Leeuwarden

If anyone has been anxiously awaiting my next post, I apologize. Technically, we arrived in Leeuwarden day before yesterday, but we spent that first night at the waiting area for the first of eight bridges we needed to clear to get to the city center. There was no Internet, and we couldn’t even go ashore because the waiting area was about 10 feet from the side of the canal.

We lingered in Sneek because it wasn’t expensive and we both had Internet. Although we did go look at the Waterpoort (water gate) and visited the maritime museum, which was pretty good, other than that we didn’t find much to see there. It’s a pleasant town, though.

Waterpoort in Sneek

We left Sneek around 11 o’clock Monday morning thinking that it would take us about five hours to get to Leeuwarden, and that’s what it should have taken. However, when we got close to Leeuwarden, we saw a big yellow sign by the canal indicating that the standing mast route to Leeuwarden was via some canals that I thought were too shallow for us. We ignored that sign reasoning that the Prinses Margrietkanaal (Princess Margriet Canal), which we were in, went to Grongingen and on to Germany, so we would just go the way we had planned. Then we saw another sign saying that the bridge we needed (the Fonejachtbrug) was closed to small vessels. According to the regs, that’s us. When we saw the Fonejachtbrug in the distance, there were no other sailboats in sight, so we decided to go ask at the yacht harbor back at the designated standing mast route.

We touched bottom lightly getting into the canal, but we were getting used to that. Then we grounded again at the yacht harbor fuel dock. But finally we found people to talk with, and they assured us that the canals were a minimum of 1.9 meters deep if we stayed in the middle (our draft is 1.86 meters), so we decided to try it.

The detour was very picturesque taking us through one village and past another, through a couple of drawbridges (one collecting a toll by means of a wooden shoe on the end of a fishing line), past farms with pretty farmhouses, and finally over the freeway on an aqueduct to join the Van Harinxmakanaal just southeast of Leeuwarden, which was back on our planned route. That’s where the eight bridges come into the story.

Example of picturesque

It was just before 4 pm when we reached the first bridge. According to the schedule I was looking at, we had until 4:15 when the bridges would close for an hour and then reopen until 7 pm. Suddenly, the lights on the bridge switched from one red to two reds instead of the red over green that means that they’re going to open the bridge. I was annoyed, but John said we would just tie up at the waiting area and wait.

That was its own adventure. We had 20 to 25 knots on our beam there, and it took us three tries to get the boat secured to the pilings at the waiting area. Then I went below to check the schedule again in preparation for complaining about the bridge tender closing early. That’s when I saw that there were some exceptions to the general schedule and that they were listed on another page. Sure enough, the bridge we were facing (and all of the rest ahead of us) closed at 4 pm for two hours, reopening at 6 for only one hour—not enough time to get through all of the rest of the bridges. That’s why we spent the night there.

The eight bridges (one is always open) the next morning were sort of fun, and John is working on a video of them. The last one is the first of a series through the main part of Leeuwarden, and they collect a toll, again via a wooden shoe. This time John got video of that too.

Today we went to one of the museums, which took us through city center. We like it. Tomorrow is Koninginnedag (Queen’s Day), and almost everything is closed, so we’ll go see what that’s about and maybe put the dinghy in the water to go exploring.

Pretty canal in Leeuwarden

Sneek

The wind was blowing fairly hard and it was cold yesterday, so we stayed at the dock in Stavoren one more day after all. But now we’re in Sneek (pronounced like English “snake,” but Dutch for snake is “slang,” so there’s no confusion).

It took just under five hours to get here through one lock and three bridges. We didn’t have to wait for any of them. Two or three more bridges have now been replaced by aqueducts, so that was very nice.

We did touch bottom softly a few times (three to be exact) on the way. We had been warned that although the channels are dredged, it’s often shallower near the sides of the canals. Still, we thought we were pretty far from the bank the first time we grounded, just five minutes from the lock and first bridge in the Johan Friso canal. John backed us off of that one. A couple of hours later we were just past Heeg with the depth gauge reading more than six feet when we felt a slight bump. The gauge quickly dropped to about 4.5 feet, and we knew we were touching the bottom, but our forward momentum caused us to plow a furrow through that high spot in the ditch. (Our draft is 6’1”, but the way our gauge is set, we touch bottom at about 4.3 feet.) The last grounding was as we were coming into the wall in Sneek. I was ready to step to the shore when we stopped moving about 10 feet from the bank. Again, John backed us off with no problem.

As we were docking on the wall, leaves and seeds started falling on the boat. I looked up and saw that our spreader was in the branches of a tree. We were glad there weren’t any big branches in our way because we definitely pruned a few twigs from that one.

So far we haven’t explored too much of Sneek, but we did find the grocery store and the maritime museum, and we stopped at a pet store to get more jerky treats and greenies for Märzen. This town looks much newer than any of the other towns we’ve visited, but it was chartered in 1456, so it’s old enough. We just haven’t been into the really old part yet, and perhaps this town hasn’t preserved as much of its architectural heritage as Amsterdam, Amersfoort, Hoorn and Enkhuizen. We shall see.

By the way, we have found Wi-Fi here, so I’ve posted John’s photo page of Stavoren.

New Photo Pages of North Holland

New photo pages are available. They are identified as Muiden, Volendam, Hoorn, Enkhuizen, Zuiderzeemuseum, and Keukenhof on our photo page.

New videos

John was successful in posting new videos while we were in Enkhuizen. Here they are.

Stavoren

We finally left Enkhuizen around noon on Sunday and had a nice, short sail to Stavoren. It’s only 23 km away. The IJsselmeer was covered with sailboats when we started, everyone heading home on a Sunday afternoon, we suppose.

Today was fun. We rented a bike from the marina to go with the one we already have and set off into the countryside. I wanted to ride along the top of the dike, but the road was at the bottom of it and sheep pasture was on the top. Those lambs have a nice view. We found Rode Klif (red cliff), site of a famous battle between the Frisian and the Dutch. The Frisians won that round, and Willem the number-something-or-other was killed in battle at Stavoren. We also found a little cemetery where three Australians and a couple of Brits who died in WWII were buried.

Then we headed into town for groceries and a Frisian courtesy flag. We fly a Dutch courtesy flag, but below that we’ve been flying the flag of the city or province we’re in. So far, we’ve flown Amsterdam and Enkhuizen, but the Frisian flag goes up tomorrow.

We paid for two nights when we checked into the marina yesterday, but we may stay an extra day. The rates are only a little higher than we paid in Enkhuizen, but here electricity, water and shore showers are included, and that makes up for the price difference. Sjoerd will meet us somewhere in Friesland on Saturday, so we have time.

Departure delayed

We walked up to the chandlery around noon today to pick up a chart of the Frisian canals. The plan was to leave when we got back to the boat. It’s a beautiful day, and there’s a nice breeze of 10-15 knots. But wait a minute! That nice breeze is coming from exactly the direction we want to go—northeast. That means we would have to motor.

Tomorrow’s forecast shows even warmer weather and wind from the east. If we move our destination a little farther north—to Stavoren instead of Lemmer—we should have a nice sail tomorrow. I’ll check the charts to be sure we can get into the Frisian canals (deep enough ones) from Stavoren, but that’s the new plan: Enkhuizen to Stavoren tomorrow.

Meanwhile, John has taken the bike into town with his laptop to upload a couple more videos. If you’re interested, you can sign up for a free YouTube account and then subscribe to jforbe’s channel. If you don’t want to bother with all that, you can wait for me to embed the latest here or on Facebook.

Here's a shot of Enkhuizen from Google Earth. I've added a little red X where we're tied up.

Getting ready to move on

Tomorrow we plan to leave Enkhuizen and cross the IJsselmeer to Friesland. We’ve had a nice time here, but the weather looks good, and it’s time to go again.

Wednesday and Thursday we visited the Zuider Zee Museum (in Dutch that’s actually all one word). It was one of the highlights when we were here with Jeffrey and Karan five years ago, but we didn’t have time then to see it all. It has an indoor museum (which we quickly saw before) and an outside live historical museum.

We started with the indoor museum, and I must admit that it was disappointing in comparison with our memories. Five years ago it had rooms full of historical costumes, furniture, paintings, maps, and boats, all with lots of description. Now some of the historical costumes and all of the boats remain, but there is little about them. Instead, they are shown as contrast and inspiration for modern clothing and jewelry design. It’s interesting for a room or two, but not what we were after.

In contrast the living museum outside was great. It has heirloom livestock (breeds that were almost extinct), craftsmen plying antique trades such as barrel making, and old buildings from elsewhere in The Netherlands that were spared demolition during redevelopment by moving them here. It was especially fun for us to see a couple of buildings from the Haarlemmer Houttuinen in our neighborhood in Amsterdam. We even got a ride in a flat-bottomed boat that one of the museum workers poled through the canals as he pointed out the sights. And we got a free ferry ride from the museum to near our boat on Wednesday and back again on Thursday. We’re always up for a boat ride.

Today Marike drove up from Den Ilp to visit one last time. Once we cross the IJsselmeer, we’ll be out of her range. Luckily it was a sunny afternoon again so that we could site outside in the cockpit and enjoy the action in the harbor. We’ll stay in touch on the Internet, and when she gets a new computer, she’ll get Skype too, so we can talk occasionally.

By the way, John's been working on more videos, and he has posted another one. Here it is.