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.