Polder Land

We left the yacht haven gingerly, reversing out of the dratted box mooring by pulling our stern lines in. There's an art to loosing them at the right moment that we haven't mastered. In fact there's an art to box mooring that we may never master because Sirena IV is not designed for it. However we have to get used to it because that's the only thing on offer in this part of the world.

The plan was to get to Sneek which is pronounced Snake, meandering through the wide sailing waters of the Ijsselmeer, then through locks, canals and bridges.  A moderate target for a hot windless day motoring through the flat green polders of northern Holland. But progress was good - we got into locks and under raised bridges faster than expected. Along the way we saw many wonderful classic Dutch boats. (See pic )

Now our target is Leeuwarden, a town with a rail station which could take us back to Amsterdam and the airport.

But hopefully we can get even farther north east by Tuesday when we must put Sirena IV in a berth for a week while we fly to Scotland. That's the good bit.

Now, the downsides of today. A Biblical plague of large greenish flies which swarmed across us and every bit of the boat. They flew in our ears and eyes and mouths, dangled from our cap- peaks and clustered on our trousers and shirts. A mob of them clung to the Ensign, that noble red flag which shows we are a British ship. They settled in the chartplotter, masquerading as green buoys. If you moved they rose in clouds. Eating a sandwich would have meant swallowing extra protein. After three hours or so most were dead and a baby wind blew them away.

The other hitch was in a kind of motorway roundabout at about 4pm when the Sunday boaters were all going home at once. Lesley spotted a slow rowing boat approaching and moved off to give it room. Hey presto, it was suddenly 0.3 metres under the keel so we had to do a quick 360 degree turn to avoid going aground while missing the startled rowers. All this in the Dutch marine equivalent of Spaghetti Junction. 

On we soldiered into the heart of Friesland (think Wales related to England) and the canals got narrower and shallower and ruraler ... with sheep. We reached Leeuwarden just after 7pm and were hugely thankful that the last little bridge still opened for us; they do close for the night. The marina has far less depth than claimed on the chart and so we are tied up, near the entrance, lightly aground on the mud. 

But it's been a good day.