Idling time in Elburg Haven. Pirramimma cuts loose, cruises to a remote island for a night. Back to Jachtcenter Elburg.

Monday morning brought some grey skies to the haven but it also brought this juvenile swan regally swimming past all the boats. He (or she) is certainly going to be very beautiful before too much longer. 

There once was an Ugly Duckling...

The havenmeester called for haven dues at about 0815 hours. Again, very reasonable fees of €17 per night, with electricity at .50c/unit. Water extra, black water pump-out extra but neither available at the mooring places. Wi-fi available but apparently only if you are sitting right outside the havenkantoor which is some way away. Free people and boat watching all the time plus easy access to all the shops, restaurants and cafés. 

Also in town there's a good butcher, greengrocer, fish shops, an excellent artisan tea and coffee shop plus a wide assortment of clothing and home/lifestyle stores in the town. Cash machine in the main street too. At the other end of town is a small Jumbo supermarket, and just across the street from that is the bus 'station'. No train station. The VVV (Tourist info) is also in the main street. Rubbish facilities on the havenkade and glass bottle disposal outside Jumbo. Showers/loos etc also available around the havenkade.

Pirramimma's berth at Jachtcenter Elburg is not available for another 3 days so our plan for the next couple of days is to do some of the tourist things here in Elburg. Wednesday is 'car shuffle day' to and from Lemmer. 

Not much open in town today apart from restaurants and cafés as it's Monday but the Skipper was keen to walk all the side streets, as well as to walk the rampart walls. First stop though, the ice-cream store! There are a handful in town, but I think the best ice-creams come from the little artisan store on the right hand side, just past the Vischpoort (fish gate) into the town. Freshly made on the premises and with some super flavours to enjoy. I can thoroughly recommend both the chocolate (very intense) and the cookies flavours. 

Pretty much as soon as we started our little exploration, the weather took a turn for the worse and it was cold, dark, with some drizzle as well. So I'm sorry but no photos of this walking tour but I can certainly recommend anyone who visits Elburg takes the time to explore all the side streets. Clearly a wealthy town in its past, Elburg has some superb buildings and gardens. It's possible to visit a few of them (check opening days/times) as they are museums in their own right. 

Skipper took this photo of the Vischpoort last August (2014), after Pirramimma had been surveyed for purchase. Ice creams are good in this town!

And here are some scenes of the haven taken over the course of our stay here.

Tuesday morning found us outside the VVV office which is also the entrance to the Elburg Museum we wanted to see today. Entrance fee to the Elburg Museum was €5 p/p but it was only after we purchased our tickets we were told several of the rooms were being renovated and a couple of rooms closed completely. Recompense was a free cup of coffee or tea, apparently. 

The little chapel was rather lovely; austere but with superb woodwork and flooring details. This modern stained glass window was also interesting but sadly there was no information available about it.

I loved these two wall paintings though. In the first one, you can see some of the beautiful flooring. 

And the other wall painting in the chapel…

OK. I admit it. I took the next two photos primarily because they reminded me of some the puzzles from The Room one and The Room two game apps! And because I loved the stunning workmanship and detailing. 

This war ship model was also outstanding and I'm sorry the lighting was so tricky for the little camera on my phone but I hope you can get an idea of the attention to detail together with the sheer skill and quality of the work involved here. The model is part of an excellent exhibition regarding the Dutch Naval fleet in the Battle of Dogger Bank (North Sea) in 1781. 

We stayed a total of three nights in Elburg haven and enjoyed every moment of that time. On Wednesday morning our dear friend, Diederick, kindly gave us a lift to the car hire in the next village so we could collect our car from Lemmer. A lovely sunny day it was too. Thanks for organising that, Diederick!

Car duly collected, hire car duly returned and our car safely parked. We walked back to Pirramimma along the havenkade and prepared to leave for an overnight stay at a lovely little island just south of Elburg. Engine on at 1520 hours, lines cast off and we motored slowly up to the haven entrance.  We're off again: Hurray! 

Five miles later and we are moored, starboard side to at De Ral, a little island that has some nature moorings and at which we enjoyed a lunch time stop last October on our way down to Spakenburg. Like last year, we are the only boat here. Next morning, I took a stroll around the island and snapped a few photos. 

The view from the other side of the island towards Harderwijk.

Pretty girl!

The island is mostly surrounded by shallow water, making the perfect protection for wildfowl. 

Coots, swans and windsurfers. Looking back towards Elburg.

We left De Ral at about 1230 hours and cruised slowly back to our berth which was now ready for us at Jachtcenter Elburg. The Veluwemeer was busy with with leisure boat traffic and a few commercials as well. At 1400 hours, we pulled into our reserved berth and secured Pirramimma. It was good to be back again. Our last few days for this trip are mostly spent cleaning, pottering around, socialising with new and old friends, and of course, packing up for our return to the UK. 

The sunrise on our last morning for this trip was stunning; a wonderful gift.

We'll be back in three weeks time. 

Veronica xx

Arrival. Pirramimma cruising back home to Elburg: Part 3

Another glorious day dawned with wall-to-wall sunshine and a perfectly blue, cloudless sky. Crew managed to be up early enough to snap a photo of the sunrise through the saloon windows. 

And a little later, this photo showing the direction we take when we leave. It really was an absolutely idyllic morning. By the time the photo below was taken - 0820 hours - many boats had already left the haven and were making their way out onto the IJsselmeer. 

We enjoyed a very pleasant stroll along the breakwater ...

Strong sunshine and sharp shadows

...and along the little beach where Crew decided to test the water temperature - ankle deep was far enough, thank you! …

Bracing!

Then we continued on up around the headland before making our way to the lighthouse and through some of the back streets near the church before dropping back down into the haven, taking the opportunity to grab some pictures in this lovely sunshine. 

Looking back along the route we followed yesterday from Lemmer.

Engine on at 1145 hours. Farewell Urk! Sadly, by the time we left Urk some dark clouds had made an appearance and a cool breeze was ruffling the water a little. 

However, it had been a delightful stopover in Urk and I'm looking forward to going back again. We pootled along towards the Ketelbrug, with the Perkins in 'relax' mode, tickling along at just over 3 knots. Lovely, quiet motoring! And happily, the sunshine fought back for a little while, making the first hour's cruise very pleasant indeed. The Ketelbrug seemed to almost be a dividing line in the weather: north was sunshine but south east, where we were headed, was looking rather cloudy. 

By the time we reached the Roggebotsluis, conditions were distinctly on the cold side and Crew was beginning to contemplate several more layers of clothing. We had a bit of a wait at the sluis as there was a tug towing a couple of boats so was going through by itself. All of which gave the wind enough time to become a nuisance and caused quite a bit of trouble to a couple on a small motorboat behind us. Finally all seemed OK and the lock keeper gave us a green light to proceed into the lock. 

Engine revs upped for the remainder of the journey until we turned to port into Elburg haven. Skipper slowed the boat again and we savoured the familiar sights of being back 'home' again. Navigator knew exactly where she wanted to moor up in the town haven and was delighted when she saw that the spot was indeed available. There's a webcam just above so once we'd settled Pirramimma into place, plugged into shore power and tidied up our lines, Crew went forward and grabbed a screen shot. 

As is so often the case, the clouds eventually disappeared and we were treated to another beautiful sunset.

Galley Slave prepared a lovely home-coming treat of rare pan-fried entrecôte steaks, asparagus with balsamic dressing and parmigiano shavings plus a mixed salad on the side. Washed down with a glass or two of extremely pleasant Spanish red. Olé!

Overnight in Urk. Pirramimma cruising back home to Elburg: Part 2.

As we cruised away from Lemmer, we were delighted to see the stream of boats - mostly yachts - coming out from the Prinses Margrietsluis on the northern side of the town. The sunshine was superb and the water was like a millpond. We joined the throng of boats for a little time, Skipper handed the helm over to Crew and we peeled away to the south and motored on towards Urk.

In the photo above, you can see the parade of windmills along the coast. They march all the way from Lemmer to Urk and beyond. Impressive sentinels.

We were comfortably motoring around 7 knots in near perfect conditions with most of the clouds being massed over the land rather than the direction we were taking.

After about 45 minutes we were hit by an area of flying insects of all manner and description. Thousands and thousands of the little blighters, all of which wanted to tag along for the ride. Unfortunately, hunger had set in by this stage so the Galley Slave made some delicious prawn and salad rolls to eat on the move. It's fair to say that eating our food in Bug City was quite challenging and I suspect we both ingested a lot more protein than just the prawns in the rolls. Later discussions with some other boating friends suggest that these bugs are a regular event along this stretch of coast. 

Closer to Urk, a pleasant breeze kicked all the bugs away - hurray!

Before we knew it, we were approaching Urk lighthouse. It's in the centre of the photo below. To the right of the lighthouse you can see the Ketelbrug and to the left of the lighthouse, you can see new windmills under construction. 

Our course takes us past the lighthouse before a slow sweep to port and into the safe water channel to the haven. We motored into Urk haven and started the serious business of finding a berth. Nothing available in the inner haven so we decided to moor, port side to, on the long pontoon which runs along the substantial breakwater into the port. We knew Pirramimma would be sheltered in the forecast conditions. It's a fantastic pontoon with electricity and water points built into the structure. Very new and very, very strong. Perfect! 

Engine off at 1415 hours. Soon after we'd secured Pirramimma, the havenmeester arrived on his bicycle. €20.55 haven dues inclusive of water, electricity, wi-fi and Tourist Tax for 2 adults. Pretty darn good. We chatted for a little bit and Crew did her best to speak a sentence or two of Dutch. He kindly pretended to understand every word she said. Bless him! 

Here's the view from our port side deck and if you look at the bottom right of the pic, you can see the built-in electric point which our white power cable is plugged in to. Very neat. 

Skipper took a stroll along the pontoon and along the breakwater whilst Crew concentrated on the serious stuff of catching up on social media goings on. 

Meanwhile, Crew took this next photo from Pirramimma's starboard side deck. It was a busy little place that day.

A little later, we both settled down to the even more serious business of people and boat watching. We recognised a lot of boats from Lemmer - clearly a sunny and warm weekend beckoned to many folk. Many people stopped to chat to us and to inquire as to both the origins of our blue ensign and the boat name.

Later still we walked into town to find a restaurant to eat at. No problem finding a restaurant as there are many in the town but they were all fully booked (lesson learnt:- warm, sunny weekend = busy weekend at restaurants and havens = make advance reservations!) So we walked all the way around the haven to dine at 't Achterhuis above the havenkantoor. You can see the terrace in the photo above. It's just a short swim across the water and a very pleasant 1.3km walk through the town. 

Sunset that evening was pretty spectacular.  I took this photo from the restaurant terrace. The big commercial in the foreground came into port around 1700 hours, taking up the whole of that vacant space in the photo above. And then some.

After dinner, we strolled back through the town and along the haven front, enjoying the balmy evening as well as the sights and sounds of Saturday night in town. Back on Pirramimma, we sat out on the aft deck for an hour or so watching all the navigation lights on the boats that were still moving around the haven and on the IJsselmeer. Tomorrow, we head south under the Ketelbrug to Elburg. 

Farewell to Lemmer. Pirramimma cruising back home to Elburg: Part 1.

Back again in Lemmer, we were both rather cold and tired after the very windy trip back from Sneek.  After we'd settled Pirramimma in her berth and tidied up on deck, we went below decks to warm up a little. Crew enjoyed a warming glass of Hibiki and Skipper a Whisky Mac - bliss! 

Our cruising plans for the remainder of this trip have now changed. We have decided to move Pirramimma back to Elburg about five weeks earlier than originally planned. We intend to re-provision tomorrow, and on Saturday we will leave Lemmer and start back towards Elburg, where Pirramimma is booked in for winter storage. First stop will be Urk on Saturday night and then on Sunday we will continue on to Elburg, either directly to the town haven or stopping at a nature mooring along the way. So, just two nights and one full day in Lemmer to go now. 

Galley Slave cooked a deliciously warming curry of pork, aubergine, green chilli and peanuts served with basmati rice, home made aubergine pickle and some crisp cucumber slices. Praise be to pressure cookers! Over dinner, we discussed our departure and plans for the cruise to Elburg.

At 1945 hours, this yacht motored swiftly towards us…

 ... pulled into the berth on our port side…

… and promptly ran aground…

I've no idea what happened to the poor person on the bow when the yacht came to a juddering halt (!) but I can say the people onboard were soaking wet and freezing cold. All their kit below decks was completely soaked through (probably from that open forward hatch) and they asked us if we had a jeton they could buy for the clothes dryer at the haven facilities. Luckily for them as the office was closed, we had one left and gave it to them. In discussions later with the yacht skipper, he mentioned their charter yacht draws 1.8m and the guide for the jachthaven gives 2.0m depth. Ooops, something wrong somewhere. 

By 0700 hours next morning, they were gone, making them the last charter boat to pull in next to us at this haven. We spent that day sorting out things like car hire for the 'car shuffle' between Lemmer and Elburg next week, provisioning, cleaning and generally double checking our plans for the next few days.  

Our final night in Lemmer, and in this marina, for the year was pleasantly mild. Windfinder predictions for the weekend were continuing to be very good with next to zero wind and flat calm conditions expected on the IJsselmeer. Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny. We made our usual departure preparations but this time we also dismantled some fittings we had added to our berth here and stowed them securely onboard Pirramimma to be ready for her next summer berth. Finally, we made sure that all was neat and tidy at the berth, and that we'd left it as we'd found it. 

Engine on at 1100 hours. As soon as the engine had warmed up, we motored slowly away from our berth but this time, we turned to starboard and joined a small queue of boats waiting to go through the first of the three brug through the town itself. By the time the brug lifted, there were 7 or 8 boats ready to go through as a convoy. Here we are, through the first brug with four boats in front of us...

What a delightful surprise to find Lemmer "en fête" with an excellent display of retired KNRM rescue boats. There was even a retired RNLI rescue boat in the haven. You might not know anything about the KNRM but it is an organisation/charity run by volunteers and provides the same excellent service as the RNLI in the UK. Good men and women risk their lives to provide help and succour for others in distress on the seas and waterways of the Netherlands. As a volunteer organisation/charity, they rely on donations from you and me. Large or small donations, every little bit helps! For those of us who spend time on the water in either/both countries, it's a bit of a 'no brainer'…. help those who help us. 

There was even an old, retired RNLI rescue boat in the display…

I couldn't resist taking the photo below as a reminder of the moment the Lemmer carillon rang out 'For Auld Lang Syne'! It seemed so appropriate...

The photo above also shows we're through the final brug of the three. There was a bit of a jiggle of boats in this section as several boats in our convoy peeled off to berth up in this particular part of the haven. And then a couple of other boats left their berths to join our convoy, so we all jiggled a bit more as we tried to make space for the stream of boats leaving the sluis we were about to enter. The sluis is the last 'impediment' to leaving the town.

The skipper took a few photos whilst we were in the sluis…

And looking aft at the other set of sluis gates…

Another view. At this point, Crew was not entirely sure whether she was going to pass out, be sick or merely have a heart attack as the fumes from all the boats that had kept their engines running were building up nicely in the confined area forward of Pirramimma. It seemed to take a very long time for those gates to open again.

All in all, it took us 40 minutes or so to travel through the 3 x brug and 1 x sluis.

When the gates opened, we all sedately motored out and moved through the outer arms of Lemmer port. Lemmer is such a busy tourist honey-spot that it's all too easy to lose sight of the fact that Lemmer is also a busy, working port with a significant number of boat and ship building/maintenance businesses. 

The outer quays are usually jam-packed with large barges and ships moored up; and often rafted up to each other.

And they're off….!! It doesn't take too long before skippers increase the revs and pick up speed. The channel curves around to port and we're going to be following it and heading south to the town of Urk. You can probably make out the port hand marker (red!) just to the right of the big commercial barge coming into port as we all stream out of port. 

The Skipper increased our speed also, giving the Perkins engine the chance for a good blast over the next couple of hours on the way to Urk. The Crew was relaxing on deck having long since stowed fenders and lines. We, too, were off on our journey and looking forward to being in Urk again.

Farewell, Lemmer!