Hoorn - with a crew

Lee and his girl friend Tina joined me on Wednesday 13th June and by 11am we had left the rather scruffy Aoelus marina and were motoring past the luxury hotel boats and out of Amsterdam and on to the Isslemeer via a lock and a road bridge. Good introduction for the younguns. The weather was sunny with a nice breeze, (but still cool) so we decided to see if the sails still worked. Naturally as soon as we had them drawing the wind died so back on with the donk.
The Isslemeer is a strange sort of inland sea for those who have not sailed there before. It is large enough that the far shore is not visible but no more than 5 m deep, in fact most areas are about 3m. It is funny to see what appear to be trees floating on the horizon to then find out that it is the far shore visible at anything up to 10nm away.
A short trip of about 10nm took us to the village of Marken. Marken used to on an island just off from Monickendam, ( it now has a causeway) and rumour is that, because it was isolated the folk were a bit strange due to inbreeding. Today it is a twee picture book village with green wooden houses small cobbled streets and restaurants / souvenir shops mostly catering for the tourist boat from Volendam. A small marina with average facilities, Lee and Tina's first experience of box mooring. They did very well. At 8pm we went out for dinner, (there are no less than five restaurants and a hotel). Would you believe they were all shut? Holland was playing Germany at football so they closed early! Maybe what the local folk say is true? Back to the boat for Dad's chicken curry.
Thursday 14th June dawned bright and sunny again with a very light N wind, and the young ones raring to go. So we headed due North to the town of Hoorn, another epic 10nm voyage. Here we found a very pretty marina. Tree lined, full of water birds and excellent facilities.