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.....