Waiting at Hull Marina for the right conditions to cruise up to York which gave a chance for some laundry and some more work maintaining the Paxton Princess and planning my trip. I felt that Hull had lost the unique presence of boats right in the city centre as a result and, in my view, is therefore struggling to find its new identity now that its days as a fishing port are nearly over and I think that its character has been lost in the process.
Our night's stay at the visitors' pontoon at Hull Marina went all right and we slept well despite the proximity of the new by-pass road for the city. We had a bit of a lay in until Di got our morning drinks at 8.00am and then we got showered using the Paxton Princess's own facilities as we were not familiar with those on shore yet. Then across to the newly-renamed "Forte" Hotel (it used to be very descriptively called the Hull Marina Post House) for a fine cooked English breakfast which all of the family enjoyed. There then followed a trek to find a launderette as Di was concerned about the week's washing that we had amassed and this took up most of the morning until we left the girls in the children's bookshop and carted the load back to the boat before lunch at McDonalds.
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This afternoon, Diana took the girls to the ice-skating rink and library before doing some shopping for summer dresses and cassette tapes in the summer sales. Daniel came back to the boat with me and we transferred the navigation and radar circuits over from one battery to another so as to spread the electrical load more evenly for battery re-charging purposes. This evening, we had tea on the boat and then I went and looked across the Humber at the merchant shipping movements whilst Diana caught up on some ironing and Daniel took Debbie to see the film "Edward Scissor-Hands". Later I caught up on this last day's journal and began to plan our trip up the Humber and Yorkshire Ouse to York tomorrow. My considered view of Hull is that I think it is becoming too developed. If the marina facilities at Grimsby were too basic; those at Hull Marina were far too sophisticated.
The environmental improvements to Hull Town Centre have created this huge sanitised pedestrian area which is deserted by the general population in the evenings and taken over by the cat-calling youth. The positioning of the new Princes Quay indoor shopping centre in the inner dock on stilts and the isolation of that inner dock from the Humber by the ring road may have helped traffic but Hull lost the unique presence of boats right in the city centre as a result. Hull, in my view, is therefore struggling to find its new identity now that its days as a fishing port are nearly over and I think that its character has been lost in the process. Having said all that, the marina and sea lock were first class and it was still worth while stopping.