A special day

Today, 27 April, is the birthday of our crown prince, Willem Alexander. It will be his last birthday as (crown) prince, as he will be inaugurated as King of the Netherlands on Tuesday. So next year, 27 April will be the King's birthday and as such a public holiday. When there is a celebration involving the royal family, the orange 'wimpel', a streamer which is hoisted above the flag, is used. Here you can (just) see it on the Brandaris and also on a private house:


Apart from this, it's also 'National Lifeboat Day'. The KNRM, which is the Dutch equivalent of the South African NSRI or the British RNLI, has an open day at all their 28 stations. If you are a financial supporter (which we are), you can even go on a ride on one of the lifeboats. We happily took advantage of that!



These are seriously big and capable craft, 28 tonnes, can do up to 35 knots, are self righting in case of a capsize and can take up to 120 people in case of a big rescue. During the 'outing', they demonstrated how to recover a person from the sea. Very impressive in all. We did remark to the skipper that we hope never to need a rescue boat 'for real' and he agreed but also said that if we did they would happily do the job!
As you can see on the pictures, it is nice and clear although still cold. We of course hope for good weather on Tuesday for 'Koninginnedag'.

Location:Dellewal,Terschelling,The Netherlands