From Amsterdam to Dordrecht



A Sampling of Ships on the North Sea Canal

We left Amsterdam on Sunday morning.  We visited only one museum during our stay, and didn't even manage to get into the Anne Frank house, as we unknowingly wound up in the city on a national holiday weekend.  However, we expect to be back when we sell our boat next year, so we will plan for other excursions then.  


Leaving Amsterdam the girls became absorbed in books on their IPads.  They showed very little interest in the number and variety of ships we passed on the North Sea Canal, but there were many.   In addition to the big ship from St. John's Newfoundland we crossed paths with multiple barges carrying heavy loads, the hovercraft that runs people up and down the river, and an out of commission submarine.  Needless to say, Tom was in boatbuilder heaven.

 

At home in Haarlem

After an hour or so we took a left turn down a smaller canal, heading toward Haarlem.  In Haarlem we found cheap docking on the canal in the centre of the city, an IKEA a 15 minute bike ride away, an amazing 500 year old church complete with a fabulous organ that Mozart played on when he was ten years old, the Corrie Ten Boom museum (see “The Hiding Place” by Corrie Ten Boom), and tiny little pancakes called poffertjies (spelling is questionable).   We also outfitted the girls’ bicycles with saddlebags (for Emily, so she can help transport groceries) and a basket attached with a beeootiful string of plastic flowers (so Georgia can do her part).   We are enjoying our boat, but we are deeply in love with our bicycles!


The organ played by Mozart



14th century church in Haarlem

Town square at Gouda

On Wednesday, we left Haarlem heading for Gouda, city of cheese.  Again, we tied up in the city, a nice spot to be but without internet, as we had been in Haarlem.  This is a minor stressor for the girls, who do much of their school work on the internet but a more significant problem for Tom, who needs internet to communicate with work.  While Emily and I explored the old town on foot, Tom put Georgia on the back of his bicycle and set off to find a McDonald’s, international source of free internet.  They found McFlurries while Emily and I found a town square, old churches, a windmill, a cheese store, and a maze of cobblestone streets. 


Gouda was a lovely old city, but not a major destination for us, so we took off again Thursday morning.  Our goal on this day was to make it all the way to the city of Gorinchem (inexplicably pronounced Horkum with a lot of back of the throat “ch”) where Tom had arranged meetings with a couple of people from a boatyard that he was involved with about ten years ago.  We put in a full 9 hour day of motoring and encountered all kinds of bridges and a few locks, all accompanied with crystal clear operating instructions in Dutch.  This is what we’ve figured out:  if there’s a red button, press it; if there’s an intercom looking thing, talk into it, starting with an apology for not speaking Dutch – when you get a response, hope that the translation is that the bridge will open shortly; if there’s a phone number, call it, a VHF radio chanel, radio it; when a live person opens the bridge and holds a wooden clog at the end of a stick down over the boat, put a 5 euro note in.  It was always a bit of a relief to come upon either tall bridges that we could go under without needing it lifted, or an automatic bridge that worked via some kind of invisible sensors. 

 Although it rained much of the day, we enjoyed the quiet canals we were on and particularly liked to see the striped fields of flowers.  We now have dozens of photos of windmills as I felt the need to take a photo each time we passed in the hopes of eventually taking the ultimate windmill photo.

 

 

 

Thursday evening, we landed in the town of Gorinchem, tying up again on the canal in the centre of town.  In this case it still provided no internet access, but there was conveniently located laundry and we had the opportunity to watch the dragon boat teams practice up and down the canal.  Tom spent some of Friday touring the Damen shipyard (builders of very many very big boats) and we were treated to fine dining in the evening by the fellow whom Tom had dealt with many years ago when Damen and Metalcraft were looking at a joint venture.  The girls were particularly struck by the portion sizes (small) and time spans between courses (long).  All in all, dinner took nearly four hours, unheard of for North Americans!

 

Saturday morning we headed to Dordrecht where we are still, partly because it is such a great place to dock, and partly because internet is available.  This is our last big city in the Netherlands.  When we leave, we are heading into Belgium, where we will spend just a few days on our way to the coast of France.  Then we will wait ‘til the conditions are right for the big crossing to England.  We’ll be sure to post on the blog again when we’ve conquered the English Chanel.