Ameland

Today, conditions were good to carry on, so we set off to Ameland. There were a total of 6 Valkvlets in our flotilla, more than we initially expected but it's nice to do these short, informal club tour extensions together!

We set off relatively early, at 8am, to catch the tide. A moderate wind helped the tide and soon we passed over the first of three shallows. At the third shallow, you pass right next to a sandbank on which there always are lots of seals resting and they did not disappoint us this time! Unfortunately the internet, both Wifi and 3G are really slow here, so you will have to wait for the pictures until things improve.

By the time we got to Ameland, around midday, the wind had picked up quite a bit to just over 20 knots (6 Beaufort). Out on the water that was no problem at all, and we also managed to tie up all 6 boats against the wind in a neat row. Again, picture to follow.

Tomorrow the wind is expected to drop again and we'll continue to the next island, Schiermonnikoog.

It would be nice if the temperature improved a bit, it's still very cold especially when the sun disappears and the wind blows! But inside the boat it is cosy and warm!

Terschelling (with pictures this time!)

My apologies for the silence from this side. We have been quite busy with the Valk Yachts Club, socialising, taking trips to the other side of the island and the 'farewell dinner' last night. And the iPad app still does not allow me to post pictures (bad job, "Blogpress"!) so I had to wait until I had an opportunity to get out the laptop and do a 'proper job'.
Enough of the excuses, here we go:

As mentioned, we had a get together of the Valk Yachts Club here on Terschelling. The 'official' club spring tour this year goes South, all the way to Maastricht, but there was also a Northern 'pre-tour' to Terschelling. That was good for us, as the South part does not really fit into our plans, but it would be a pity to miss out altogether. We get on well with every member of the club we have met. In the end, there were 13 boats here, most of them visible on this picture:

As you can't see Onbekommerd an that picture, I took an extra one:

There you can see our dinghy as well! We had a small leak in the bottom, getting wet feet, but that is fixed now.

Jur and I used the dinghy (here with the electric outboard motor) to put a cork into Anna's boat's anchor chain bin's drain.

Yesterday we took a 'huifkartocht' to the Boschplaat. A 'huifkar' is a horse drawn cart, which could be covered with a 'huif'. But as it was not raining, it was open for the occasion. It was very cold in the wind.... The Bochplaat is the Easternmost part of the island, it is a nature reserve and one needs a special permit to go there during the bird nesting and breeding season.

Here are some pictures:

That's a huifkar (without the huif).

You really are close to the next island (Ameland) when you are on the Boschplaat.

Seagull eggs

There were thousands of seagulls and other birds too. Unfortunately the huifkar shakes quite a bit and it's difficult to take nice pictures. 

At one stage, you stop for coffee (the water is being boiled in a kettle in the fire) and eat your sandwiches. It is a full day's trip.

Last night we had a farewell dinner with the whole group in a restaurant here in West Terschelling. 

Early this morning (6am), four boats left (one had already left late yesterday afternoon when we came back from the huifkartocht).

Now there are 6 of us left here. Our own plan is to leave here on Tuesday morning for the trip to Ameland, Gwilym and Janine will join us here on Monday. Some of the other 5 may well join us, it's a non-organised extension of the Valk tour.

In the meantime spring has still not really sprung. Today is overcast and a bit rainy. And the temperatures are not predicted to go beyond 13C in the next few days.....

Terschelling

After 4 nice days on Vlieland, we moved one island East to Terschelling this morning.
The weather is still quite unsettled: one day it's cool, the next day windy, then a bit overcast and so on. Our plan originally was to move across this afternoon or tomorrow afternoon and use the high tide to take the short cut over the shallows. But the forecast was predicting increasing winds so soon after getting up (and before breakfast) Lyn noted that as the wind was gentle now we might as well take the longer 'deep water' route. So on the last bit of the outgoing tide we left Vlieland and picked up the incoming tide to Terschelling where we tied up just before coffee time.

Quite a few of our Valk Yacht Club friends had arrived yesterday, so we had a good quick get together with them during the morning.


We'll be here for the best part of a week, I'll report (hopefully with a few pictures) on proceedings.

Location:Dellewal,West-Terschelling,The Netherlands

Back on salt water! Vlieland

We are very happy today, being back on salt water. The canals, lakes and rivers in Friesland and in Holland are all very pretty, but for us the real stuff is going onto he bigger water and especially salt water. It feels and sounds completely different, sort of a 'foamy' feel and (especially) sound.

We left Franeker around 12:30, from there Harlingen is less than an hour away and with high tide there at 1:30, we did not want to be out of the lock before then: it would just have meant pushing against the tide for some time. It all worked to plan and at 1:45 we were on the Waddenzee. It was quite busy, with boats coming back from Vlieland and Terschelling (the school holidays end this weekend), but also some other yachts taking advantage of the nice weather to go 'out'. Add to that a few ferries and commercial traffic and it ended up being quite busy!

 The ferry 'Friesland', on its way to Terschelling, passes us.

With tide tidal current behind us, we did up to 10 Knots at times (a knot is 1.85 Km/hr), even at a low engine speed of 1400 rpm when we usually do 6 knots). One only really notices the current when looking at the buoys one passes:

We'll be on Vlieland until Monday at least. Walk and cycle a bit. If the weather is kind, we'll mare the short (about an hour) trip to Terschelling early next week.

Marrekrite, Grou and a few pictures

We spent two nights at a 'Marrekrite' place in the Princenhof. "Marrekrite" is an organisation that maintains litterally thousands of mooring places 'in the wild' in Friesland where one can tie up, free of charge, for up to three nights in a row. Of course there are no 'facilities' apart from (usually) a rubbish bin. But a wonderful way to spend a few quiet nights and we gladly buy their little banner every year to show our support!

The evening of the first day, the wind dropped completely and we even sat outside on the front deck to drink our coffee! The second night was quite a different kettle of fish: it was blowing a near-gale and raining.

This morning we left and came to Grou, just an hour away.

Here are some pictures:

First night: sailing in the Princenhof 

The dinghy, now with an electric outboard motor. It was leaking a bit of water through a loose weld in the bottom. We fixed it today, hopefully it holds!

Mr and Mrs Duck came looking for a bit to eat after we arrived in Grou.

Tomorrow we will go to Franeker, then on Friday (very little wind predicted) catch the outgoing tide to Vlieland.

A motor for the dinghy!

Faithful blog followers may remember that in August last year we finally 'commissioned' the little inflatable Zodiac dinghy which had been hiding under our berths for many years (see the 'Bagenkop' entry in last year's blog). We had decided that the dingy would be quite useful when lying at anchor or elsewhere 'in the wild', just to go ashore and do shopping for instance. We more and more enjoy staying away from formal marinas and 'roughing it'. But the dinghy is not easy to row. So we decided to get a little outboard motor for it. Now outboard motors generally need petrol and once filled with petrol (the small ones have an integrated tank), need to be stored upright. All in all a bit of a hassle, apart from the safety issues carrying petrol on board (which is much more flammable than diesel).

So we decided to get an electric outboard, which finally happened yesterday. First we had to charge the battery, which took about 9 hours, but today dinghy and motor were married. We'll get some pictures in the next few days and report back on the experience.

We are currently on an 'in the wild' place in the 'Princenhof', near Eernewoude. The weather was very windy all day, but the wind suddenly dropped and it turned out a beautiful evening. We had coffee sitting on the foredeck, listening to the cuckoo and other birds.
The forecast for tomorrow talks about lots of rain. We have some work to do and will stay here for two or even three nights.

More later.

Location:Boarnsterhim,The Netherlands

Back in Friesland

On our 'tourist day' in Amsterdam, we first visited the Rijksmuseum. We had been there last year already, but it's so magnificent that we gladly went back to see some of our favourite Vermeer paintings and some other things we particularly wanted to see. Unfortunately, the special 'late Rembrandt ' exhibition is completely booked out and we had to miss it (although there are quite a few Rembrandts to see there outside the special exhibition!
Next we went to what used to be called the 'Amsterdams Historisch Museum', but now just 'Amsterdam Museum'. We were there about 10 years ago and really liked it, enough so to decide we wanted to see it again. This was a big disappointment. With the name change, the museum (dedicated to Amsterdam 's history, has been completely 'dumbed down'. Just push buttons everywhere, that start all kinds of multimedia shows, which stop you thinking for yourself and spoon feed you a certain reading and explanation of historical events. All of which is in illogical and hard to follow sequences. Sorry, this museum revamp went the wrong way!

Today was a perfect day to cross the IJsselmeer back to Friesland. Including three locks, it took us exactly seven hours in windless conditions. The IJsselmeer was like a mirror (with quite a few other boats on it).

In Stavoren we topped up with 220 l of diesel and did some shopping. The weather is expected to warm up a bit after tomorrow, but with that comes rain and wind. We'll spend some time inland in Friesland before going to the Wadden Islands.

Location:Schans,Stavoren,The Netherlands