Industrial estates are generally not major public attractions. But Eemshaven exists 50 years, so all doors were opened on Saturday to let people get acquainted with what is happening in this ‘socket of the Netherlands’.
Nerves of steel required! This is what can be read at the stand of the pilotage service, on the site next to Nijlicht on the Brinkweg. A ladder points perpendicularly up a wall, and whoever climbs up like a ‘pilot’ is supposed to ring the bell at the top. Steel what? Crane operator Hans van den Burg can’t be said twice. He hoists himself into the climbing harness and smoothly as a cat climbs the ladder. Tingtingting! Apple egg, man.
Van den Burg and his partner Petra Wassing went to the open day in Eemshaven partly for sentimental reasons. “We both used to work here,” says Wassing. “Me at Robbenplaat roadside restaurant. That no longer exists. It was a fantastic place. The whole world came.”
Zircon and fries
Have you always been curious about what goes on behind those large wind farms near Oudeschip? Then you could go to the open day in Eemshaven on Saturday – the place that is also called the ‘socket of the Netherlands’. There were buses that drove you past the different companies, where the employees gave insight into what was happening. There were boat trips through the harbour. There was chips and entertainment. On the terrain next to Nijlicht, the artists of Zirkus Zorry in electric-pink suits skip through an improvised arena. And a singer of the Songbird choir is worried about the wind, which she fears will blow their repertoire into the empty Oostpolder.
Willem Groothoff (14) also climbs the pilot ladder, watched by his mother Jannet. “Now the weather is nice,” she says, “but this is something completely different when it storms.”
But her son has no ambition to become a pilot. ,,I’m on the vmbo course for sailor in Harlingen. I want to be captain.”
‘I have no sea legs’
A pity, because the pilots could use extra colleagues. And everywhere on the open day in Eemshaven, the demand for personnel is reported en passant. Sometimes unpaid: At the rescue company, Fred, Frederik, Henri and Willianne call you from a poster to sign up as a volunteer. Crew wanted!
The photos show enthusiastically laughing men and women in heroic poses, images that also characterize the commercials of the army and navy. But the truth is that it is difficult to find volunteers in a sparsely populated area like North Groningen. And the team of 12 rescuers could use reinforcements. A lady looks skeptically at the posters and mutters, “I don’t have sea legs.”
Here you can see how to do a double lap stab, and how thick the custom suits are that the rescuers have to put on within two minutes in case of an emergency. Outside, a little girl strokes a 6-person life raft. Nice tent!
Louboutin, but not from Christian
Further on at the Emmahaven, customs officers are standing behind large tables with all kinds of inappropriate things that are found in the harbour. Weapons that aren’t weapons but look just like them. A so-called Louis Vuitton bag with incorrect stitching. Christian Louboutin shoes that are not made by Christian and of which a lady sighs that she ‘wouldn’t want them for anything’.
And a whole table full of animal skins that are real, A zebra skin with the mane still on, a bear skin with a head, a stuffed and polished turtle. Pieces of coral, a kitschy elephant tusk. Everything for the enthusiast and all found in containers without a valid CITES permit.
After the pizza it was okay again
Volunteer Wia Klunder (72) is behind the bar at the Zeemanshuis. Sailors and truck drivers come here every evening between seven and ten to surf the internet, watch football, raise a glass and have a chat. Because if you’re alone in your cabin or your truck cabin, the evening in Eemshaven can be long and lonely.
“Everyone has a story,” says Klunder. “And sometimes it is also exciting. When the war broke out in Ukraine and Russians and Ukrainians were sitting at the bar, we thought for a moment: oh. But then we had a pizza night and after that everything was okay again. Some Russians apologize for their nationality when they come here.”
Clean second-hand shirts hang in a corner. For sale for 1 euro each, for the men who are paid less.
The whole world comes here. Not everyone speaks perfect English. But neither did Klunder and her 44 colleagues. They serve coffee, tea, beer, wine and soft drinks and listen. ,,It’s about people being able to tell their stories, sailors can be those loners, then it just has to get out. And you learn everything. I never knew where the Dnieper was. Now I’ve seen pictures of it.”
“But I’m here with the king”
Outside people are standing in groups waiting for the buses to pass by. There is so much interest that extra buses have been deployed. None other than Cas König, director of Groningen Seaports, is the tour leader of bus route number 5.
Route 5 leads passengers along the northwest corner of Eemshaven, past the Beatrixhaven, which was built in 2008, where the train stops. König is full of tasty anecdotes and he delivers them with verve. He tells about the bridge at the floating jetty, along which the customs officers came to check after the Butterfahrt whether you had not entered a little too much. And about the time he went to the Bush terminal with the king – who regularly visited Eemshaven – and came across a closed and abandoned barrier. Until he walked in and said: ‘but I’m here with the king’, and the armored car of the head of state appeared in the distance.
And do the passengers know that the railway cost 23 million? And that that railway line is the only railway line in the Netherlands where you can see the sea for a moment?
A cruise ship without furniture
The route takes you past the malt factory of the Swinkels family, past the old mill Goliath which provides such a beautiful contrast with the surrounding windmills, past the 100 meter long 2000 ton piles that will support the offshore windmills, past the rows of windmills of which there are one is equipped with a black blade to see if fewer birds crash against it. Along the heliport. Along Vopac, where diesel and petrol are stored as emergency rations for many countries in the world. The Twente cable factory TKH. And does the public know that 1500 cherry pickers were used to build the Google data center? And Dae Woo House used to be called Jan Snel? And that that new cruise ship, Silver Nova, where 2000 men are now finalizing the completion, must sail out of the port unfurnished because otherwise it will be too deep in the Ems?
Unlimited possibilities
No, the public doesn’t know that, but now they do and that’s great. Because this outlet of the Netherlands is full of stories, it is a landscape made by people, for people, aimed at the green future, a country of almost unlimited possibilities.
But one possibility must be ruled out. König had, he says, always hoped that, in addition to the four harbors named after the queens Emma, Wilhelmina, Juliana and Beatrix, a Máxima harbor could also be added. “But that’s not the case, I’m afraid.”