Vacation!

On July 13 we left for our vacation. We topped up the diesel before we headed out. As soon as we had moored there the worst rainshower came over us and we escaped down below and just waited until it had stopped.

Well, that cleared up a bit, but it was in a bit of a misty weather we sailed towards Amsterdam and IJmuiden. So while we motored through Amsterdam, and I always need something to do, I made us some fresh baguette.

We made shrimp sandwiches. Yum!

We stayed for the night in IJmuiden Marina. Not a very exciting place actually, but we didn’t want to head out to the North Sea at night when the wind had picked up.

July 14

We left IJmuiden to to sail south on the North Sea. We had winds between 12 and 25 knots, and some uncomfortable swell, but we sailed along the Dutch coast steadily.

We moored in the very crowded marina in Scheveningen in the afternoon. We were the 3rd boat alongside, and it was very tricky to get in there among all the boats.

Full focus on tennis!

We rushed ashore to find a bar we could convince to turn on the Wimbledon final.

We enjoyed a fresh summer dinner in the cockpit.

July 15

As the boats inside of ours were leaving at 6.30 in the morning, we decided to leave as well. And it showed to be a wise decision. We headed further south past Hoek van Holland in the same crazy swells as the previous day. We had about 10 to 13 knots of wind and up to 2 knots of current with us, so we had good speed. We came into Goere lock at 11 to wait for them to open it, but they had suddenly decided it would not be opened until 2 pm! We had to wiat for 3 hours for this lock to open. Glad we left early. From here we motored through the landscape and went through Hellevoetsluis, a bridge that needed to be opened, before arriving in Willemstad at 7 pm. What a cute little town! We went for a long walk after dinner.

July 16

Before we continued our trip, we went for a walk around the fortification shaped like a star. The town was just waking up and as we came back to the marina the boats were leaving.

This was the day we finally could change our winter clothes to summer clothes. Going from sailing with fleece, foul weather gear and winter hats, we were blessed with sunshine and warm winds, finally! Motoring through locks and bridges and nice landscape we kept ourselves busy with reading, playing card games and baking. We arrived to our next destination, which was Yerseke.

Summer temperatures!

The very old village of Yerseke has about 6,500 inhabitants. It is known for its aquaculture. They farm oysters and mussels since the 1870’s. Of course we could not resist tasting this delicious “Zeeuwse platte”!

And for dinner we had the other delicious seafod Yerseke is famous for – the “Black Gold”

The tidal water differs with 4 meters!

July 17

In beautiful sunshine and complete calm seas we left Yerseke and motored through Zeeland to a town we have wanted to go to with the boat for a long time. Veere. We went there by car, and it is another one of the very picturesque towns in the Netherlands. We knew we had to come early, becuase it is a very small harbour. We moored alongside in the middle of town.

When the sun comes out we like to take out the solar oven GoSun to bake or cook food. This time we made cinnamon roll.

July 18

We went through the Kanaal door Walcheren, via Middelburg to Vlissingen. Six bridges were opened and we went through two locks, so the 10 NM took us 5 hours! We could have never imagines it would take such a long time! The last lock, Buitenkeersluis took us out to the North Sea again, before we headed into the Michiel de Ruyter harbour. We were not aware that during the few days we would be there, they temporary fair was in town. Constant music and noise from all the people and merry-go-rounds were quite annoying.

The town of Vlissingen gave us a firework show on the first night.

Unfortunately Ida had to go back home after a week with us, and we waved good bye as she got on the train.

We left Vlissingen for a day with the ferry and a bus to go to Bruges in Belgium. It is one of the towns we have wanted to go see, so this was perfect when we were so close to it.