Summer Cruise 2016: Part 1.

The start of this cruise was a wonderfully happy and fun occasion. Well, we weren't cruising at all but were attending a wedding in the delightful town of Alphen aan de Rijn which is a little south of Amsterdam. On an absolutely glorious day, we drove from our home jachthaven in Friesland to witness and participate in a celebration of love, laughter and warm friendship. The handsome Groom, Guus, and his beautiful Bride, Willeke, were radiant and I honestly don't think we've ever been to a happier wedding! And for those of us who love Classic Cars, just feast your eyes on this beauty as it brought both Bride and Groom to the Town Hall for the wedding service.

Congratulations Willeke and Guus! Long life and happiness to you both.

After the reception, we checked into our hotel room and were grateful to find a bottle of chilled Cava in an ice bucket plus large bottles of mineral water. We went out onto our balcony to enjoy some lovely cooling breezes - it had been a very hot day - and to reminisce about the day over a glass of wine. Next day, we took a tour around the Bird/Wildlife Park complex the hotel is part and parcel of. Time to stretch our legs and enjoy something completely different to our normal touring in the Netherlands. 

The Pelicans look pretty relaxed and happy too. Photo credit: Richard Hayes.

Then back into our car and the journey in, again, glorious sunshine back to Pirramimma. The sun was still shining and it was a perfect evening to BBQ some prawns and other good things for our meal that night. Another beautiful evening to relax and enjoy being back onboard our lovely boat. And neither of us could stop smiling as the glow from yesterday's wedding and reception was still with us.  I'm smiling now as I type this and remember again that happy wedding!

Prawns, a kind of Ratatouille, naan breads and sunshine!  Photo credit: Veronica Hayes.

 The next day was spent sorting out the boat in preparation for our Summer Cruise. The usual things: checking engines, filling up the water tanks, double checking provisions and buying fresh produce. We also had to head up to Jirnsum to collect our spare boat key from De Boarnstream as we'd left it with them so they could re-install our Webasto heating system. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that we'd had to leave without it being repaired as it was more complicated than originally anticipated. You can imagine that we were delighted to find it fixed, re-installed and working perfectly when we returned from the UK a couple of days ago.

Early on Thursday morning, we cast off our lines and backed gently from our berth, spun slowly around and made our way northwards around our little town. The bridge was already lifting for some other boats; it was the perfect start! Just a smiling Good Morning with the bridge keeper and passing the €2 bruggeld to him via the little clog which the bridge keepers use to collect the fees. 

Next we made our way through the town of Woudsend and again, we didn't have to wait for the brug to lift. Lucky! No fee either at this brug so a double bonus. We wound our way through the twisting channel to the north of the town, passing some lovely holiday homes along the way. Then the skipper turned our bow westwards and we made our way along the Johan Friso Kanaal. 

Summer homes   Photo credit: Veronica Hayes

Summer homes lining the channel as we wend our way along it.  Photo credit: Veronica Hayes

Idyllic!   Photo credit: Veronica Hayes

Two hours after departing our berth, we had pulled up at a lovely Marrekrite mooring in the Grute Gaastmaar.  Absolutely brilliant sunshine - a glorious afternoon.  Apologies for the marks on the protective lens on my camera which are showing up as little black smudges…  

Pirramimma on her Marrekrite mooring   Photo credit:  Veronica Hayes

Photo credit: Veronica Hayes

Photo credit: Veronica Hayes

The Marrekrite flag that you can see on the left of our mast (it's the bright pink one with white printing on it) allows us to stay for a maximum of 3 x 24 hours at any of the Marrekrite mooring places. There's no water or power. Just fresh air, peace and quiet (usually!), privacy and freedom.  We used the Cobb BBQ again that evening and Skipper kindly cooked the food I'd prepared: pork satay with corn on the cob, plus potatoes with red pepper, tomatoes, onion and basil. It was delicious. 

Skipper fires up the Cobb. As you can see, we were pretty much alone that night!  Photo credit:Veronica Hayes

We spent the next couple of days doing some boat chores, relaxing and chatting.  We also took The Minn, our dinghy, for some water based explorations. It was fun and blissfully relaxing.  Peace and quiet but lots to see on the water with boats to-ing and fro-ing up the little channel towards the town of Workum.  The next photo shows our evening 'View from the Aft Deck" - pretty special, I think. 

Evening view.  Photo credit: Veronica Hayes

After our allotted time at this mooring, we headed further west down the Johan Friso Kanaal.  This time, I'd booked a berth at the Hotel Galamaddamen which also has a jachthaven with a handful of berths for visiting boats. And a table for dinner on Sunday night. Back to civilisation, power and water. Plus the prospect of a delicious meal so the Galley Slave could take it easy.  Bliss! 

As we headed towards the Hotel, the sunshine was slowly replaced by heavy clouds. Not cold though: still warm enough for shorts and polo shirts. But the clouds had a heaviness to them that threatened a thunder storm later.  Here's our view from our berth at the Hotel jachthaven. The restaurant is the building on the left, hotel reception to the right and, out of sight, are the hotel guest rooms. What you cannot see however, is the motorway that disappears under the aqueduct between us and the hotel… but that little yacht with its sail up is just to the left of the protective railings around the motorway

Photo credit: Veronica Hayes

Showered and feeling refreshed, we made our way over to the restaurant. A very friendly hostess greeted us and suggested we might like to sit on the terrace to enjoy our pre-dinner drinks… indeed we would like to and that was exactly what the Galley Slave had in mind when she booked our table. We mulled whether to eat out there but there was a cool breeze by 1930 hours that made us think it would be better (safer?) to eat indoors. 

Ice cold beer and a Chardonnay - perfect!  Photo credit: Veronica Hayes.

Our meal in the restaurant was excellent! It's clearly a hugely popular place and the food, welcome and service are the reasons for that popularity. Definitely one to return to! 

We managed to get back to the boat just before the heavens opened. Rain continued for much of the night but stopped by the time we were having breakfast on deck next morning. But it was cold. Back to jeans and sweaters! We cast off our lines and spun around, once again heading westwards. It was a cold, breezy and quite choppy journey to the town of Stavoren that day. Boat traffic was increasing too. Again, we were lucky with no waiting for the brug at Warns. Amazingly, almost miraculously, as we arrived in the town haven at Stavoren we were greeted with wall to wall sunshine - delicious! 

Cold and grey as we prepare to leave the Galamaddamen…  Photo credit: Veronica Hayes

 Chalk and cheese… as the saying goes! 

And a couple of hours later… brilliant sunshine and warmth!   Photo credit: Veronica Hayes

Time to settle down and relax. Have some lunch and then off to explore the town. Our plan is to stay here for a day or two whilst we wait for good weather window to cross the IJsselmeer. Crew was keen to check out the sluis system here (locks) and also keen to see if she could find an ice-cream stall somewhere in town. Needs must, and all that.

There are two locks at Stavoren… one for pleasure craft and the other for commercial craft. For some reason on this day, the lock for pleasure craft was closed and all traffic was being routed through the commercial lock. 

Yacht going through the lock to head out onto the IJsselmeer   Photo credit: Veronica Hayes

Looking across the locks to the control building.   Photo credit:  Veronica Hayes

The exit/entrance area on the IJsselmeer side of the locks.   Photo credit: Veronica Hayes.

 After watching a few boats coming and going, we made our way towards the beach and dipped our feet in the water. Cool, but not impossibly so! However, although it was still warm the clouds were becoming heavier and greyer. And more threatening.

Skipper looks out towards our destination across the IJsselmeer.  Photo credit: Veronica Hayes

We continued along the dike wall and made our way into the town and the old haven there. Thoughts of an ice-cream were fading fast… it's Monday and I'd forgotten that pretty much everything would be closed. We headed back towards our part of town and towards Pirramimma. Where we spotted the little Co-op supermarket was open. Galley Slave decided we needed some fresh vegetables so we detoured across the little footbridge to make our purchases. We were ridiculously pleased to see there was an area to park our dinghy at the supermarket thus making it easy to buy heavier items before we leave here in a couple of days. 

And then the heavens opened, comprehensively drenching us both.

To be continued…