A Meer 28 miles

Surreal sighting at Amsterdam Marina: a Sinclair C5 which must be circa 1980?! It looked like a toy (which actually it was) as Nic loomed over it (pic). 

A very slow start as tired from 12 hours tramping around Amsterdam yday. Left marina at 1100 and motored through the absolute centre of the city. Past Centraal Station and got lucky with missing all the ferries that shuttle back and forth rather like water spiders. Followed and overtook a huge Dutch barge that sailed through the lot (pic).

Oranjesluis, the lock that separates the North Sea Canal from the Marker Meer, was rammed with yachts and motor boats. It is a Saturday. All very civilised though apart a German boat going too fast.

Once in open water we hoisted sail on a F3 NW - just right for a gentle beam reach and forecast to blow all day. As is the way of things, after 2 hours of lovely sailing the wind died so back with the good ole motor. Markermeer is a vast expanse of water roughly 200 square miles and the whole lot is between 3m and 4m deep ie v shallow. Not the place to be in a v strong wind apparently. 

After 3 hours we arrived at a small place called Lelystad which is on reclaimed land - there's a lot of that around here. Its claim to fame is a replica of Batavia, a seventeenth century East Indiaman (pic). Here we went through the Houtribsluis, a lock that separates the Marker Meer from the Ijsselmeer which is twice the size and equally shallow. This time only a couple of yachts for company. A few miles further on and we turned into Flevo Marina for the night. They didn't answer the phone or VHF, which is not untypical - their relaxed attitude is quite nice except that here they were not operating the green/red marker system that tells you which berths are free. 

We got vague advice from somebody on a boat as we passed, and now we're sitting here fretting slightly that this berth owner may turn up and turf us off. It's not trivial because these are the box moorings much beloved of the Baltic nations and they are damned tricky to get in and out. Last year in south Holland we only came across 2 in the whole trip. This time we're resigned to them being common. So, you might say, why not relish the practice? Well not now please, I've had my dinner and everything is switched off.