Taking a yacht through the canals is much harder work than sailing at sea. At sea you just set the sails fire up the auto pilot and relax, (well almost). The locks and bridges in the Dutch canals are hard work. In some towns there are 5 bridges and each operator may keep you waiting for 10 minutes or so just to test your boat handling skills!
From the last blog you will know that Keren and Dianne left me at Dordrecht as Keren has "mum" duty.
From Dordrecht I braved the Oude Maas on Wednesday 7th June. This is a main through way to Rotterdam. Really big barges use this canal and it is not as wide as the more Southern ones. Fortunately they do not go too fast and know their business. However, at the first bridge out of the marina there was a strong current and nowhere to tie up. Interesting, stooging back and forth playing dodge the barge.
You learn boat handling under power fast here, especially with a dodgy prop!
From the Oude Maas, a handbrake turn right takes you up the Hollands Ijssel canal to Gouda, and another heap of bridges. At Gouda a good friend Ton van Beek joined me, stayed the night and then guided me to Warmond where I saw Dutch boat service in action. The yard owners wife gave us a cup of coffee while Jan Bakker lifted Jomora in his travel hoist. Rubbish in the prop. We went for lunch and came back to find the boat in the water having had prop fixed, hull pressure washed and topsides cleaned, all in the cost of a one way hoist, 150 euros.
I stayed in Warmond over the weekend to visit these good folk and another friend who lives close by.
Ton is on the committee and ex Commodore of the Royal Kaags Yacht Club. This club over 100 years old and owns two marinas in Warmond one of which is where I was berthed. So on Saturday 9th June I went to watch gig racing from the clubhouse with Ton and his wife Catharina. The gigs are exactly the same as those we see in Cornwall, and one of them "Dutch Courage" was made in Teignmouth and raced this year in Scilly.
Enough lounging around. On Sunday 10th it was time to head North again if I was to have any chance meeting Lee and Tina (our son and girlfriend ) in Amsterdam.
A lot of the canal work in Holland is governed by the opening times of the railway bridges because, whereas as most of the road bridges open on demand, (see previous comment), the rail bridges only open at certain times of the day. In this case the opening time was at about 6pm, so it made for a late start and a consequently late arrival at the next stop, Haarlem. Fortunately, met up with a very nice Dutch couple in an immaculately restored Contessa 32, so we cruised in company which made the journey less tiring. Quick look around Haarlem, a lovely city, before getting the head on the pillow.
Today, Monday 11th was again governed by a railway bridge opening time and the big motorway bridge opening time at Spaarndam. Lots of yachts making the transit in convoy so yours truly hung well back out of the inevitable melee close to the bridges. After the Spaarndam motorway bridge it is just a few hundred metres to the Nordzee canal which runs right through Amsterdam where there are two marinas ( Sixhaven and Aeolus) just a ferry ride from the central railway station. Most folk stay at Sixhaven but there is a tunnel being built next to it with all the attendant noise and dust, so I chose the other option. The weather was kind today breezy and sunny until I got into the Aeolus marina and got the cockpit tent up. Then thunder, lightning and the heavens opened. Don't think Keren need worry about me doing the town tonight in the rain. There is a restaurant around the corner with sea bass as the fish of the day so the hot spots can wait!
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