Navigation

The waterways we travel with 'Onbekommerd' are very varied. Sometimes we are on canals in Holland, sometimes on rivers or on lakes. Then there is bigger water: we go to the Friesian Islands to the North of the Netherlands and of Germany. And last but certainly not least there was the Baltic this year.
Everywhere, there is some form of 'navigation': where are you, where do you want to go and what is the best and safest way to get there.
On the canals and rivers, this is fairly straightforward: you use a chart (a map on a boat is called 'chart') and you can see easily from features on shore and in the water where you are. Having said that, its important that you use a chart and not a road map. The world looks quite different from the water and you would not be the first one found to be completely lost using a road map.
Open water like the IJsselmeer and the Baltic are one step up in complication. Sometimes you cant see the shore that you are going to, so you dont have a point to steer to. And there may well be shallows or shipping channels, which makes it important to know where you are and where you are heading. These days, we have GPS to help with that. Onbekommerd has two GPS systems, which can be run independently if needed. The one gives a position, heading and speed and can be programmed to give course and distance to a 'waypoint'. Its the rectangular 'box' in the top left hand corner of this picture:

Together with a good chart and some understanding of navigational principles, it is straightforward to navigate with this.

One system up is when one connects the GPS to a chart plotter. We use a laptop with electronic charts for this purpose, and a programme called WinGPS5. The signal comes from the GPS box (or from an external antenna, which looks like a mouse) and the computer shows the position, speed and heading as well as the course to the next waypoint, a trace of the route to follow and of the route already covered and some other useful information.
This can be seen in this picture:

The position is indicated by the little boat (on the border of Germany and Denmark in this case), the green line is the route we have planned. The navigation data is on the left.
This is the system we have used for our entire trip, it can also give us interesting trivia such as the most extreme Southerly, Westerly, Easterly and Northerly positions reached this year.

South: 51 deg, 36.16 mins (on the way to Burghsluis in Zeeland, in APril)
West: 3 deg, 45.31 min (Burghsluis itself)
East: 12 deg, 40.41 min (the Swedish island of Ven) and
North: 56 deg, 7.87 min (Gilelleje, on Sealland)

The most complicated navigation is on the 'Wadden', the area between the North Netherlands / German coast and the islands North of that. Here we have big tidal differences (up to 3m), causing the area to fall dry twice per day and then fill up again, which is accompanied by sometimes fierce currents. And the channels between all the dry falling 'plates' are continuously moving by the scouring action of the currents. So here you need accurate and up to date charts (electronic as well as paper) and knowledge and understanding of the tides. There is a very useful programme called 'Quicktide', which will help one tremendously to calculate when certain passages are safe.

But all these electronic gadgets can fail one day, so we also use the paper charts, the compass and the speed to give us estimated positions, especially on big and / or complicated water:

As this is the "Onbekommerd blog" and we are now back in Cape Town for the (European) winter, this is probably going to be my last post until we go back to our floating home next year. We have exiting plans, which include a 'spring trip' to the Dutch Wadden, a Friesland tour in convoy with South African friends and thereafter a 'long distance' voyage to Gotheborg in Sweden and from there through the Gotha canal to the Swedish East cost, Stockholm and along the coast back South.

We enjoyed writing the blog, we hope you enjoyed reading it!

See you next year.

Communication

My apologies, I promised a few more "Onbekommerd" posts but now that we are in London for a few days, the rythm of the past 160 days is broken and I simply have not thought enough about posting.

When we set off on our first our 'Onbekommerd' trip, in April 2010, we tried to keep in touch with family (parents, children and siblings). We used the laptop, with a GSM 'dongle' to connect to the Internet when there was no WiFi available and sent emails.

That worked, but we wondered if they really all wanted emails that often and also some friends wanted to know what we were up to. So at the start of the 2011 trip, we decided to start a blog.
That way, we can send the link to the blog to family and friends and they can decide for themselves if and when they want to look at it. We still used the laptop / dongle / WiFi combination to connect, but it was getting a bit more tricky when we left the Netherlands and went to the German 'Wadden' Islands. The problem was that the dongle only works with the Dutch SIM card and when you use this in Germany, you are 'data roaming', which is very expensive. And WiFi is not as readily available as we would like, plus it is often unreliable  and / or quite costly. So although the blog was by all accounts a good idea, but we were not quite there yet.

But later in 2011, whilst in London we had an opportunity to get better aquainted with the iPad and there was the solution! So in December we bought one of those things. We now use an iPad with 3G capabilities, and by now have no fewer than 5 SIM cards for it, one each for South Africa, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. They are relatively inexpensive and if you get the right type of data bundles the use is affordable as well.
Of course there are still frustrations, as for each card, there are different methods to get the data 'on to the card'. Even when the service providers are supposedly the same company (Vodafone in SA, UK and Netherlands), there is absolutely no commonality in loading the data. Usually you end up having to find an outlet of the specific service provider to get it done. That is not easy as there are none in the small places we go to, so we need to plan our 'entry' into each country in such a way that we hit a biggish place early on. Or you have to take the bus to the nearest town (like to Norden from Greetsiel). The only exception is Vodafone UK, where the SIM has an application which allows you to buy data 'from the comfort of your boat'.

Here is the iPad:

Of course, apart from doing the blogpost (incidentally, we use an 'app' called "Blogpress" for that, which makes it extremely easy to do), the iPad is also very useful for getting weather forecats, seeing the news and receiving and sending emails. And last but not least, it has got Skype installed which makes it possible to talk with the 'home front' from time to time, someting we always look forward to!

Apart from the iPad, we have a mobile phone with a Dutch number, which we use on a roaming basis so we can be reached in case of an emergency.

Tomorrow we fly back from London to Cape Town, I'll try to do the 'navigation' post which I also promised some time during the weekend.

The end of the trip. And some statistics

We arrived in Franeker yesterday. Franeker is where "P. Valk Yachts" is, Onbekommerd's birthplace:





She will spend the winter here and some necessary maintenance will be done. It's amazing how quickly the list grows when you put your mind to it. But when you see the stats below, it's not surprising that some TLC on engine and ship is required!

This year, we spent 160 days on board, 71 in the Netherlands, 46 in Denmark and 43 in Germany. We tied up in 102 different spots.
The engine ran for 367 hours, in which it used 1410 litres of diesel. We covered 1895 nautical miles, that's is 3509 KM.

From now, our blog posting pattern will change. I still want to post a bit on communication, navigation and propulsion in different posts but that will have to wait a bit. Tomorrow we travel to London, to meet up with Sean. Next week Wednesday back to Cape Town, where we'll stay until after Easter. At that stage, blog posts will become few and far between, until we travel again!

Location:Zuiderkade,Franeker,The Netherlands

Leeuwarden

Apologies for the absence of a post this morning. We had a glitch with the Vodafone 'system', but that has now been resolved.

Not only the sunset on Saturday was nice, sunrise on Sunday was equally spectacular:





And the early morning mist, with an early rising duck also made for a nice picture:




You can see it's now later in the season: a few weeks ago, sunrise would have been to early to take photos ;-)

After morning coffee, we left our private jetty for Leeuwarden, where we arrived as the bridge keepers' lunch break ended so that we could move into the city straight away. This is the 'Oldenhove', Pisa has nothing on Leeuwarden!





Today, our friends (and Onbekommerd's previous owners) Elly and Ed came all the way from Alkmaar to have lunch on board, which was very nice of them.

Tomorrow after lunch we'll do this year's last stretch, to Franeker.

Location:Noordersingel,Leeuwarden,The Netherlands

Somewhere near Mantgum

We spent a few somewhat productive days in Sneek. Lyn did some work, we did some boat-cleaning and took advantage of the good shopping opportunities to get all sorts of things, from prop-shaft grease to a new corkscrew in order to tackle a recalcitrant bottle!
We also had a rare 'meal ashore', at 'the Chinese'. A 'Chinese' restaurant in the Netherlands is actually usually a 'Chinese - Indonesian' restaurant, sort of linked to the period before 1948 when Indonesia was a Dutch colony (Dutch East India). These restaurants therefore serve typical Chinese- as well as Indonesian dishes. Every respectable Dutch town (or even village) boasts a 'Chinees'. There also is the 'afhaalchinees', which is "take away's" only. Anyway, we went to the chinees and had rijsttafel, an Indonesian rice dish. It was nice, although not nearly as good as the one we had two years ago in Leiden with my cousin and his partner.

Today, we started the trip to Leeuwarden, via the 'Middelseeroute', an old way to link the two cities. It has a head clearance of only 2.50m, so with mast, radar and searchlight down we can just make it! We tied up on the side of the canal, 'in the wild' after having to chase a colony of ducks who had taken possession of the jetty.

This is the view behind us:





And this was just before sunset:





Pretty rural and quiet, isn't it?

Tomorrow it is only an hour or so to Leeuwarden. We'll probably stay there for two days before the last stretch to Franeker where Onbekommerd will spend the winter.

The gas bottle that would not go empty

We are now in Sneek (or actually 'Snits' in Frisian). One of the 11 Frisian cities and one of our favourites for an extended stay as its quite lively, there is good shopping nearby and the view from our favourite spot is nice, the 'Waterpoort" is the trade mark of the city:





But nice as that may be, today's main topic is more unusual. Let me explain:

On Onbekommerd, we use bottled gas for cooking and for hot water, both in the galley and in the bathroom. Gas is in two 'bottles', of 10.5 Kgs of propane gas each. Normally, a bottle lasts about 7 weeks (49 days) before we have to change it. No problem, we just uncouple one and connect the other. They sit in a gas bin at the back of the boat, all very safe: if a bottle or it's connection would leak, the gas escapes out of the back and does not form a danger on board. Changing the bottle takes no more than 5 minutes. Gas is also not very expensive, a 10.5 Kg bottle costs €30 (you hand in the empty one and get a full one, so you only pay for the gas, not for the bottle).
There is one problem for us though..... In spite of the EU being responsible for everything (including saving the Greek economy), every country has its own design of gas bottle and it's own connections. So you can't exchange an empty Dutch bottle for a full Danish one! So what to do if you ever want to be away for more than 14 weeks (two bottles at 7 weeks each)? As cooking on board is sort of a given (eating out every night is not only unaffordable but not much fun either), we had to look at hot water usage. Now in almost every harbour there are good shower facilities on shore. Sometimes even free, but often you pay €0.50 or in Denmark 5 Kroner for a 4 or 5 minute shower. So we made sure we had 2 full bottles when we left Delfzijl, our last Dutch port of call at the end of May and dutifully showered 'on shore'. It's really no big deal. And we were extremely curious how long a bottle would last. If it was going to be 75 days or more, we would be happy: our future trips are unlikely to take us out of the country for more than 5 months, 'two gas bottles worth'.
We got back into the Netherlands on 27 August, exactly 90 days after we left. And the gas was still going strong! As the problem was solved: showering on shore gives us the required 'range' and moreover shore facilities in the Netherlands are - on average, there certainly are exceptions - much inferior to either German or (especially) Danish harbours - we decided to shower on board again. Of course we expected that now at any time the bottle would go empty. Just when you have a head full of shampoo and it's raining outside....
But no, today, on day 113, just as we were ready to start cooking, the gas went out. What luck, it was not even raining when I changed the bottle:






So there you have it: cooking takes very little gas, compared to showering. I now have two equations with two variables, so I can work out exactly how much cooking takes and how much showering.

We'll stay in Sneek for a few days. Then on to Leeuwarden and finally to Franeker to put Onbekommerd to bed for the winter on Thursday next week.

Location:Geeuwkade,Sneek,The Netherlands

Morning view from our 'bedroom'

One of the nice things of 'staying in the wild' is the early morning experience.

This is the view we had this morning around 7:30:





After breakfast we decided to stay at this very nice place a bit longer and left after morning coffee. It was just half an hour to the village of Grou. There we tied up in an almost empty guest harbour and did our shopping.

We just had another walk through the village after supper. It's almost completely deserted: the only people we saw were those from the neighbouring boat and the boat next to it.

Grou is a very pretty village, but come the end of the boating season it's probably completely dead.

We'll stay tomorrow, watch the opening of the Dutch parliament on TV and leave for Sneek on Wednesday.

Location:Meersweg,Grou,The Netherlands

Peanster Ee

We are in the middle of Friesland now, tied up on a little jetty on the banks of a lake called "Peanster Ee". It's unlikely that you'll find it on a general map, although Google Earth might to it for you.

We left Langweer after an interesting meeting: someone knocked on the boat who transpired to be one of the previous owners of 'Onbekommerd', he sold it to our friends Ed and Elly in 1993! The world is small indeed: he was lying just outside Langweer with his current ship, which is also a Valkvlet but a bit bigger and recognised Onbekommerd as he walked past to buy his newspaper and walk his dog.

As it was time for a bit of 'tying up in the wild', we decided to go to the lakes around the Frisian city of Grou. Remember that Friesland has 11 cities, which are cities not because of size but because of city rights which were bestowed upon them several centuries ago!

The lakes around Grou are very popular and there was a regatta going on. The boats were passing our mooring place (just a jetty next to a field, no 'facilities' at all) within less that a hundred metres.

Some are quite big traditional yachts:






Others are small versions of that:






And then there is the 12 foot dinghy, an Olympic class in 1928 when the Olympics were held in Amsterdam:






All in all, we had a very enjoyable afternoon, watching all of this.
Night is falling now and it's very quiet. There are a few boats on similar jetties, a few hundred meters away. But apart from that, it's very quiet. Nice!
The plan is to stay here until Monday morning and then move on to Grou itself to get provisions.

Still Langweer, election results are out

I read somewhere that the Dutch often produce surprising election results. The surprise this time was not which party(s) were winning and which were losing, but more the extent. Now I won't go into a full analysis here, but the two parties of which I mentioned in my previous post that they would be the biggest two indeed produced that result, but more extreme than expected: with 41 seats for the (blue) one and 39 for the other (red), it seems that a 'purple' government is unavoidable. But how these two extremes are going to be married with a stable government as a result is a big question. Lots of water, not so much wine. Glad it's not my job!

Back to boating: the weather was not that nice today and as we have shore power, free Internet and a nice village on the doorstep, we decided to stay in Langweer for another day. Tomorrow promises something a bit better and we plan to move on and find a place 'in the wild'.

Election day

Instead of posting just another travel story (we are in Langweer, by the way), I thought I'd tell you a bit about the elections we have here today. It's a general election for the lower house of parliament, the 'Tweede Kamer'. Normally, these should take place once every 4 years, but the (coalition) government fell well short of two years in office, in April. Now 5 months seem a long time to wait with holding new elections, but apparently having holidays was more important than getting a government sorted out, so today is the day.
Lyn and I , being Dutch citizens, could actually vote but as the registration process only started early May, our itinerant existence has stood in the way of us registering to exercise our electoral privilege.
Elections here are interesting to say the least. The electoral system, the political landscape and some strange influences on voting behaviour will ensure that the country will end up with a government which few (if any) of its 12.7 million voters actually want, which - I respectfully suggest - is strange in a democracy!
What makes me say this and why?
The short answer is: "an overdose of coalition politics". The country has 21 parties contesting the 150 seats in the lower house today. Thanks to the proportional representation system, of those, 10 are currently represented in parliament, it seems likely that there will be 11 this time around. With this number of parties, it is unavoidable that no single party will get the 76 seats required for a majority so there is a need for a coalition of two or more parties. Now the latest polls (more about polls later), suggest that the two largest parties will get around 35 or 36 seats each, so even those can't form a majority government (the fact that they are very unlikely bedfellows - at least when looking at their manifestos - does not help here at all: think like making a conservative - labour coalition in Britain!). So we need more than two parties, maybe three, four or more. With possibly very small (2 seats) parties as 'kingmakers'. Now here, like everywhere, a political party likes nothing more than being in government, so they will be willing to give up quite a lot of their 'principles' to rule. So much so, that a coalition of those uneasy bedfellows I mentioned is far from unlikely! They just call it 'purple' (what you get when you mix red and blue) and it does not sound as outlandish anymore!
So there you have it: a government that no-one really wants in a very robust democracy!
I read this morning, that 40% of voters still did not know what to vote when they got up this morning. Yet, the parties all published quite detailed and clear manifestos some weeks ago. So it should be possible (if not easy) to make a pretty well founded decision. But it appears that 'what a party stands for' (the manifesto) is not all that important. For the last two weeks, there has been a barrage of interviews (sometimes more like interrogations) and televised debates, which appears to have more influence on the voters than the substance of the party policies. After all, these 'shows' highlight only some of the more crowd-pleasing issues. The polls (there are 4 polling bureau's, which in the last few weeks have published their findings every few days) show sometimes very significant shifts. This appears partly due to the results of the debates and partly as 'poll feedback': many not too well informed voters believe that a party that does well in a poll must be 'a good party'.
Now a lot of the above is - only a little bit - tongue in cheek, but maybe Churchill had a point when he said that 'the best argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter'.

We eagerly await the outcome tomorrow. It should be announced sometime during the morning: they use the 'red pencil' voting method and not the 'voting machines', which slows down the counting process a bit.
Then we'll know the composition of the 'Tweede Kamer'. But not of the government itself of course: there will be an awful lot of horse trading required to cobble together a coalition. It seems to be generally expected to take up to three months to complete that process!
In the meantime, next Tuesday is 'budget day', together with the annual opening of parliament and the Queen's speech from the throne.
As the reason for the fall of the previous government was their inability to agree on a budget that satisfied the EU requirement of a shortfall of 3% or less, the budget had to be put together by a 'temporary coalition' (which succeeded to do this in a remarkable short period of a week). But if this 'temporary coalition' has no majority in the new parliament, we may enter even more interesting times......!

Location:Bast-Bakkerpaad,Langwarder Wielen,The Netherlands

Life on Langepôlle

We stayed on Langepôlle today. The weather was not great, but we did not have a lot of rain and in the afternoon the sun made an appearance. That gave us some fairly typical Dutch landscapes:





Lyn did a lot of work on the 'maths module' of the educational programme. I just read (Dickens) and started to think and plan about next year's voyage.

It's pretty quiet on the island tonight, apart from us there are only three boats. Last night there were a lot of kids from some sort of sailing camp who had a lot of fun, but they have left.

Of course we have a sunset to share:





The plan is to go to Langweer tomorrow. The fourth boat has just arrived...

Langehoekspôlle - into Fryslân

Yesterday was a perfect summers day, unusual for September. Sunshine, little wind and around 25C. We had friends from my high school / university days for tea and later drinks, which was very nice!

This morning, the weather was already changing. We did our shopping and left Hindeloopen after midday so that we would get to the lock at Workum after the lockkeeper's lunch break. As we entered the channel to Workum, you could see that the wind had picked up quite a lot:





We worked our way through the lock and bridges of Workum and tied up on an island between the Fluessen and the Heegermeer. The island is called 'Langehoekspôlle'. It's just a mooring place, organised by an outfit called 'Marrekrite' which sets up moorings 'in the wild' all over the province of Fryslân (which is Frisian for 'Friesland').





It's blowing quite hard now and as I write this, I can see the clouds of the cold front appearing in the distance. It's predicted that we'll have more autumn-like weather, the next few days.

Hindeloopen

We had a great trip to Hindeloopen, a beautiful late summer day, with little wind and plenty of sun. As it is Saturday as well, the IJsselmeer was full of boats, especially near popular harbours like Stavoren and Hindeloopen.
We passed the characteristic church tower of Hindeloopen shortly before arriving there:





We had planned well to get there relatively early (around 2pm), we knew it would get busy later. This is what the 'old harbour' looked like just before sunset:





And although we have posted quite a few 'sunset pictures' (Lyn's speciality!), this one is not to be missed, we think:





We'll stay here tomorrow, the forecast is for more good weather. To get into Friesland through the lock, either at Stavoren or Workum on a Sunday after such a nice weekend is going to be stressful and time consuming. So we'll do that on Monday, when schools and work have absorbed all the boaters!

Still Urk

As the weather seemed to be better to stay than to leave (sunny and a bit windy) and we have plenty of time and plenty to do, we decided to spend another day in Urk.
It's clear that summer is drawing to an end, the weather is nice at the moment but the days are getting shorter, it's a bit cooler all around and the forecast for next week looks not as good as it is now.

But we had a productive day, with some work on the boat. Lyn also worked on her educational programme and played the piano for a few hours in the afternoon.

Here are a few Urk pictures we took last night:










Tomorrow, the forecast is ideal for our last 'big water' trip of the season, probably to Hindeloopen.

Urk

A four hour trip, first the Zwolle-IJssel Kanaal, then down the IJssel and over the Ketelmeer to the IJsselmeer brought us to Urk, which was an island until it was connected to the mainland by a dike in 1939 and became part of the Noord-Oost polder in 1941.

We quite like Urk, it still has a little bit of the 'island atmosphere'. We treated ourselves to a meal of mussels and chips tonight and will stay here tomorrow.

Now that we have still three weeks to go, and would be able to get to Franeker (the winter storage / maintenance destination) in a day or two (if we had to), we finally seem to have found a bit more of 'inner peace' and find it easier to stay a bit longer in one place. We have already promised ourselves to time our life a bit better for next year's trip. It of course also helps that we now know how long (or short!) it takes to get from the Baltic 'back home'.

An outing

We are in Zwolle, but today we went on an 'outing'.
Took the train to Zutpen and then to a small station called Klarenbeek.
Good friends of ours, the crew of the 'Waterbufvel' which accompanied us on the 'German Wadden' part of the trip, have recently bought a house in Empe and Klarenbeek is the nearest station. We admired the new house in very nice rural surroundings and had a nice lunch:





The weather was very nice and it is predicted to continue like that for the next few days, including the weekend as well!

Our plan is to leave Zwolle tomorrow and head for Urk. That's on the IJsselmeer; by now we need a bit of 'bigger water' after all the canals.
We'll slowly move to Friesland, still over three 'Onbekommerd weeks' to go!

A weekend in Meppel: Picnic in the park

We have spent the weekend in Meppel. It's a really pleasant little provincial town. Now that the season is drawing to an end, the harbour in the town centre is very quiet (we actually are the only boat in the town harbour proper, that is BEHIND the lock which after 1 September does not operate on Sundays).
But yesterday, Saturday, there was market and the town centre was buzzing. And one of the two windmills was in operation.

We spent the weekend doing some useful / important stuff: We finished the photo book of this year's trip, which can now be sent to the printers in London as soon as we have good, reliable Internet. We can then collect the finished product when we are in the UK at the end of the month. And we did some 'boat stuff', maintenance and touching up some paintwork. The hull is filthy after the German canals and that still needs a good clean!

Today was the annual 'Picnic in the Park' event. Of course if you're Dutch, you go on your bike:

It was not far for us, so we walked.
Families having a proper picnic on their blankets, a band with 'traditional' Dutch music, canoes on the lake for which everyone queued up without pushing and shoving, it was all really nice family entertainment.

It's the second time we have been here, and we just like it: small enough to have a 'village atmosphere' but big enough to have enough 'going on'.
Tomorrow, the lock operates between 9 and 10 am, we'll be on our way, off to Zwolle then.

No paradise at the lock

Yesterday, I reported that we were headed for 'Paradise Lock' (Paradijssluis). Well, we are in Meppel. So what happened?
We left the little guest harbour in Assen at 8 sharp as it was literally a few metres from the first bridge, which was supposed to start operating at 8. Indeed, about 5 minutes later, the bridge keeper arrived and we were on our way. Unfortunately, the weather was quite a bit worse than the last few days and there were occasional rain showers and quite a bit of wind. The 'Drentse Hoofdvaart' is not bad, but it has a busy road running along it. On the other hand, the (many) bridges operate very smoothly and the people operating them are very friendly. There are also quite a few locks (a total of 7 today) and we were by ourselves in every one of them.
By half past three, we got to the Paradise Lock. Now we were here last year as well, and made a note on the chart which suggested it would be a nice place to stop. We even had a picture of it:





But the reality today was different: the noise from the road was more than we remembered and the mooring places were occupied by a few old, rusty unoccupied boats (we have seen this a few times in the Netherlands now: free mooring places, intended for tourists, being used to long-term store old barrels). So as it was not all that late, we decided to move on to Meppel. Now Meppel is about to close down for winter (from tomorrow, 1 September, the lock into the town only operates on weekdays and then only 3* 1 hour slots a day), but it's a very nice town so we took the same place underneath the windmill as we had last year:





This, by the way, is last year's photo!

We'll stay here until Monday, so there might not be a blog post tomorrow.

Near Assen

We are two days further.
From the Zuidlaardermeer, we went to Groningen, the capital city of the province with the same name. A lot of people like Groningen, but it does not do a lot for us. Difficult to put your finger on, but a combination of noisy (in the harbour) and dirty (like - sorry to say - so many Dutch cities).

This morning we set off in a Southerly direction, the Noord Willems Kanaal and the Drentse Hoofdvaart. As there are quite a few bridges plus some locks, the progress is slow and more then six hours after leaving Groningen, we are just past Assen (well, actually in a small 'guest harbour' in one of Assen's outskirts. Some 17 nmiles in 6 hours, that's really slow! But the weather is agreeable and the scenery is nice, so who cares?
Tomorrow, we'll continue in the same vain; I have counted over 25 bridges plus 4 locks to our intended next destination, the Paradise Lock. Sounds inviting, doesn't it?
More tomorrow.

Another record?

When I switched on the GPS this morning, I was surprised to see that we were at 7degrees East of Greenwich. I know that the German island of Juist is at 7 degrees, there is a plaque in the marina to show that. But a place in the Netherlands? But of course the GPS does not lie and looking at the map, I found that we were close to the most Eastern point of the country. Never too old to learn!

But that's by-the-by, today we set off from Musselkanaal to the Zuidlaardermeer, a lake near the town of Groningen. Not a particular long trip, about 35 Km, but the significant fact is that we had to pass 59 bridges (of which 56 had to open for us) and 7 locks! That certainly is a record for us. As soon as we left the guest harbour at Musselkanaal, a small convoy of three boats was established. For the first three hours, the bridge- and lock keepers coordinated everything and we passed the first 5 locks and 25 bridges. Then it was lunch break, and at 1pm, our private two (!) bridge / lock operators reported for duty for the second part of the trip:





There they are, on their scooters. They stayed with us and operated the next 34 bridges and 2 locks, just for us three boats:






Of course during the locking procedures you get the chance to chat a bit and so we found that they do this up to 4 times a day and get up to 100 boats through the canal on a busy day. But today there only had been 3 boats ahead of us. And the 'convoy' on the way back (their last 'trip' of the day) appeared to consist of only one boat! After two and a half hours, we emerged into the Zuidlaardermeer. It was in all quite a tiring day: as the canal is both narrow and shallow (1.2 m), Onbekommerd has a displacement of 10 tonnes and the bridge operators urged us to go faster than one really should, the boat 'sucks' itself close to the bottom of the canal with the result that it needs a lot of heavy steering corrections. Add to that a few very sharp turns to be negotiated and you have a lot of effort on the steering wheel, which is unusual as normally Onbekommerd required very little steering corrections!

We'll sleep well, tonight.

Back 'home'

It's difficult for us to say what's 'home'. We love Cape Town and it's probably our first 'home'. And after a year in London, we were quite happy to call it 'home' too, we really love that city! But for us on 'Onbekommerd', the Netherlands is definitely 'home'. So although we really enjoyed Denmark and will go back there next year and are ok with Germany too, we were happy to cross the Dutch border just before midday today:





The day started when we entered the Haren - Rüttenbrock canal at 9:





It's a nice canal (apart from the busy road on the port side). You form a small convoy (in our case 3 boats) in the first lock and after that the further 2 locks and 10 bridges are ready for you. Well organised!

At the Dutch border, the convoy gets re-established (in our case after the 12 to 1 lunch break) and you move through a whole lot more bridges and locks, some of which are manually operated!





This plethora of locks and bridges, plus the maximum speed of 6 Km/hr in the canals makes for slow progress, which meant that we got as far as Musselkanaal, instead of Stadskanaal which is about 10 Km down the road.

But we are in a nice guest harbour here, close to our first Dutch supermarket where we immediately bought 'koffiemelk', 'stroopwafels', 'ontbijtkoek' and 'kano's', the latter being Lyn's latest crave!

On past Stadskanaal tomorrow. We have a vague plan and see where we'll end up.

Location:Havenkade,Musselkanaal,The Netherlands

Last stop in Germany

Yesterday, we did the Küstenkanal. That is about 60 Km from Oldenburg (on the Hunte) to Dörpen (on the Dortmund - Ems Kanal). It's a pretty boring exercise: mostly as straight as an arrow, with just trees on either side and a noisy road behind the trees. The water is dirty, it's like moving through a green soup with solid bits in it. No wonder that the inlet strainer for the cooling water for the exhaust got blocked. Fortunately, this happened near the only small marina on the canal, 10Km from Dörpen, where we stopped to clean the strainer. On the Baltic, the water was crystal clear, you could see the bottom of the boat every day. The strainer was sometimes blocked by jellyfish or by seaweed although only once as bad as here (with jellyfish, in Troense).
The yacht club in Dörpen was full, as it was the day of the annual 'Hafenfest' (harbour party). But the friendly harbour master found us a place next to another guest boat. Once the kids going wild on little inflatables were done (when it got dark, actually), the party noise was not bad at all. It is getting dark quite early now, in comparison to 2 months ago in Denmark. Then we had light until close to 11pm, now we have the light on before 8!
This morning we set off relatively early, but the lock keeper at the first lock was not very helpful and made us wait for an hour:

The men in charge of the next two locks, now on the Dortmund - Ems Kanal were much more obliging. Also, this canal (actually a canalised part of the river Ems) is more attractive and not as dirty. By 2:10 we tied up in the quiet but well equipped marina at Haren (that's Haren in Germany, not the one in the Dutch province of Groningen). We are currently using the washing machine and tumble drier flat out!
Tomorrow, we will enter the Haren - Rüttenbrock Kanal and get back into the Netherlands. As always, that requires a SIM card change which may or may not be possible tomorrow. So if there is no blog post tomorrow, you know the reason!

Up another river

The harbourmaster at Elsfleth told us that the best time to leave to get up the Hunte with the tide would be one and a half hour after low tide. It's quite surprising that quite far from the sea, the effect of the tide is still so significant: the tidal difference at Elsfleth is 3.2m and the tidal current on the Hunte up to 3 knots!

Anyway, as low tide was at 14:15, we had lost the entire day to kill at Elsfleth. That's not easy, as it is not exactly the 'centre of the universe'. This is the main shopping street on a Friday morning (which is also market day...):





But we did find a good supermarket. And the facilities of the 'harbour' (actually just a mooring jetty along the river) were good. So not a bad place for an overnight stop only.

Once we got under way, we passed the 'Gorch Fock', a nice and quite well known square rigger:





We are now in Oldenburg, in the 'Stadthafen', very near the old town. As almost always, the harbourmaster is very friendly and helpful.

Tomorrow we will 'do' the Küstenkanal, which is known to be long (60 Km) and boring but the best / quickest / shortest / only way apart from the East Frisian islands to get back to Holland.

Stuck in the mud?

The plan was to leave Bremerhaven at low tide today. That was at 12:15. So in the morning, we went to buy bread rolls and a few other necessities. And when we got back to the boat at 11:30, the tide was so low that we were stuck! Even the river Geeste had almost dried up:





That was a bit of a surprise, we did not think that the water would get THAT low. No problem, we just waited and by 1:30 we were afloat again.
Now we still needed to get some diesel. As we had not filled up since Helsingør, it was not a little bit: we took 314 litres! The filling station is - at low tide - quite a bit higher than the boat, so they hand you the hose suspended on a rope:





Once the boat's thirst had been satisfied, we left Bremerhaven and went up the Weser. Initially it was a bit busy, with ferries, tugs and pilot boats but it quieted down after a while.
Our original plan had been to go to Oldenburg, but as it was later than planned we decided to call it a day at Elsfleth. This is where the river Hunte meets the river Weser. For pleasure craft ('sportboote') there is a jetty with power points and water right on the river. When the harbour master came to collect his €12, he told us to switch the anchor light on at night. That's a first for us, but of course we complied:





A bit later, a big barge arrived to tie up behind us:





Not a bad idea to have the anchor light on to ensure you are spotted!

Hello, anybody there?

Of course the problem with a blog is that it's a bit one-way traffic. You write things, but you don't really know if people read them. Yes, we have a 'stats' feature on blogspot which tells us how many page views there were and from which countries, but there is not a lot of detail!
Yesterday I issued a little challenge and I only got ONE response (by email, that was nice to get!). So who is actually reading this??
Now the challenge is still open: what does that sign mean? Answers via email (for those who know my email address) or via 'comments'.

We are now in Bremerhaven. The second half of the Geeste was very quiet, we saw two other boats. When we got out of the lock at Bremerhaven, we were back on tidal water. It was just past low tide and the river looked very different from when we left here on 16 June. The wooden structures you can see in the picture were under water then. The 'prikken' (the wooden branches to mark the underwater obstruction) are just visible, tied onto the wooden 'frames'. You have no idea what's under the surface!





Tomorrow, we'll have our final tidal stretch, up the Weser and the Hunte to Oldenburg. We'll leave Bremerhaven at low tide, around noon and let the current help us up the rivers.

The 'highway' back to Holland

At 8 this morning we entered the lock in Otterndorf (not that we wanted to leave early, but there is a tidal restriction to that lock). We were the last boat in (out of seven) and all but one were Dutch! On my way to the lock keeper's office to pay the canal dues, I remarked on this to one of the other Dutch skippers, who suggested that we could sing the 'Wilhelmus' (the Dutch National Anthem).






The reason for this concentration of Dutch boats is that this canal (actually part of what is called the 'Elbe - Weser waterway) is part of the main inland route from Holland to the Baltic. Yachts will have to drop their mast, but they avoid the 'German Bight', an area which often has inclement weather. So today we all pottered at 8 Km/hr (the speed limit) down the canal. A few diehards will have done the 62 Km trip in one day, quite a few did what we did: stop in the quiet town of Berdekesa for the night and carry on to Bremerhaven tomorrow.

Lyn has been collecting 'road signs' for her educational programme. Our challenge to you for the day is to tell us what this sign means. Answers in the 'comments' please!

Another circle completed: Otterndorf revisited

The last time we were in Otterndorf, it was the 15th of June, at the start of our Baltic adventure.
We left Hamburg at 6:45 after a restless night in this harbour with lots of waves.
In spite of the early hour, there was quite a bit of traffic in the harbour, especially from the extensive ferry network. Once the main port area was behind us, the ebb current picked up and we were swept down the river at speeds of up to 9.5 knots (our normal 'through the water' speed is just above 6 knots, so quite a bit of tide behind us. The problem is that as you go towards the sea, the source of the tide, you get less 'time with the tide'. To explain this: low tide at Hamburg (our point of departure) today was 14:24. But at Otterndorf (our destination), it was at 10:50, three and a half hours earlier! Now generally speaking, once you pass the moment of low tide, the water starts flowing up the river again. So you 'miss' over three hours of this lovely ebb current. Anyway, soon after passing Brünsbüttel, the tide changed as expected and for the last two hours we only did around 3.5 knots over the ground!
That still got us into Otterndorf at 2pm. Over seven hours, but we covered a record 50.3 (nautical) miles. Not that we try to break long distance records, but the Elbe does not have a lot of convenient harbours to stop.
The stretch between 10 and 12am was also a bit influenced by a 12 knot Westerly wind appearing. The wind against the tidal current produces a nasty short and steep chop, which caused Onbekommerd to pitch quite a bit. Good that we had 'prepared the cabin' as we always do on open water!

We tied up in front of a Dutch motorboat and went over for a chat. It turned out that the crew consists of a really nice couple in their 80's! They have been going to the Baltic for over 30 years, so don't expect us to stop soon!

Tomorrow we'll go through the tidal lock here around 8am. About 4 or 5 hours to Bad Berdekesa though a nice canal. We are already looking forward to the smoked eel from the best fish smoking outfit in Northern Germany!

Sorry, no pictures today. The Internet connection is quite slow.

Summer is here! Into Hamburg

We have been quite happy with the weather, the past few months. Many people around us, Danes and Dutch especially, have been complaining. But really, we have not had a lot of rain, when the wind was too strong, it was never for more than two days and it has not been cold.
Now however, summer has really struck. The last three days have been sunny and increasingly hot, with 34C today. So we have all windows, the roof and all three sides of the cockpit tent open. And we are in summer wear:





Yesterday, we finished the Elbe - Lübeck Canal and got to Lauenburg, today we went down the Elbe to Hamburg. Now I need to talk a bit about German 'boat drivers', especially motor boats. We get on well with the Germans we speak to on a one-to-one basis. They are friendly, courteous and accept our attempts at their language gracefully. But if you put a few of them behind the wheel of a boat, beware!
First case: you may remember from the previous post that they have a 'convoy system' in place in the Elbe - Lübeck canal. That means that when you get out of the lock, you all calmly move at the maximum speed to the next lock in sort of an orderly fashion, right? WRONG! What you do is when you get out of the lock, try to get to the front of the convoy so that you can get the best place in the next lock. By the way, there is NO 'best place'. The lock is big enough to accommodate all of us comfortably. The result however is that the whole convoy goes FASTER than the maximum speed. The keeper of the next lock knows at what time the convoy is expected (the lock keepers communicate) and he'll keep his lock closed until the appointed time. So now the whole convoy wants to tie up, to wait for the lock.... But wait, there is not a lot of space to tie up in front of the lock and we all want the BEST place (which does not exist). So lots of aggro. Not for us, we move at the maximum speed, get to the lock last, see all the moving for position in front of us, move into the lock last, find a good place and smile at the people. We are 'ONBEKOMMERD'.
Second case: it's a nice, warm, summer Sunday. So all of Hamburg is out on the Elbe. In their big, fast, motorboats. No speed limit (this is after all also the country with no speed limit on lots of motorways). "I'll show you that my boat is faster than yours". Lots of boats going fast nowhere and back. The waves on the river are bigger than on many a crossing in the Baltic.
So the German motorboat skippers as a group have not endeared themselves to us. We'll see how it goes the next week or two on our way back to Holland. But if this is a taste of what's to come, visiting Berlin in the future will be by train.....

As we left Lauenburg early-ish this morning, it was still quiet on the river. We followed the channel, which is indicated by markers on the shore:




When you see one of those, it's time to cross to the other bank.

By 10:30 we got to the big lock at Geesthacht, only to see the lights go to red about 2 minutes before we got there. I quickly called the lock master on the VHF to ask politely if could still join, but he wanted nothing of that. So almost 2 hours later we got into the lock with 3 big commercial ships and another 5 or so pleasure craft (sportboote, they call us):





That seriously messed up our route plan, now we had the tide against us for the last 10 miles or so and could only make 4.5 instead of 7.5 knots over the ground.

When we got to Hamburg, this ship was also there:






But they were worried we had pirates on board:





Anyway, we are tied up in the Hamburg City Marina after a long and hectic day. The marina is ideally situated if you want to visit either the city centre or the red light district (Reeperbahn), neither of which we want to do. Otherwise, up till now, it's noisy and because it's right in the harbour without any protection, the boat is rolling as if we are at sea. Really, we have partly prepared the boat for a crossing whilst we are in port!

The plan is to leave early tomorrow, by 7 at the latest, on the outgoing tide and see if we can make Otterndorf. If not, there is a plan B as well, Glückstadt.

Location:Baumwall,Hamburg,Germany