MORE SNEEKING AROUND

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We are sorry there has been such a delay in resuming blog service but busy-ness and a complete lack of Wifi has prevented us from posting our musings.

When we last wrote we had just left Isabela on the outskirts of Sneek in the heartland of Friesland, the Norfolk Broads of Holland on steroids. It had become very busy just before we left but looks now as though most people have returned to work and school fortunately for us. We found Isabela safe and sound last Wednesday after a different sort of Channel/ North Sea crossing. To date we have always been by Shuttle but this time we came on the Harwich- Hook ferry by daytime, repeating the journey that Isabela had made on her lorry. It was a considerably longerroute, not least of all because it arrived in Hook in rush hour, but we spent much of the time, reading books and looking at a very calm and sunny sea.

The following day the first of 3 lots of visitors arrived and we hastened out of our little mooring, to Sneekermeer, before they had taken their coats off, so they could get a real taste of mooring on a meer with no one else around. The next day we set off for Workum – yes we have been there before, but this time the plan was to go through the sluis and out on to the Ijsselmeer to a tiny village called Hinterloopen. This “sea” crossing lasted all of 20 minutes as we skirted the coast on a very flat sea, and into a very large marina – it is probably about 4 times the size of the village! A very pretty village and a lovely meal out so a good day all round.



The next day however dawned foggy and windless. There was no choice but to go back out to sea, or stay where we were because egress from the village was via a non-lifting bridge about 1.5 m high. A risk assessment was made – the sea was flat, we have radar and GPS, visibility was about half a mile and we only had about 5 miles to go to Stavoren. So off we went. Our friend is a pilot so Paul handed the helm to him so he could steer a course from the GPS. To be fair to him it was extremely difficult with nothing – I repeat nothing – to take a fix on. We could see zilch!! But we also found that there are some different skills between flying and boating and we did some lovely S bends which were detectable by our wake off the stern. Anyone watching us on their radar must have wondered what we were doing. However we arrived, still in the fog, at Stavoren and made our way back up the Heegermeer to Sneek where we moored in a town box mooring for the night as we had to get them back to their car the next day. Our friend was rewarded for his efforts by a sumptuous meal of what was described by the waiter as tired reindeer (it turned out to be venison) – we think there may have been something lost in translation.

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Photos

Dutch Barn
Roof is lifted as barn fills