This is "Onbekommerd"!

Friday, May 31, 2013

Onbekommerd to the rescue! Pilots and heavy traffic. Rendsburg

This is the first post in a few days which is going to be sent straight away after I write it as we now have nice WiFi Internet! So you would need to page back about three posts (to the one about the mist) in order to truly appreciate our adventurous life (and adventurous it has been!).

We left Otterndorf at 6 this morning as planned. For a change it was nice and sunny, the wind was 4bft from the North. The last of the incoming tide took us to the lock at Brunsbüttel at a speed of 8 knots. Not much traffic, but this was the biggest one!





The wait for the lock was short, which was a bonus as you have to wait whilst floating free on the river. Not a problem today as it was very sheltered and the tide had almost run out, but sometimes it can be quite uncomfortable! We were in the lock at 8 and on our way again half an hour later, having enjoyed our breakfast in the lock!
After the lock, you are in the 'Nord-Ost See Kanal', also called the Kiel canal as that is where it ends. It's a total of 100KM, so theoretically it could be done in a day, but most people stop in Rendsburg, about two thirds of the way up. There are no locks and the bridges are 40m or more high! There is always something happening: ferries crossing, spectacular bridges to be seen, big ships passing. But today we had two new experiences: around noon, a fancy racing yacht just ahead of us steered too close to the shore of the canal and ran aground! When we approached a few minutes later, the (German) crew asked in English if we could give them a pull (do Germans only speak English to the Dutch when they are in trouble? We don't know..). Of course we obliged and a very easy pull later they were afloat again. Sorry, no picture as we were too busy!
The traffic in the canal is very tightly monitored and controlled. The big ships have pilots and there are intricate traffic light systems, telling them (and us) what to do.

Halfway the canal, they change the 'West' pilot for the 'East' pilot:






Pleasure craft like us can almost always proceed unhindered, only the 'three red lights' signal tells you to wait at a 'Weiche', a place where big ships can pass or overtake. This 'three red' signal is very rare, but look:





A relatively big ship was coming from the other side, three others wanted to pass him and there were three big ones going our way. Add a handful of pleasure craft and you get this:





We were held for probably about 45 minutes, floating on the side of the canal.

Finally, just before the turnoff for the town of Rendsburg, there is the famous 'hanging ferry'. This is suspended from a railway bridge. Quite amazing!





After over 8 hours on the water we tied up in Rendsburg. Good Internet and still nice weather. Tomorrow, we'll move on, enter the Baltic at Kiel-Holtenau and continue three more miles to Laboe. We'll probably spend Sunday there as well as it might be a bit windy for the first Baltic crossing to Schleimünde and Monday looks good!

Location:Rendsburg

Things are seldom as you expect them to be. Part 2

Although I know these posts are not being sent, thanks to the pathetic Vodafone nl systems (it now won't allow me to activate a foreign databundle although there is plenty of money in the account), I am continuing to write these posts. Once we have WiFi, I'll send them to the blog in the correct order.
Well, we are in Otterndorf. So if you have read the previous post, that means that the low (railway) bridge was high enough. Yes, it was. Here is the story:
During the night it rained a bit, so we were a bit apprehensive about the water level when we woke up. But if anything it had dropped a bit. Good!
We left around 9:30 to be at the lock when it opened at 13:30. As we proceeded in grey weather, the current became stronger and stronger and we had to slow down the engine all the time to keep within the speed limit. We passed under some bridges and Lyn took the measuring tape and found that all of these gave us 40cm clearance or more. Not that this really helped, as we did not know how their nominal height compared to the 2.70 of the critical bridge. Finally (after 24KM) the bridge came in sight. We had taken the searchlight and the GPS antenna off to get to the lowest possible profile and..... the scale on the bridge showed about 2.80m... We passed under it with about 50cm to spare (which we don't understand as from previous experiences we believe we are about 2.45 high). Anyway, we were now on the correct, North side of the bridge. The explanation is that they were letting water out at such a high rate that a level profile had been built up in the canal, which also explains the unusually strong current. A canal, behaving like a river!
Not long afterwards, we arrived at the Otterndorf lock. There were already three boats waiting, one of them at least as high as we are. They told us that they have been up and down the canal twice in the past three days, waiting for the water to drop. As they are 'locals' (their boat is kept in one of the small harbours on the canal), they know this occurrence, its not the first time 'the canal plays up' after heavy rains. This was confirmed by the Ottendorf harbour master too. He reckons that they have already had enough rain for the year (scientifically measured by how often he has to empty the water from his little harbour runabout boat).
Our plan now is to leave at 6am tomorrow on the last of the incoming tide. Do the 9 miles upstream on the Elbe to Brunsbüttel where we enter the 'Kiel Canal'. This is 100KM long and brings us to the Baltic at Kiel. But tomorrow, we'll go as far as Rendsburg, which is a bit over half way the canal. Hopefully we'll have Internet there and I can upload these last three posts!


Location:Otterndorf

Things are seldom as you expect them to be!

We left Feddewardersiel as planned at first light, at 4:45 this morning. Although it was overcast and grey, the visibility was good and we easily navigated our way along the 'prikken' and emerged in the river Weser a bit over an hour later. Earlier we had seen (and heard on the VHF) lots of big shipping movements on the river, but when we got there it was very quiet. As we had known, we were now moving against the outgoing tide. That was quite a nuisance as - by the time we got to the Bremerhaven container quay - the current was between 3 and 4 knots against us and we were at times making less than 3 knots over the ground! Eventually we turned into the river Geeste, the way from the Weser to the Elbe. Still overcast and some rain. There is a lock just outside Bremerhaven and once we managed to prise the lockkeeper away from his phone, we were on our way again. The next lock (called Lintig) is a self- operated one and in the past there was no difference in the level: one door closes and the other opens and you're on your way again. So we were surprised that there was a significant surge and the water lever increased, possibly by about 30cm.. A bit later we got to our destination for the day, Berdekesa. Here we found that the jetties are lower than they usually are.





A talk with the harbour master confirmed that the level in the canal is higher than usual because of the rain. Now why this preoccupation with water levels you may well ask. Well, about 25 KM further there is a railway bridge with a normal clearance of 2.70m. We are 2.50m high, with the mast, radar and searchlight down. So we'll have an interesting moment when we get to that bridge tomorrow. Since we have been here, the water level has dropped by say 15cm (good!) and then risen again by 10 (bad!).

The backdrop to this is that according to the harbour master the level was 60cm above normal last week and the jetties were well under water!

Because of the Internet situation, I plan to upload this post tomorrow morning before we leave. If the next one comes from Otterndorf, all is well. If not, we are 'up the creek' (but still in good health and spirits as such is adventure on Onbekommerd).

Location:Berdekesa

Hatchling! Big lock! Mist! Feddewardersiel!

We were very pleased this morning to see that the couple who have their nest on the pole next to the boat had a happy occasion overnight! Meet a very small fluffy ball, hope you can see it:





Of course the parents were even more stressed about our presence than yesterday and they must have been very relieved when we left.

We had booked a 12:30 spot in the lock. Not that it was going to be full, but it is so big that it does not normally operate for a pleasure craft only. There also was a tug going out and the lock authority kindly called us on the VHF to ask if we still wanted to go. When I say 'big lock', this is what I mean:





No, that's not the harbour, here we are tied on inside the lock (nice floating jetties, so easy work!).

Once outside, the conditions were perfect: sunny and very little wind. After an hour and a half we entered the 'prikken route' (see an earlier post for an explanation of 'prikken'):





Shortly after that, a very sudden and unpredicted mist descended. And soon it was so thick that you could only just see the next 'prik'. Thank goodness that the Germans are MUCH better in setting up prikken than the Dutch: close together and quite well visible. We slowly made our way from one prik to the next, but were unhappy to carry on to the river Weser, which is very big and busy with large container ships. So the option was either anchoring until the mist lifted (and wait for the next tide) or try to find the little harbour of Feddewardersiel, where we stopped last year. Using the track in the plotter from last year, the few visible prikken and the radar, we found the harbour relatively easily. So there we are, safely tied up in a harbour which is going to fall dry tonight. The mist has now lifted. Our plan is to leave at first light tomorrow morning (4:30), half an hour before high tide. Then go into the river Geeste at Bremerhaven and carry on to Berdekesa, halfway Otterndorf on the Elbe (you may need a good map by now!).
Who said life on board is boring? Not us!

Location:Feddewardersiel

Monday, May 27, 2013

Two busy days!

We are now in Wilhelmshaven, a German port on the Jade. It has been a busy two days since the last update!
We left Delfzijl early (7:15) on Sunday morning. The wind was 4 to 5 Bft, increasing. The first hour or so was a bit 'bumpy', but as soon as we were in the lee of the German coast it became quite comfortable. The shortest way in distance would have been to go through the big lock in Emden but we have had an experience of a 4 hour wait before there as they will not operate the lock for pleasure craft alone, you have to share with a commercial vessel. Also, there is a railway bridge in Emden which only operates once every hour and a half. So we continued to the much smaller lock at Oldersum, for which we only waited about 15 minutes. After that it was two more locks and a few more bridges to Aurich. In total it was a trip of just under 8.5 hours!

As we were now in Germany, the German courtesy flag was hoisted:






As it was my birthday, we had a perfect excuse not to cook but to eat on shore in a restaurant at the Aurich harbour. After that, an early night!

This morning an 8am start for the trip through the Ems - Jade canal to Wilhelmshaven. There are 4 locks and 13 bridges on this stretch (apart from 20 bridges which do not need to (and cannot) be opened. But there is a wonderful system, where one lock/ bridge keeper moves with you from one bridge (or lock) to the next one. You on your boat and he in his car. The effect is that the next bridge is usually open when you arrive and you don't even have to slow down! As the roads are small and quiet, the inconvenience to traffic is minimal. The bridges are often hand operated and there are no signals - lights or otherwise - to tell you when you can go. Very informal, especially for Germany!

Here is one of the hand operated bridges with the keeper:



Finally, after 7 hours (there is an 8Km/h speed limit on the canal), we got to Wilhelmshaven. This little bird awaited us on the jetty and was clearly displeased with our arrival:






It appears that she has her nest with eggs on the pole right next to Onbekommerd:





Every time we get off the boat, she walks along the jetty, away from her nest, trying to lead you away. I went ashore to see the harbour master and the poor thing ran ahead of me, all the way along the jetty to the shore. And the next time again.

Tomorrow, the forecast is excellent for a trip to Bremerhaven over the 'Wad'. The tide conditions are that we can only leave around noon or a bit later. As it is probably a 5 hour trip, we'll only be in Bremerhaven late afternoon. But with the sun setting close to 10pm, that's no problem at all!

Location:Wilhelmshaven

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Ready to go 'abroad'

We did the last "Dutch stretch" today, 15 miles from Groningen to Delfzijl. Although the Eemskanaal is straight and boring, there were a few colourful moments on the way. Look at these rape seed fields:

We managed to hook onto a convoy of yachts all wanting to get through the lock at Delfzijl. When the eight of us came around the corner, the lockkeeper quickly decided to use the big lock instead of the small one he had been planning on. This way we all fitted in.
Delfzijl is a real 'sea harbour', very different from what we have seen in the last 6 weeks and a bit overpowering if its your first time. But, having been here last year as well, we knew exactly where between all the big ships to find the yacht harbour:


There was an interesting story when I went to pay the harbour master today: The person in front of me was the skipper of a boat from Finland. So I said: "you are a long way from home". "No", he replied, "we are almost home". It turned out they are on the way back home from a trip to Southern Turkey! So there are a lot of places for us to go to still....

We are now safely tucked away and it's raining again.. Also very cold, so the heater is on. Yet, we hope to leave tomorrow at low tide (7am) and get the incoming tide to help us up the river Eems. We will then enter Germany, either at Emden or at Oldersum, depending a bit on the operation of the large lock at Emden (two years ago we waited there for 4 hours...).
From a blogpost point of view, this means that there may well be a break. We have not quite decided yet how to handle our week in Germany from an Internet point of view. Last year we used a one month data bundle, which seems overkill for a week and in addition I would have to find a T-Mobile shop to activate it. The alternative is to use Dutch foreign daily data bundles, which is quite expensive. The solution might be to use a Dutch bundle every second day. Of course there sometimes is WiFi in harbours...
Anyway, time will tell. For family: we are contactable via SMS or phone on my usual Dutch mobile number throughout.

Location:Handelskade West,Delfzijl,The Netherlands

Friday, May 24, 2013

Weather for ducklings?

Two blogposts in one day! I must not get carried away....
We had rather an epic day today, covering 41 nm in almost 7.5 hours. We had not really planned on such a long trip, but along the canal there are not a lot of places to spend the night and the few there were came too early and were sort of 'industrial'. So we decided to move on to Groningen, where we arrived shortly after 5pm.
One factor which supported our decision to carry on was that the weather was reasonable: only partly cloudy with nice sunny spells and no rain (but still cold: the coldest spring since 1962).
So why the title of this post? Well, look who came to have a look at the boat this afternoon:

Aren't they pretty!
But it's not all sun around:

Lots of cloud, but at this moment still no rain.
Tomorrow it's a two to three hour stint to Delfzijl, we pass through the sea lock and are back on tidal water there. If the weather cooperates, we'll cross into Germany on Sunday, but more about those plans tomorrow.

Just a late addition: the steeple in the picture above is known as the 'dronkenmanstoren', a Dutch word meaning: drunk mans tower. This is because from every direction you can see two clock faces simultaneously!
Thanks for emailing and telling us about that, Marinus!

Location:Oosterkade,Groningen,The Netherlands

Traffic on the 'Prinses Margriet Kanaal'

As the time that Heather and Trevor have to return 'Amber' to the charter company was drawing close, we yesterday moved the short distance from Grou to Sneek along the Prinses Margriet canal. This canal is usually quite busy with commercial traffic as it is part of the main drag from Amsterdam and the rest of the West to the northern provinces. So we are used to seeing some pretty big ships, but this was extraordinary:




This large craft only just fitted though the bridge at Aldskou!

In Sneek we filled Onbekommerd's tank with diesel (300 l !), bought oil for an oil change we'll have to do later this summer (20 l), bought a new gas bottle and finally had a farewell supper on shore.

This morning, Heather and Trevor left early'ish to hand the boat back:





They are now en route to Amsterdam by train, we are once again in the Prinses Margriet canal, on our way to Delfzijl which will take two days. From there we will cross into Germany towards the Baltic! More about that later!

Location:Hendrik Bulthuisweg,Sneek,The Netherlands

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

There ís use in complaining!

Instead of going to the 'place in the wild' to spend the night, we decided to go to Grouw (Grou in Frisian) instead because of the poor weather. But, with all the moaning about the weather in the previous posts, there was an improvement today! So - as the title of this post suggests - there ís use in complaining after all!

Grou is quite a nice town (not one of the famous 11 cities) and quite a favourite water sports centre with the youth. In the high season, this place is humming! But it also has an interesting church, dating from around 1150!





Onbekommerd and Amber were nicely tied up in the guest harbour, which is still very quiet:





We had not had an opportunity to introduce Heather and Trevor to the delights of smoked eel, so we took our chance today. This was their initial reaction:





But in the end, the experience was not that bad:





Tomorrow, we'll return to Sneek. On Friday Heather and Trevor will hand Amber back.

Location:Meersweg,Boarnsterhim,The Netherlands

No photos

Strange title for a blogpost? Well, nothing wrong with the camera. And Lyn is as keen as ever to produce beautiful 'shots'. So why no photos? The story is getting a bit repetitive: its the weather! Yesterday was simply to grey and dark to get anything reasonable outside. We left the 'passantenhaven' in Heerenveen at 9 in a bit of a mist and had the navigation lights on for most of the way to Eernewoude where we are now. When we stopped to wait for the railway bridge in Akkrum (we can pass underneath it, but Amber cannot), there was a couple standing there with 2 grandchildren. They mentioned that they also have a boat and would normally have been on the way a few weeks ago but that they now are waiting at home for better weather. Anyway, nothing we can do about it. The heater is working overtime, we are all in good spirits and surely summer will arrive one day (but if someone mentions 'global warming', I may get violent...).
We'll stay here in Eernewoude this morning, do some laundry and some work, and then go to spend the night on the Marrekrite place at Aegehoek, one of our favourites.
Hoping for photos tonight!

Location:Ds. Offerhausweg,Tytsjerksteradiel,The Netherlands

Monday, May 20, 2013

Where was the sun? Cycling. An anniversary. More rain..

The sun, which was promised in every forecast I accessed, did not materialise on Saturday. But it did not rain and it was not really cold, so we had a nice 20KM cycle around Giethoorn.









Yesterday, we moved to Ossenzijl. As it was Heather and Trevor's anniversary, we had celebratory drinks and a nice dinner:









Today we carried on and are now in Heerenveen. Lyn and I have never been here and as its raining (surprise surprise!), we are not planning to do much walking around in the next few hours. The visitors harbour is very small and has no facilities and the town centre is about a kilometre away, it seems. So our expectations are 'moderate'.
In the meantime, the heater is on, the piano has been installed and all is well!

Location:It Rum,Heerenveen,The Netherlands

Saturday, May 18, 2013

A pause in blogposts? Meeting the locals...

Faithful blog followers may have noticed that there were no posts for a few days. The reasons are the poor systems of Vodafone and the poor coverage of their network in the area we are currently in. Without going into a lot of detail: they had taken my €20 but not loaded the data bundle which stopped the iPad from connecting. And the phone signal was so poor that calls to the 'customer service' were dropped. Now we are in Giethoorn, the signal is better and the customer service lady was efficient, agreed with me that I had been cheated out of data and put everything right. So there we are.

When a few days ago I put out the flags, there was an elderly man fishing behind the boat. I politely wished him a good morning and we had a short chat. It transpired that he lived in the house in front of which we were moored and had lived there for over 50 years! When he caught a fish, he gave it to a cat which expectantly was 'hanging around'.









We went off shopping and decided to buy some 'Tompoucen' (these are similar to custard slices) to have with our coffee and invite him too.

That was really a good idea, he turned out to be 90 years old and told us his life story, from being born on a boat in Joure (4th of 13 children!) to going to work age 13, starting his own potato wholesale business (with a brother) and ending up offering boat trips on the barge which he used to transport the potatoes.

After coffee, he went back to the fishing rod and a heron joined, also waning his share of fish!





A heron, it appears, can eat a lot of fish very fast!





We left shortly afterwards and made our way to a place in the sticks near the Driewegsluis, on the border between Friesland and Overijssel.

From there we moved to Blokzijl. It was Queen Máxima's birthday, so the flag plus streamer was flying from the Blokzijl church.





Heather and Trevor are becoming old pro's in handling Amber, here they are tying up as we had to wait for a bridge of which the keeper was on lunch.






We are now in Giethoorn, the 'Venice of the North'. It threatens to be decent weather tomorrow, we need that as certainly for the past 10 days it has been quite dismal: cold, grey and wet. So if all goes to plan, there will be sunny Giethoorn pictures tomorrow!

Location:Vosjacht,Steenwijkerland,The Netherlands

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Sneek once again

To the faithful blog followers is must appear we are always in Sneek. The reason we keep passing through here is twofold, firstly Sneek is very central from a boating perspective, it sort of connects the Northeastern part of Friesland to the Southwestern part. And in addition it's quite good for shopping and going out as it is a biggish regional centre.

From Bolsward it was an easy trip here and we tied up close to the Waterpoort. I won't post yet another picture of that! Once settled, Heather and Trevor took out their bikes:





Looks pretty Dutch doesn't it?

Later they kindly invited us for dinner, but on the way there we first met the harbourmaster who needed to be paid the mooring fees:





We had a lovely meal after that:





After coming home, I did not feel like updating the blog, hence this 'morning post'.

From here we plan to go South, to the next province, Overijssel. The NW part there is very pretty. We'll probably tie up more or less 'in the wild' tonight. I'll report later.

Location:Waterbassin,Sneek,The Netherlands

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Bolsward: meeting an old friend!

We were in Heeg last night, but there was not too much to report, hence this delayed post from Bolsward. Again, the weather stayed dry today, against the forecast. But cold it was, especially the wind! Nevertheless a nice trip, over the 'Heegermeer' and then through some 'sloten' and 'vaarten' through the typical Frisian landscape to Bolsward.





We were in Bolsward during May of last year as well, when we had this extremely curious visitor on board:





She had a good look around, graciously accepted some milk and slept comfortably in our comfy chair. We were a bit concerned that she would ask to accompany us on our further travels.
Before we arrived in Bolsward, we jokingly wondered if she would still be here. Well:





A year later, but just as good looking! I promise that these two pictures were taken a year apart.

After tea we wandered into Bolsward, where it was market day:





Heather is, if anything, even more fond of 'drop' than Lyn, so the drop stall was a great success!





We also acquired a new wok for use on Onbekommerd. Tonight will see its first use for an asparagus (they are in season now) and salmon dish!

Location:Turfkade,Bolsward,The Netherlands

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Sloten

The weather forecast was talking about rain today, but fortunately it remained dry. Having said that, it appears spring and summer have been cancelled. The wind was freezing cold and we were happy that Onbekommerd gives us good shelter. It was relatively sunny though, so we did not use the heater. Well, having exhausted the typical Dutch topic of the weather, what did we do?
In the morning we made and received 'mothers day calls and messages'. After that, a three hour trip took us from Joure to Sloten through a typical Dutch landscape:





Once in Sloten we did a bit of work and after that took a walk through the smallest of the 11 Friesian Cities: around 1000 inhabitants!





We ended up having a drink on an outside terrace! Here are Trevor and I studying the 'beer menu':






We were wrapped in blankets and supplied by the restaurant, the beer / wine and the 'Bitterballen' (typical Dutch bar snack) went down well!

Location:'t Fjildmanspaad,Gaasterlân-Sleat,The Netherlands

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Back on amber

It was in 2005 that the plans to spend some of our time exploring the European waterways were first hatched. We had rented a little boat in Burgundy, France for 10 days and enjoyed it immensely. In 2006 and 2007 we decided to rent a bigger boat in the Netherlands and for a longer time, 2 and 4 weeks respectively, to see if we would really enjoy it. That boat was rented in Sneek and was called 'Amber'. The rest is more or less history: we bought Onbekommerd at the end of the 2009 season and took delivery in March 2010.
Today, we were back on 'Amber'! As mentioned yesterday, Heather and Trevor have rented Amber for two weeks and we started at 9am today imparting some of our experience on them: we were their 'instructors' for an hour. Although the weather was most unaccomodating (wet, grey, windy and cold), they soon got the hang of operating the boat and we set course to Joure in convoy. That's only a short trip, just over an hour. Once tied up we warmed ourselves with some hot tea and explored Joure. This is not one of the 11 Frisian 'Cities', so I can't call it a town or city, officially its called a 'vlecke', but its bigger than some of the official 'cities'.
After our shore trip we congregated on Amber for drinks and supper.





Location:Slachtedyk,Joure,The Netherlands

Friday, May 10, 2013

Headammen and Sneek

After a nice and quiet night on our 'Marrekrite' place, we motored 15 minutes to our good friends who have a summer cottage near the 'Headammen' bridge. We had a wonderful time together and a nice dinner too! We also tried to solve a mysterious problem with the installation of some Swedish charts on our navigation laptop:





In the end we succeeded and were able to quietly look at Onbekommerd, tied up on their private jetty:





This morning we returned to Sneek, to meet up with Heather and Trevor, friends from Cape Town, who have chartered a boat and with whom we will be travelling in convoy for the next two weeks. We met them at the Sneek station and - after a small walk through the Sneek centre and a visit to the supermarket - took them on their first Dutch boat ride. We had dinner together on Onbekommerd; tomorrow they will collect 'Amber', the same boat we chartered in 2007 and 2008. We are looking forward to it, more to follow!

Location:Zwolsmanweg,Sneek,The Netherlands

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Busy, busy!

We were away from the boat yesterday and had a busy morning in Sneek today! We are beginning to stock up for the summer voyage to Sweden. Some things are easier to get here, less expensive or not at all available outside the Netherlands. Last year we were not that organised, but now we have some plastic crates to fill! In addition to that 'extra' shopping there was the normal provisioning to do. And we had some clothes repaired at a 'kleermaker' which had to be collected. Then there was some stuff to do for Lyn's educational business (preparing and sending off workbooks) so all in all it was half past three when we let go the mooring lines and approached the first bridge, next to the famous 'Waterpoort':





As there was supposed to de some emergency in the town, the bridges had to be kept closed for possible emergency traffic (none ever arrived), so the trip through the three bridges which usually takes 10 minutes took 45!
After that, it was a relatively quick trip to the Kromme Ee where we are currently tied up on a very idyllic 'Marrekrite' jetty.
The weather has been almost 'summery' the past few days, but it seems to take a bit of a turn now with less stable weather predicted for the next few days. But it's definitely a lot better than a week or two ago: we have not used the heater for quite some time.
Tomorrow we visit friends who own a summer cottage on the water close to here. On Friday, we have South African friends arriving who have rented a boat and with whom we will travel 'in convoy' for two weeks.

Location:Boarnsterhim,The Netherlands

Monday, May 6, 2013

Sneek

Just a very quick post without a picture. Busy, busy!

We left our 'place in the wild' quite early this morning. In nice sunshine and no wind at all, we motored the 2 hours to Sneek.
Sneek is one of the 11 Frisian Cities and quite a big and lively one too! We like to come here as the shopping for the boat and for us is good. We have a favourite spot, almost under the 'Waterpoort' where we are now tied up. One of the attractions was that this was on the doorstep of one of the yachting shops here, but it has closed down so we had a little walk to another yachting shop as Onbekommerd needed a new fender (one disappeared inexplicably on Terschelling), some long mooring lines (for the locks in Sweden) and some other bits and bobs. Boats are never satisfied....
The shopping for the crew is also good here, there is a big 'Albert Heyn' supermarket close by and we suddenly realised that Lyn in the past bought several items of clothing as well as a pair of shoes here!

Tomorrow, we have some other things to do and will leave the boat for the day and its unlikely that there will be a blog post. More on Wednesday!

Location:Lemmerweg,Sneek,The Netherlands

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Marrekrite

In Friesland there is an organisation called 'Marrekrite', which provides basic facilities (jetties and shore-sides) to tie your boat up and spend the day or night 'in the wild'.





We are currently on one of these 'Marrekrite plaatsen'.





Of course the sunsets (Lyn's speciality) can be quite beautiful:





We may well stay here tomorrow and continue to Sneek on Monday morning.

Location:Kromme Ee.