways and cleared areas and location of the water ways either side certainly matched his recollections.

Mick walking with purpose towards where the school's main building once stood.

Then we did leave town (in pouring rain - only just managed to dodge being out in that!), but not by a long way. Just outside of Wilhelmshaven is a town called Sande, where we would have stayed last night if the motorway junction hadn't been closed. That's where we are tonight. We're right alongside a lake here, but with rain falling I'm not feeling inclined to go and take a look at it just now.

^{(*All those dates are from memory. It's possible I could be a year or two out here and there).}