2nd April - 9th April. Collecting the car from Elburg. Chandlery at Bakhuizen. Cruise to Sneek.

Thursday was all about getting ourselves back to Elburg via public transport and collecting our car which we'd left in Elburg. Quite a long, and very windy, walk to the bus station on the opposite side of Lemmer. Then a bus to Heerenveen, train to Zwolle and finally another bus to Elburg centrum. Another decent walk to Elburg Yachting from the bus station and we trudged through a hail storm for the final half mile of that walk. What the good folk at the office thought when these two bedraggled people fell walked through their door, they very kindly kept to themselves!  At this point, I want to point out how efficient, comfortable and generally all-over excellent the public transport system in the Netherlands is. 

Back in the car again, we detoured via good old Jumbo (supermarket) in Lemmer and realised we were at the beginning of the Easter weekend so Lemmer, particularly Jumbo, was crowded with folk stocking up for their holiday. It was manic and we escaped as fast as we could.  Back onboard, we relaxed over a cup of coffee and considered some plans. 

The Skipper and Fizz, the Moose, consider plans for the weekend.

The Skipper has discovered a rather ace little chandlery in the town of Bakhuizen, which is not too far from us. It seems rather incredible, but we still have a long list of kit various we need for Pirramimma.  The chandlery has an 'open weekend' over the Easter break, so we duly head off on Friday morning, clutching our list in our hot little paws. What a great chandlery! It's like an aladdin's cave of kit. Excellent, knowledgeable and friendly staff too. They have a thriving, international mail order business. Extra bonus points for taking credit cards too. If you want the business name, it's the NauticShop in Bakhuizen. (editors note: they've recently opened another store in Lemmer though it's not as big or comprehensive as the other one).

Back to Pirramimma where we gloat over our purchases.  Meanwhile, the weather is changing for the better and it's warm enough to be able to sit on the aft deck for a while. Which we do.  

Aft deck view from our berth in Lemmer.

A little later, the galley slave puts together a rather delicious Thai red curry of beef.  We're still quite tired from both the journey here from Blokzijl and our nearly 7 hour journey to collect the car yesterday.  

Home made aubergine and lime pickles in the background.

Guess where we went the next morning… yup, the chandlery superstore! The rest of the day was 'house work' onboard Pirramimma, including external cleaning as she was pretty mucky from all the rain we'd had, plus water marking from the waves on our journey here. There are some birthday celebrations to be enjoyed over the course of the weekend and we also start to plan a mini cruise as it looks as though the wind might will drop. At last.

Based on the rather vague possibility that friends from France might visit, we jump in the car on Monday morning, and head off to Hindeloopen for a nose around the town. Hindeloopen and a couple of other places are on an equally vague plan for a cruise should said visit take place. Cool and grey, with a slight breeze, we enjoyed a long walk around the haven, poked our noses through all the quaint streets, and walked along the top of the dyke that protects the land from the Ijsselmeer.  

A weather snapshot via instaweather. Happily, the afternoon was sunny.

Back into the car and we continue south along the coast towards Stavoren where the sun is shining and we walk out to the headland for a good look at the Ijsselmeer. Lovely town with lots of possibilities for moorings when we do visit with Pirramimma. It's turned into a gloriously sunny afternoon and we continued our journey in the car along the 'scenic route' which really was lovely. Sorry, but we were enjoying the drive so much I completely failed to take any more photos. 

On Wednesday morning, we head out on a cruise for a couple of days. Engine on but our neighbours in the berth a couple down are about to leave, so we wait for them to move past before we do the same. We have about 1 metre more space than the length of Pirramimma to perform this manoeuvre so we ease gently back and Richard carefully swings the stern around, the bow around in the opposite direction and we cruise gently out of the marina. We have the distinct feeling that we, the 'quart pot', have been forced into a berth for a 'pint pot'.  Especially given the restricted dimensions of the berth itself and which don't quite match up to what we'd been told we had.  Something for us to consider as the season progresses but not something to worry about now. 

The weather is cool, cloudy and there's a slight breeze as we head north up the Prinses Margriet Kanal, then turn to port into Lange Sleat and our first brug (€2 bruggeld). Already we are learning how every canal and the surrounding landscape constantly changes in the Netherlands.  Such a delight. We move along at a nice, gentle pace towards Sloten.  The day brightening slightly too. Just south of Lemsterpoort haven, there are two long pontoons with access to land.  We choose the one closest to the marina and by the time we'd secured our lines, the sun was shining. Engine off.  And the peace and quiet kicked in.  Bliss. An extra bonus: a grebe was sitting on her nest just next to the access way to land. She had three eggs to guard and care for. I hope they all hatch.  Later in the afternoon, Richard grabbed the camera and managed to get some shots of the nest. 

We walked into the havenkantoor and introduced ourselves and paid our harbour dues.  Then we walked into town for a look around. Well. What an utterly charming little town! Even though the sun had been replaced by cloud cover, we were entranced by Sloten.  There's a windmill near the entrance to the town, and a small canal runs through the centre of town. It's possible to take a dinghy or small boat up through the town, so that's maybe something we'll do in the summer.  Pretty much deserted at this time of the year, but three restaurants were open and were doing a light trade in coffee and cake, plus late lunches. We checked out the brug which has €2 fee - I'll be ready tomorrow!  After a couple of hours investigating the backstreets thoroughly, we walked back into the haven and had a good look around there too.   

You'll need a bit of imagination with the shot above and the one below: add lots of green foliage to the trees, blue sky and sunshine, the water is blue and there's a throng of folk enjoying a coffee or a meal at the outdoor restaurants, the sound of laughter…

At 1025 the next morning, the engine was on and at 1030 we left our mooring. Through the brug, north west through the town outskirts, then turned to port into the Slotermeer (Sleattermer Mar) and headed towards Balk for a 'look-see'.  As we cruised our way south, the sun came out.  

Leaving Balk, we turned north east and headed back towards Woudsend. It was flat calm and we passed a couple of small keelboats making about a 1/4kt - they had paddles out in an attempt to make headway!  We cruised over the Woudsend aqueduct, through the brug (no fee) and found a space on the outside wall of Jachthaven De Rakken. This is a charming stop and we were made very welcome when we stopped by the havenkantoor to pay our dues.  Electricity, water, free wi-fi and pump-out facilities are all available.

Woudsend outskirts.

Woudsend's windmill is rather impressive, I think…

And it was warm enough to enjoy a lunch time glass of wine on the aft deck…

After lunch, we explored the town which, again, we like very much.  There was a lot of road maintenance and general refurbishing going on in the town to make it picture-perfect in time for all the summer visitors. Folk were taking advantage of the sunshine and painting their houses and tidying up their gardens.  The town has a lovely atmosphere and I imagine that in summer, it's a very popular place to stop. There's a new Spar supermarket which was well stocked, a good choice of restaurants, a fuel berth for boats, foul water emptying point/s.  Jachthaven De Rakken also has a lovely camping/caravan park which was equally well maintained and welcoming. Plus, like many towns in the Netherlands, there is free wi-fi throughout. The evening continued warm and we were able to eat on deck.  

The next day, we left Woudsend at 0945 and made our way northwest via the Hegemer Mar/Heegermeer. An absolute millpond! We didn't go into Heeg but turned to starboard on the Johan FrisoKanal.  By this stage, it was clear that today is 'return to base day' for charter boats and holiday crews as they rushed to get to base on time at the end of their holidays.  We let them go ahead of us as we have the luxury of being able to relax and enjoy the sights.  Through the town of Ijlst with a sharp dog-leg to pass through the brug. Another lovely town on our list to visit again. 

That's a chair you see floating in the water ahead of us…watch out, skipper!

Before we knew it, we were in Sneek and we had a small queue in front of us to get through the first brug.  The lead skipper made a bit of hash of things which meant he had to spin around, causing the two yachts behind him to have to spin around so we slipped under the bridge whilst they all sorted themselves out.  The photo below is of Sneek's famous Waterpoort (water gate). We've driven past in the car before, but this was our first view of it from the water.

We didn't stop this time; just slowly continued our way through the town and out past all the jachthavens and yards on the eastern side of town.  Then we turned to starboard, back into the Prinses Margriet Kanal and made our way south again to our home port in Lemmer.  

Vxx