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Published: February 26th 2016
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Lots of Dutch Wooden Shoes to Buy
these you could find at the local hardware store! We were pushing on as it was the end of September and our original plans were to get to the marina in Lelystad, Netherlands in early October. Unfortunately Janice was having some medical problems which caused her problems with doing too much on the boat so we were taking it slower than normal. This gave us an excuse to make a few stops on the way.
Our first stopping off place for an overnight was the village of Grou. We weren’t there long, but did take the time to walk around the town. It was pretty quiet when we were there so we had a relaxing evening in the marina. We did get a chance to meet cruisers from the Czech Republic – that was a first for us – hopefully we will catch up with them again if we ever get to Prague!
One town that was not originally in our plans was Sneek, but we had heard from a few cruisers that it was worth a detour. We figured we’d take the time to go and we were glad that we did. It is an interesting town that had numerous traditional Dutch sailing vessels. The marina we
Cruisers from Prague
It would be great if we get to Prague ourselves to see these people again! stopped at was quite empty when we got there, but the canal was not. From where we were we could watch the numerous traditional Dutch sailing ships coming into town. We found out that many of them were used as conference centers – yes, companies would rent them for various meetings or training sessions. The boat would usually go out for 2 days of sailing while the “meeting” was being held. We got a chance to see many of the boats coming back to port to offload their passengers and take on new ones the next morning. What was very interesting to see was the maneuverability of these boats under the careful handling of their captain. The canal coming into town is not very wide, yet these boats would have to come in, turn around and then “parallel” dock. With their large bowsprit and sail out front some of them had to very carefully monitor the height of their bow with the other boats already at dock – at the end some of them were overhanging the boat in front or stern of them. It was quite the show to see!
We were only going to stay one night
Someone was REALLY into knitting
who would have thought you could come up with this many things to knit for a bicycle! in Sneek, but decided to stay a 2
nd so we could visit one of their museums in town, the Fries Scheepvaart Museum. It covered the history and culture of Friesland with shipping being a large part of that. We also got to see some of the local crafts that this area is known for – everything from silversmithing, pottery, furniture making and the painting of wooden household items. Sneek was an enjoyable detour but time was passing so we had to keep moving on.
The next town on our travels was Lemmer which is located at the north end of the largest lake in the Netherlands, the Ijsselmeer. We thought we had seen lots of traditional sailing vessels in Sneek, but that was nothing compared to Lemmer. It appeared that there were large groups of sailing vessels traveling together and they all seemed to either be entering or leaving Lemmer. The canal goes right through the center of town and it was packed with boats! Fortunately there were a few places where the canal opened up to a larger area where boats could stay overnight. It was hard to imagine that the area could hold so many boats, but
they packed in like sardines – no one seemed to mind! We really enjoyed our time in Lemmer – it is a town that is centered around the canal with numerous outdoor cafes and shops lining the canal. We didn’t do too much except walk the streets and enjoy seeing the various sailing vessels that were so immaculately taken care of. The wood was so well maintained and many of them had very interesting carvings on them such as whales, swans and numerous other animals. We walked up to the far end of the town giving us an idea of what the lock to get out of town would be like. When we can it is always nice to do this as it gives us a heads up of where the tie up locations are. It looked like a small lock but we could see that they really packed in the boats as there are so many that have to get through this lock. It is the lock that boats have to go through to get to the largest lake in the Netherlands, the Ijsselmeer. It is a shallow man-made lake, but is heavily used by boats here. The marina
that we will end up at for the winter is located on this body of water.
Thankfully when we were heading out of town, our locking out went very smoothly. One thing that you do have to do though is place your locking fee into the wooden shoe that is dangling on the end of a fishing pole before the lock is opened – we are definitely a captured audience so no one escapes this charge!
We have been enjoying our travels through the canal system, but it is getting close to the end of our sailing season for this year. It was nice to get out on to some open water again to be able to do some sailing before we put Tsamaya away for the winter. It was also enjoyable to see the Dutch sailing vessels with their full sails up – they may look like very heavy boats that would not be able to move very fast, but looks are deceiving as they really can move!
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Mumtraveller
Lynne Brown
Different
Hi It must be so different trAvelling by water and gets you to places those of us landlubbers don't normally reach. Love the photos . Lynne