Hindeloop – Amsterdam – Ijmuiden –August 1 -5   2005

When the weather cleared up we left Hindeloop and headed for Amsterdam. Forget images of cruising through narrow canals, watching people sipping their café lattes outside coffee shops . No, we went on the outskirts of Amsterdam where all the rest of the ships go, and were able to admire the commercial shipping port for quite a few hours. The last lock that evening was at  9 pm and I can tell you we pushed our poor, old engine to the max trying to get it. We made it just in time and reached Ijmuiden a little later. This is a yacht “basin” on the west side of Holland, and I say basin because that’s exactly what it felt like. Once in the marina, you were surrounded by walls on all sides. The tide came in…and you saw nothing but walls…and the tide went out …and you still saw walls, and this could go on all the time. There was however a very nice long beach over these walls which the kids visited. The water was cold so I believe nobody swam! Scheveningen was the next stop and the view of this coastal city from the sea reminds me of Gotham city. Take a look!

Ijmuiden beach         Scheveningen

From Scheveningen we set off in the hopes of reaching Nieewport on the Belgium coast. The wind was blowing nearly 30 knots on the nose and we were all feeling rather unwell. We decided to go into the lock near Swellendam and our friends on Noravind followed, as they agreed it was absolutely awful out there. Here we caught up on practical things such as laundry, shopping food and boat stuff. We treated ourselves to a taxi ride to the near by town where there was some kind of Spanish festival. We tried the local “poffertjies”, small round pancakes and wandered around the main town and lovely harbour.

Small Dutch town Entering another lock

Swellendam – Zuikzee – Middelburg

 After a day in Swellendam we made our way through the delta and many islands of Zeeland. A lot of excitement going in and out of various locks and lifting bridges. We arrived in the little town of Zuiksedee late at night, and we would have loved to have spent more time there, but left early the next morning. A boat next to us in one of the locks commented on how many Norwegian boats they had been seeing. Apparently there were three Norwegian boats half a day ahead of us and they all had ARC flags flying. We all got very excited at the thought of meeting up with some other folk from home and we had our eyes peeled in the next harbour in the hope of finding them, but no such luck. This next harbour was a place called Middelburg, and it had the most beautiful buildings from the medieval period. We arrived there on a Sunday and therefore there was not much happening, other than an extremely noisy Tivoli. We braved that for a little while and did the usual stuff like eat candy floss and go on the ghost ride. However, Colin was complaining of a sore stomach and a headache and we just thought he felt a bit tired after traveling all day. Then Camilla said she felt unwell, and then Trond and I started feeling kind of icky and before you knew it we had all come down with some kind of stomach bug! Not strange since we suddenly have all sorts of countries foods and drinks to digest.

Mmm,candy floss!                                             Sunny day                                           Not a sunny day

 For those interested in weather, we are freezing cold most of the time and have decided we do not like the North Sea. It has been raining a good deal of the time and seems to always blow a gale from exactly the direction we are going. I quote from the boat “Hurra”, who are a few days behind us, “we would like to speak to the person responsible”. Hope you are all enjoying your summer as much as we are!