This is "Onbekommerd"!

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Why the blog suddenly stopped


The last time I wrote on the blog was almost a month ago, in Medemblik. Now I know I have not been all that good in updating this year, but a month? So here is the story:

We left Medemblik and decided to take the inland route to Amsterdam where our next 'appointment ' was. We spent a night at a little jetty near Oudkarspel and continued to Alkmaar the next day. Alkmaar is always enjoyable, not only is it a nice town but the previous owners of Onbekommerd live nearby in Heiloo and we enjoy catching up with them. We had a small but annoying diesel leak at the primary pump and Ed, who knows everyone around Alkmaar, put us in touch with a mechanic who got upside down in the engine compartment and fixed it. Perfect!

Then it was off to Zaandam. Here one finds Dekker Watersport, a very big and well stocked chandler. We needed a small life jacket (more about that later) and also had our own life jackets services. Plus I bought a new depth meter..... A visit to Dekker is never cheap.

Next stop was Amsterdam. Our friends Michael and Annemieke joined us and we had dinner at the 'Mandela huisje' near the harbour. On the Saturday, we expected our niece Rachel, her husband Mathew and their 18 month old daughter Grace. They were to join us for a 4 day 'cruise'. On Friday I decided to step ashore for a shower and I stumbled and hit my side on a railing stanchion with a lot of force. I still don't know what happened, most likely I stepped onto the shore power cable which rolled away making me lose my balance. My left side hurt a lot, so instead of taking a shower I went to bed.
The following morning the pain was still bad, so Lyn went off to fetch our guests from the airport and I started to organise a visit to a doctor to get good painkillers. I called Michael, who took me to the nearby hospital. Without going into the detail of it: they discovered I had 4 fractured ribs and blood in my chest cavity.... No wonder it was painful!
A drain was inserted, morfine prescribed and I spent 3 nights in hospital. Poor Rachel, Mathew and Grace ended up with a floating hotel room, but no cruise.










Lyn visited me daily, getting to and from the hospital by Uber (what a great service) and on the Tuesday I was discharged.

As the hospital wanted me back for a checkup on Thursday the following week, we had to change some of our plans. We visited the boatshow and the next day cruised from Amsterdam to Lelystad and after that to Stavoren. Here we had a 'Cobb' barbecue with Jur and Aafke.




Then on to Woudsend, where Hayo and Maaike live in the old church. We had a crowd of 11 Valk Yacht Club members there and had a great time together.











Then it was a longish trip to Franeker where we left Onbekommerd in the care of the yard where she was built. She will spend the winter there whilst Valk will do some maintenance.

Marinus was kind enough to drive us to Leeuwarden station, this made the train journey to Amsterdam much easier as I could not really carry luggage with my left arm and a minimum of transfers was called for.

After the last checkup at the hospital and some discussions with the travel insurance which insisted I needed an escort (never travel without good insurance!), I was allowed to fly back to Cape Town with a medical doctor next to me!

So that's the story why the blog suddenly ended.

So far for now, till next year!

Location:Marine Drive,Blouberg,South Africa